92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Monday, 23 January 2012
Solar Eruption Brightness Fluctuation As Measured by Solar Dynamics Observatory and Its Effect on the Ionosphere
Hall E (New Orleans Convention Center )
Tak Cheung, CUNY Queensborough Community College, Bayside, NY; and G. Tremberger, Jr, P. Marchese, V. Tulsee, E. Ahn, L. P. Johnson, and S. A. Austin
Manuscript (318.4 kB)

Recent effects of solar eruptions on ionosphere have been mild as the Dst index had not fallen below -100 nT resulting in minor ionospheric disturbances since the launching of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The low activity Sun provides an opportunity to study the asymmetrical entanglement of magnetic energy that has been ascribed to the Sun's rotation, using the high resolution images from Solar Dynamics Observatory. Using brightness fluctuation data on both sides of an eruption, the analysis suggests a general trend. At the site prior to eruption, the fluctuation was observed to be greater in the leading edge as compare to the trailing edge. This asymmetry suggests that the magnetic lines are more tangled in the forwarded motion direction. Using brightness fluctuation analysis on the signal between two eruption peaks (March 6 2011 solar eruption 19 nm data, for example), the brightness coefficient of variation CV appears to reach saturation which is consistent with the interpretation that energy release in the region between two eruption peaks seems to approach stability. The Sunspot number as measured by the Wolf number could be analyzed as a random series with volatility and the CV measure suggests that the Sun's recent relatively mild activity so far would not support an onset of another Maunder minimum period. The March 9 2011 (UT 23:30) solar eruption effect on the ionosphere foF2 and the ionospheric disturbances triggered by the March 11 2011 (UTC 05:46) M9.0 Tohoku earthquake will be discussed. The project is supported by NASA award NNX10AE72G and NSF ATM-0851932 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

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