Observation of the solar atmosphere reveals a wide range of motions, from
small scale jets and spicules to global-scale coronal mass ejections.
Identifying and characterizing these motions are essential to advancing our
understanding the drivers of space weather. Both automated and visual
identifications are currently used in identifying CMEs. To date, eruptions near
the solar surface (which may be precursors to CMEs) have been identified
primarily by visual inspection. Here we report on EruptionPatrol (EP): a
software module that is designed to automatically identify eruptions from data
collected by SDO/AIA. We describe the method underlying the module and compare
its results to previous identifications found in the Heliophysics Event
Knowledgebase. EP identifies eruptions events that are consistent with those
found by human annotations, but in a significantly more consistent and
quantitative manner. Eruptions are found to be distributed within 15Mm of the
solar surface. They possess peak speeds ranging from 4 to 100 km/sec and
display a power-law probability distribution over that range. These
characteristics are consistent with previous observations of prominences.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 7th Solar Information Processing Workshop, to
appear in Space Weather and Space Climat
