Extreme space weather events caused by super active regions during solar cycles 21-24

Abstract

Extreme space weather events including ≥X5.0 flares, ground level enhancement (GLE) events and super geomagnetic storms (Dst ≤ –250 nT) caused by super active regions (SARs) during solar cycles 21–24 were studied. The total number of ≥X5.0 solar flares was 62, among which 41 were X5.0-X9.9 flares and 21 were ≥X10.0 flares. We found that 83.9% of the ≥X5.0 flares were produced by SARs; 78.05% of the X5.0-X9.9 and 95.24% of the ≥X10.0 solar flares were produced by SARs; 46 GLEs were registered during solar cycles 21–24, and 25 GLEs were caused by SARs, indicating that 54.3% of the GLEs were caused by SARs; 24 super geomagnetic storms were recorded during solar cycles 21–24, and 12 of them were caused by SARs, namely 50% of the super geomagnetic storms were caused by SARs. We ascertained that only 29 SARs produced ≥X5.0 flares, 15 SARs generated GLEs and 10 SARs triggered super geomagnetic storms. Of the 51 SARs, only 33 SARs produced at least one extreme space weather event, while none of the other 18 SARs could trigger an extreme space weather event. There were only four SARs and each of them generated not only a ≥X5.0 flare, but also a GLE event and a super geomagnetic storm. Most of the extreme space weather events caused by the SARs appeared during solar cycles 22 and 23, especially for GLE events and super geomagnetic storms. The longitudinal distributions of source locations for the extreme space weather events caused by SARs were also studied.