Different Responses of Solar Wind and Geomagnetism to Solar Activity during Quiet and Active Periods

  • Published : 2017.04.10

Abstract

It is well known that there are good relations of coronal hole (CH) parameters such as the size, location, and magnetic field strength to the solar wind conditions and the geomagnetic storms. Especially in the minimum phase of solar cycle, CHs in mid- or low-latitude are one of major drivers for geomagnetic storms, since they form corotating interaction regions (CIRs). By adopting the method of Vrsnak et al. (2007), the Space Weather Research Center (SWRC) in Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) has done daily forecast of solar wind speed and Dst index from 2010. Through years of experience, we realize that the geomagnetic storms caused by CHs have different characteristics from those by CMEs. Thus, we statistically analyze the characteristics and causality of the geomagnetic storms by the CHs rather than the CMEs with dataset obtained during the solar activity was very low. For this, we examine the CH properties, solar wind parameters as well as geomagnetic storm indices. As the first result, we show the different trends of the solar wind parameters and geomagnetic indices depending on the degree of solar activity represented by CH (quiet) or sunspot number (SSN) in the active region (active) and then we evaluate our forecasts using CH information and suggest several ideas to improve forecasting capability.

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