Long-term changes in indices of geomagnetic activity at the auroral station Sodankylä

Here we compare the traditional analog measure of geomagnetic activity, Ak, with the more recent digital indices of IHV and Ah based on hourly mean data, and their derivatives at the auroral station Sodankylä. By this selection of indices we study the effects of (i) analog vs. digital technique, and (ii) full local-time vs. local night-time coverage on quantifying local geomagnetic activity. We find that all other indices are stronger than Ak during the low-activity cycles 15–16 suggesting an excess of very low scalings in Ak at this time. The full-day indices consistently depict stronger correlation with the interplanetary magnetic field strength, while the night-time indices have higher correlation with solar wind speed. The Ak index correlates better with the digital indices of full-day coverage than with any night-time index. However, Ak depicts somewhat higher activity levels than the digital full-day indices in the declining phase of the solar cycle, indicating that, due to their different sampling rates, the latter indices are less sensitive to high-frequency variations driven by the Alfvén waves in high-speed streams. On the other hand, the night-time indices have an even stronger response to solar wind speed than Ak. The results strongly indicate that at auroral latitudes, geomagnetic indices with different local time coverage reflect different current systems, which, by an appropriate choice of indices, allows studying the century-scale dynamics of these currents separately.     

Variations of the magnetosheath ion flux and geomagnetic activity

The magnetosheath plays a dominant role in the Sun–Earth connection because the magnetosheath field and plasma actually interact with the magnetosphere. The interactions change the magnetospheric magnetic field from its nominal value through a long chain of different processes. The change is usually described by geomagnetic indices and thus it can be expected that these indices would reflect changes in the magnetosheath. The present paper analyzes the relation between geomagnetic activity characterized by changes of the K_p, D_ST and AE indices and ion flux measured in the night-side magnetosheath. The results suggest a weak dependence of the D_ST index on the ion flux in the inner magnetosheath that is connected with a magnetopause displacement. On the other hand, fluctuations of the ion flux in the analyzed frequency range do not correlate with any of the indices.     

Input Parameters for Models of Energetic Electrons Fluxes at the Geostationary Orbit

The results of cross-correlation analysis between electrons fluxes (with energies of > 0.6MeV, > 2.0 MeV and > 4.0MeV), geomagnetic indices and solar wind parameters are shown in the paper. It is determined that the electron fluxes are controlled not only by the geomagnetic indices, but also by the solar wind parameters, and the solar wind velocity demonstrates the best relation with the electron fluxes. Numerical value of the relation efficiency of external parameters with the highly energetic electrons fluxes shows a periodicity. It is presented here the preliminary results of daily averaged electrons fluxes forecast for a day ahead on the basis of the model of neuron networks.     

一个基于观测的太阳风背景模型

建立由太阳光球磁场和日冕偏振亮度等观测约束的单流体太阳风模型,包括日冕和太阳风的等离子体密度、速度和磁场,温度还有待于以后处理.这里采用高山观测台(HAO)MKⅢ的日冕偏振亮度(pB)在1.36Rs上的观测概图,根据Guhathakurta在1996年发展的日冕电子密度反演模型确定日冕的电子密度分布.同时采用Wilcox太阳观测台(WSO)的光球磁场视向分量的观测概图作为底部边界,根据Zhao等在1994年发展的水平电流-电流片(HCCS)模型得到全球磁场.Phillips在1995年及McComas在2003年分别用Ulysses第一次和第二次跨极飞行的观测发现,归一化到1 AU的太阳风动量流密度除了在10°～30°的纬度范围内略低以外几乎不变.根据这一结论,结合已经得到的密度数据,就可以得到日冕和太阳风的速度.将上面的模型应用于1918卡林顿自转周稳态太阳风的研究,结果与太阳活动极小期的观测基本相符,但是与观测相比较低速高密度区偏大,因此密度模型还有待改进.     

地球磁场对太阳风扰动响应的研究

分别对行星际激波、太阳风动压增大事件和减小事件的地球磁场响应进行了比较. 分析结果表明, 同步轨道磁场对太阳风扰动在向阳面产生较强的正响应, 在背阳面 响应较弱且有时会出现负响应, 地磁指数SYM-H对太阳风扰动的响应为正响应. 同时还得出, 向阳侧同步轨道磁场响应幅度d Bz与地磁指数响应幅度d SYM-H、上下游动压均方差均具有较好的相关性. 地磁指数响应幅度与同步轨道磁场响应幅度相关关系在激波和动压增大事件中具有一致性, 动压减小事件出 现明显差异, 这说明激波和动压增大事件在影响地球磁场方面具有某种共性.     

The characteristics of sharp (small-scale) boundaries of solar wind plasma and magnetic field structures

We investigate properties of large (>20%) and sharp (<10 min) solar wind ion flux changes using INTERBALL-1 and WIND plasma and magnetic field measurements from 1996 to 1999. These ion flux changes are the boundaries of small-scale and middle-scale solar wind structures. We describe the behavior of the solar wind velocity, temperature and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) during these sudden flux changes. Many of the largest ion flux changes occur during periods when the solar wind velocity is nearly constant, so these are mainly plasma density changes. The IMF magnitude and direction changes at these events can be either large or small. For about 55% of the ion flux changes, the sum of the thermal and magnetic pressure are in balance across the boundary. In many of the other cases, the thermal pressure change is significantly more than the magnetic pressure change. We also attempted to classify the types of discontinuities observed.     

Two-velocity structure observed in the inner solar wind

Measurements of the motion of plasma density inhomogeneities in the inner solar wind are presented. The speeds were estimated using a cross-correlation analysis of radio frequency fluctuations of the Galileo spacecraft measured simultaneously at widely spaced ground stations. The radial projections of the correlation baselines on the pattern plane were of the order of several thousand kilometers. For cross-correlation functions calculated with comparatively short averaging times, we find that a pronounced two-velocity configuration is occasionally observed over the range of heliocentric distances 20 R < R < 40 R. The typical mean speed for such observations is about 300–400 km/s and the difference between the two predominant speeds is about 150–200 km/s. These results may indicate that the density fluctuations are associated with slow magnetosonic waves propagating in opposite directions at the local speed of sound in the reference frame moving with the mean solar wind speed. Quite reasonable estimates of the solar wind speed and speed of sound are obtained from this model. Another possible explanation of the two-velocity structures is that two independent solar wind streams are present simultaneously along different segments of the radio ray path.     

Sharp boundaries of solar wind plasma structures and their relationship to solar wind turbulence

Sharp (<10 min) and large (>20%) solar wind ion flux changes are common phenomena in turbulent solar wind plasma. These changes are the boundaries of small- and middle-scale solar wind plasma structures which can have a significant influence on Earth’s magnetosphere. These solar wind ion flux changes are typically accompanied by only a small change in the bulk solar wind velocity, hence, the flux changes are driven mainly by plasma density variations. We show that these events occur more frequently in high-density solar wind. A characteristic of solar wind turbulence, intermittency, is determined for time periods with and without these flux changes. The probability distribution functions (PDF) of solar wind ion flux variations for different time scales are calculated for each of these periods and compared. For large time scales, the PDFs are Gaussian for both data sets. For small time scales, the PDFs from both data set are more flat than Gaussian, but the degree of flatness is much larger for the data near the sharp flux change boundaries.     

A note on the relationship between sunspot numbers and active days

We have studied the relationship between three different versions of the sunspot number (Group, International and American Sunspot Number) and the number of active days (i.e., the number of days with spots on the solar disk). We have detected an approximately linear relationship for low solar activity conditions. However, this relationship for the International Sunspot Number is very different to the ones obtained with the other versions of the sunspot number. The discordant values correspond to older observations.     

太阳风对太阳自转减速的影响

本文研究了由于太阳风作用在太阳表面上的力矩以及太阳风造成的质量损失使太阳自转角速度减速的影响;推出了由于这些原因使自转角速度的相对改变率以及自转角速的长期改变的表达式;最后估计了自转角速减慢的相对改变率值和在一千万年内角速的长期减速值,并绘出了减速曲线。计算表明。质量损失对于相对改变率的影响可以略去,但对于长期减速的影响不应该略去。     

Which solar EUV indices are best for reconstructing the solar EUV irradiance?

The solar EUV irradiance is of key importance for space weather. Most of the time, however, surrogate quantities such as EUV indices have to be used by lack of continuous and spectrally resolved measurements of the irradiance. The ability of such proxies to reproduce the irradiance from different solar atmospheric layers is usually investigated by comparing patterns of temporal correlations. We consider instead a statistical approach. The TIMED/SEE experiment, which has been continuously operating since February 2002, allows for the first time to compare in a statistical manner the EUV spectral irradiance to five EUV proxies: the sunspot number, the f10.7, Ca K, and Mg II indices, and the He I equivalent width.     

1998年10月18---19日磁暴主相的行星际源分析

采用高时间分辨率的地磁指数SYM-H, 同时考虑日地连线引力平衡点(L1点)太阳风地磁效应的滞后性, 精确分析了1998年10月18---19日大磁暴主相的行星际源. 分析结果表明, 磁暴主相的行星际源仅为行星际激波和行星际日冕物质抛射之间的太阳风(Sheath), 磁云对磁暴主相没有贡献. 这个磁暴事例的研究表明, 行星际磁场南向分量与太阳风动压的乘积是影响磁暴主相发展的关键参数.     

CME–flare association during the 23rd solar cycle

The relation between coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar flares are statistically studied. More than 10,000 CME events observed by SOHO/LASCO during the period 1996–2005 have been analyzed. The soft X-ray flux measurements provided by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), recorded more than 20,000 flares in the same time period. The data is filtered under certain temporal and spatial conditions to select the CME–flare associated events. The results show that CME–flare associated events are triggered with a lift-off time within the range 0.4–1.0 h. We list a set of 41 CME–flare associated events satisfying the temporal and spatial conditions. The listed events show a good correlation between the CME energy and the X-ray flux of the CME–flare associated events with correlation coefficient of 0.76.     

Sunspot activity and cosmic ray modulation at 1 a.u. for 1900–2013

The descent of sunspot cycle 23 to an unprecedented minimum of long duration in 2006–2009 led to a prolonged galactic cosmic ray (GCR) recovery to the highest level observed in the instrumental era for a variety of energetic charged particle species on Earth, over a wide range of rigidities. The remarkable GCR increase measured by several ground-based, balloon-borne, and detectors on a satellite is described and discussed. It is accompanied by a decrease in solar wind velocity and interplanetary magnetic field at 1 a.u., reaching the lowest values since measurements of the solar wind began in October 1963; the solar polar field strength (μT) measured at the Wilcox Solar Observatory (WSO) is also significantly reduced compared to prior cycles since the start of the program in 1976, the polar field in the northern hemisphere reversed in June 2012 and again in February 2014, that in the southern hemisphere reversed in July 2013. If updates of WSO data confirm the second reversal in northern solar hemisphere, it would pose a serious challenge to the Dynamo Theory. The long-term change in solar behavior may have begun in 1992, perhaps earlier. The physical underpinnings of these solar changes need to be understood and their effect on GCR modulation processes clarified. The study discusses the recent phenomena in the context of GCR modulation since 1900. These happenings affected our empirical predictions for the key parameters for the next two sunspot cycles (they may be progressively less active than sunspot cycle 24) but it enhanced support for our prediction that solar activity is descending into a Dalton-like grand minimum in the middle of the twentyfirst century, reducing the frequency of the coronal mass ejections; they determine the space weather affecting the quality of life on Earth, radiation dose for hardware and human activities in space as well as the frequency of large Forbush decreases at 1 a.u.