Characterising Sunspot Complexity for Space Weather Applications
Abstract
This report results from a contract tasking Imagine Technologies Ltd as follows: Months 1-3. Collect and Process GONG and SOHO/MDI magnetograms: Ten years of solar magnetic field measurements from the Michelson Doppler Imaginer (MDI) onboard the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) will be collected, together with complimentary magnetograms from the global network of ground-based magnetographs, GONG. Using sunspot positions from daily USAF/NOAA Solar Region Summaries, a magnetogram will be extracted for each region over this ten-year period. This will result in a sample size of close to 10,000 sunspots groups. Sunspot magnetograms will then be corrected for line-of-site effects, by applying a cosine correction to the data. Sunspots at high latitudes or at longitudes of greater that approximately +/-60 degrees will be disregarded from our sample, due to the uncertainty associated with reconstructing their true magnetic fields. Each of these steps will be carried out using existing software from the Solar SoftWare library in addition to some additional purpose written routines.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA506641
Entities
People
- Peter T. Gallagher