Forecasting the Solar Drivers of Severe Space Weather from Active-Region Magnetograms and Recent Flare Activity

No abstract availabl

Prior Flaring as a Complement to Free Magnetic Energy for Forecasting Solar Eruptions

From a large database of (1) 40,000 SOHO/MDI line-of-sight magnetograms covering the passage of 1,300 sunspot active regions across the 30 deg radius central disk of the Sun, (2) a proxy of each active region's free magnetic energy measured from each of the active region's central-disk-passage magnetograms, and (3) each active region's full-disk-passage history of production of major flares and fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs), we find new statistical evidence that (1) there are aspects of an active region's magnetic field other than the free energy that are strong determinants of the active region's productivity of major flares and fast CMEs in the coming few days, (2) an active region's recent productivity of major flares, in addition to reflecting the amount of free energy in the active region, also reflects these other determinants of coming productivity of major eruptions, and (3) consequently, the knowledge of whether an active region has recently had a major flare, used in combination with the active region's free-energy proxy measured from a magnetogram, can greatly alter the forecast chance that the active region will have a major eruption in the next few days after the time of the magnetogram. The active-region magnetic conditions that, in addition to the free energy, are reflected by recent major flaring are presumably the complexity and evolution of the field

MAG4 Versus Alternative Techniques for Forecasting Active-Region Flare Productivity

MAG4 is a technique of forecasting an active region's rate of production of major flares in the coming few days from a free-magnetic-energy proxy. We present a statistical method of measuring the difference in performance between MAG4 and comparable alternative techniques that forecast an active region's major-flare productivity from alternative observed aspects of the active region. We demonstrate the method by measuring the difference in performance between the "Present MAG4" technique and each of three alternative techniques, called "McIntosh Active-Region Class," "Total Magnetic Flux," and "Next MAG4." We do this by using (1) the MAG4 database of magnetograms and major-flare histories of sunspot active regions, (2) the NOAA table of the major-flare productivity of each of 60 McIntosh active-region classes of sunspot active regions, and (3) five technique-performance metrics (Heidke Skill Score, True Skill Score, Percent Correct, Probability of Detection, and False Alarm Rate) evaluated from 2000 random two-by-two contingency tables obtained from the databases. We find that (1) Present MAG4 far outperforms both McIntosh Active-Region Class and Total Magnetic Flux, (2) Next MAG4 significantly outperforms Present MAG4, (3) the performance of Next MAG4 is insensitive to the forward and backward temporal windows used, in the range of one to a few days, and (4) forecasting from the free-energy proxy in combination with either any broad category of McIntosh active-region classes or any Mount Wilson active-region class gives no significant performance improvement over forecasting from the free-energy proxy alone (Present MAG4)

How MAG4 Improves Space Weather Forecasting

Dangerous space weather is driven by solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejection (CMEs). Forecasting flares and CMEs is the first step to forecasting either dangerous space weather or All Clear. MAG4 (Magnetogram Forecast), developed originally for NASA/SRAG (Space Radiation Analysis Group), is an automated program that analyzes magnetograms from the HMI (Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager) instrument on NASA SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory), and automatically converts the rate (or probability) of major flares (M- and X-class), Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), and Solar Energetic Particle Events

Mag 4: SEP Prediction

No abstract availabl

Forecasting Safe or Dangerous Space Weather from HMI Magnetograms

We have developed a space-weather forecasting tool using an active-region free-energy proxy that was measured from MDI line-of-sight magnetograms. To develop this forecasting tool (Falconer et al 2011, Space Weather Journal, in press), we used a database of 40,000 MDI magnetograms of 1300 active regions observed by MDI during the previous solar cycle (cycle 23). From each magnetogram we measured our free-energy proxy and for each active region we determined its history of major flare, CME and Solar Particle Event (SPE) production. This database determines from the value of an active region s free-energy proxy the active region s expected rate of production of 1) major flares, 2) CMEs, 3) fast CMEs, and 4) SPEs during the next few days. This tool was delivered to NASA/SRAG in 2010. With MDI observations ending, we have to be able to use HMI magnetograms instead of MDI magnetograms. One of the difficulties is that the measured value of the free-energy proxy is sensitive to the spatial resolution of the measured magnetogram: the 0.5 /pixel resolution of HMI gives a different value for the free-energy proxy than the 2 /pixels resolution of MDI. To use our MDI-database forecasting curves until a comparably large HMI database is accumulated, we smooth HMI line-of-sight magnetograms to MDI resolution, so that we can use HMI to find the value of the free-energy proxy that MDI would have measured, and then use the forecasting curves given by the MDI database. The new version for use with HMI magnetograms was delivered to NASA/SRAG (March 2011). It can also use GONG magnetograms, as a backup

An All-Clear Space Weather Forecasting System Based on Magnetogram in Near Real Time

No abstract availabl

Forecasting the Solar Drivers of Solar Energetic Particle Events

Large flares and fast CMEs are the drivers of the most severe space weather including Solar Energetic Particle Events (SEP Events). Large flares and their co-produced CMEs are powered by the explosive release of free magnetic energy stored in non-potential magnetic fields of sunspot active regions. The free energy is stored in and released from the low-beta regime of the active region's magnetic field above the photosphere, in the chromosphere and low corona. From our work over the past decade and from similar work of several other groups, it is now well established that (1) a proxy of the free magnetic energy stored above the photosphere can be measured from photospheric magnetograms, maps of the measured field in the photosphere, and (2) an active region's rate of production of major CME/flare eruptions in the coming day or so is strongly correlated with its present measured value of the free-energy proxy. These results have led us to use the large database of SOHO/MDI full-disk magnetograms spanning Solar Cycle 23 to obtain empirical forecasting curves that from an active region's present measured value of the free-energy proxy give the active region's expected rates of production of major flares, CMEs, fast CMEs, and SEP Events in the coming day or so (Falconer et al 2011, Space Weather, 9, S04003). We will present these forecasting curves and demonstrate the accuracy of their forecasts. In addition, we will show that the forecasts for major flares and fast CMEs can be made significantly more accurate by taking into account not only the value of the free energy proxy but also the active region's recent productivity of major flares; specifically, whether the active region has produced a major flare (GOES class M or X) during the past 24 hours before the time of the measured magnetogram

Speed of CMEs and the Magnetic Non-Potentiality of their Source Active Regions

Most fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs) originate from solar active regions (ARs). Non-potentiality of ARs plausibly determines the speed of CMEs in the outer corona. Several other unexplored parameters might be important as well. To find out the relation between the intial speed of CMEs and the non-potentiality of source ARs, we identified over a hundred of CMEs with source ARs via their co-produced flares. The speed of the CMEs are collected from the SOHO LASCO CME catalog. We have used vector magnetograms obtained with HMI/SDO, to evaluate various magnetic non-potentiality parameters, e.g. magnetic free-energy proxies, twist, shear angle, signed shear angle, net current etc. We have also included several other parameters e.g. total unsigned flux, magnetic area of ARs, area of sunspots, to investigate their correlation, if any, with the initial speeds of CMEs. Our preliminary results show that the ARs with larger non-potentiality and area produce faster CMEs but they can also produce slow ones. The ARs with lesser non-potentiality and area generally produce only slower CMEs

Forecasting Space Weather from Magnetograms

Large flares and fast CMEs are the drivers of the most severe space weather including Solar Energetic Particle Events (SEP Events). Large flares and their co-produced CMEs are powered by the explosive release of free magnetic energy stored in non-potential magnetic fields of sunspot active regions. The free energy is stored in and released from the low-beta regime of the active region s magnetic field above the photosphere, in the chromosphere and low corona. From our work over the past decade and from similar work of several other groups, it is now well established that (1) a proxy of the free magnetic energy stored above the photosphere can be measured from photospheric magnetograms, maps of the measured field in the photosphere, and (2) an active region s rate of production of major CME/flare eruptions in the coming day or so is strongly correlated with its present measured value of the free-energy proxy. These results have led us to use the large database of SOHO/MDI full-disk magnetograms spanning Solar Cycle 23 to obtain empirical forecasting curves that from an active region s present measured value of the free-energy proxy give the active region s expected rates of production of major flares, CMEs, fast CMEs, and SEP Events in the coming day or so (Falconer et al 2011, Space Weather, 9, S04003). For each type of event, the expected rate is readily converted to the chance that the active region will produce such an event in any given forward time window of a day or so. If the chance is small enough (e.g. <5%), the forecast is All Clear for that type of event. We will present these forecasting curves and demonstrate the accuracy of their forecasts. In addition, we will show that the forecasts for major flares and fast CMEs can be made significantly more accurate by taking into account not only the value of the free energy proxy but also the active region s recent productivity of major flares; specifically, whether the active region has produced a major flare (GOES class M or X) during the past 24 hours before the time of the measured magnetogram