Real-time solar wind prediction based on SDO/AIA coronal hole data

Abstract

We present an empirical model based on the visible area covered by coronal holes close to the central meridian in order to predict the solar wind speed at 1 AU with a lead time up to four days in advance with a 1hr time resolution. Linear prediction functions are used to relate coronal hole areas to solar wind speed. The function parameters are automatically adapted by using the information from the previous 3 Carrington Rotations. Thus the algorithm automatically reacts on the changes of the solar wind speed during different phases of the solar cycle. The adaptive algorithm has been applied to and tested on SDO/AIA-193A observations and ACE measurements during the years 2011-2013, covering 41 Carrington Rotations. The solar wind speed arrival time is delayed and needs on average 4.02 +/- 0.5 days to reach Earth. The algorithm produces good predictions for the 156 solar wind high speed streams peak amplitudes with correlation coefficients of cc~0.60. For 80% of the peaks, the predicted arrival matches within a time window of 0.5 days of the ACE in situ measurements. The same algorithm, using linear predictions, was also applied to predict the magnetic field strength from coronal hole areas but did not give reliable predictions (cc~0.2).

under revision for Solar Physics

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• CNN-Based Deep Learning in Solar Wind Forecasting
• Segmentation of coronal holes in solar disk images with a convolutional neural network
• Segmentation of Coronal Holes Using Active Contours Without Edges
• A magnetic cloud prediction model for forecasting space weather relevant properties of Earth-directed coronal mass ejections
• On the Dependency between the Peak Velocity of High-speed Solar Wind Streams near Earth and the Area of Their Solar Source Coronal Holes
• Exploring the Limits of Synthetic Creation of Solar EUV Images via Image-to-Image Translation
• Geomagnetic storm forecasting from solar coronal holes
• Quantifying Uncertainties in Solar Wind Forecasting Due to Incomplete Solar Magnetic Field Information
• Comparative Study of Microwave Polar Brightening, Coronal Holes, and Solar Wind Over the Solar Poles
• Forecasting High-Speed Solar Wind Streams from Solar Images
• Characteristics of ephemeral coronal holes
• Improvements on coronal hole detection in SDO/AIA images using supervised classification