Abstract
Abstract. In this short contribution the use of different sunspot numbers for the estimation of past solar and upper atmosphere conditions from historical and modern auroral observations realised by Schröder et al. (2004) is analysed. Moreover, some comments are made on the relationships between mean annual visual observations of the auroras at middle latitudes of Europe and the mean annual sunspot number during 1780–1829. Keywords. Atmospheric composition and structure (Airglow and aurora) – Magnetospheric physics (Auroral phenomena, solar wind-magnetosphere interactions) – History of geophysics (Solar-planetary relationship)
Highlights
Schroder et al (2004) realised a meritorious attempt to determine quantitative information on solar activity by comparing the data of visual auroral observations with the modern parameter of their luminescence
As typically low-latitude auroras have very often a red colour and are caused by the 630-nm emission of atomic oxygen, they used the empirical relationship between the intensity I630, the solar radioflux F10.7, the index of geomagnetic disturbance Dst and the geomagnetic latitude obtained by Trustte (1968a, 1968b, 1969)
They used the relationship obtained by Vitinsky et al (1986) between the solar radioflux and the Wolf number
Summary
N., and Treder, H.-J.: Estimation of past solar and upper atmosphere conditions from historical and modern auroral observations, Ann. Geophys., 22, 2273–2276, 2004. Vaquero Departamento de Fısica, Escuela Politecnica, Universidad de Extremadura, 10071 Caceres, Spain Received: 2 November 2005 – Accepted: 14 February 2005 – Published: 28 July 2005
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