Geoeffectiveness Prediction of CMEs

Diana Besliu-Ionescu,Marilena Mierla

doi:10.3389/fspas.2021.672203

Abstract

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs), the most important pieces of the puzzle that drive space weather, are continuously studied for their geomagnetic impact. We present here an update of a logistic regression method model, that attempts to forecast if a CME will arrive at the Earth and it will be associated with a geomagnetic storm defined by a minimum Dst value smaller than −30 nT. The model is run for a selection of CMEs listed in the LASCO catalogue during the solar cycle 24. It is trained on three fourths of these events and validated for the remaining one fourth. Based on five CME properties (the speed at 20 solar radii, the angular width, the acceleration, the measured position angle and the source position – binary variable) the model successfully predicted 98% of the events from the training set, and 98% of the events from the validation one.

Highlights

Forecasting if a coronal mass ejection (CME) is geoeffective is a subject of increasing interest during the last decade, because of the high impact these eruptive events may have on the technological system in orbit or on Earth
Choosing the normalization method of data preparation suggest that the CME angular width is the most important predictor, while choosing the standardization method, the most important one is the CME source position
In order to study the geoeffectiveness of our 2,796 CMEs during SC24, we have attempted a statistical analysis of the CME evolution with the solar cycle

Summary

Introduction

Forecasting if a coronal mass ejection (CME) is geoeffective (i.e., capable of causing a geomagnetic disturbance) is a subject of increasing interest during the last decade, because of the high impact these eruptive events may have on the technological system in orbit or on Earth. Each model must take into consideration some approximation and, no model can currently predict with a 100% accuracy the impact of a CME. The geoeffective CMEs predominantly originate from sources near the central meridian, mostly from the western hemisphere (Srivastava and Venkatakrishnan, 2004; Zhang et al, 2007). The most geoeffective tend to be the energetic frontside halo CMEs, which are associated with strong soft X-ray flares (Gopalswamy et al, 2007). The geoeffectiveness of the CME will depend on its particular evolution, which is related to both internal CME properties (kinematic, geometric and magnetic), and (external) solar wind plasma properties (see e.g., the review by Manchester et al, 2017)

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Discussion

Conclusion