Space-weather MDI Active Region Patches (SMARPs)
Abstract
We are developing a new data product from the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO) called Space-weather MDI Active Region Patches (SMARPs). The SMARP data series provide maps of the photospheric line-of-sight magnetic field in patches that encompass automatically tracked magnetic concentrations, or active regions, for their entire lifetime. These concentrations are automatically detected in the photospheric line-of-sight magnetic field data using a method described in Turmon et al. (2010) and, thus, are necessarily different from NOAA's definition of an active region. As such, these regions are assigned their own identification number, or SMARP number, which is also linked to a NOAA active region number should it exist. In addition, keywords in the SMARP data series include parameters that concisely characterize the magnetic field distribution. These parameters may be useful for active region event forecasting and for identifying regions of interest. These parameters are calculated per patch and are available on a 96 minute cadence.The SMARP data product is designed to provide seamless coverage with its counterpart, the Space-weather HMI Active Region Patches (SHARPs), described in Bobra et al. (2014). Together, the SMARP and SHARP data series provide continuous coverage of tracked active regions for two solar cycles from 1996 to the present day. The SMARP data series, which runs from April 1996 to October 2010, contains 9496 unique active regions tracked throughout their lifetime. The SHARP data series, which runs from May 2010 to the present day, contains (as of May 30, 2017) 3883 unique active regions tracked throughout their lifetime. In addition, the two series contain 118 unique active regions during the overlap period between May and October 2010. SMARP data will be available at jsoc.stanford.edu and the photospheric line-of-sight magnetic field maps will be available in either of two different coordinate systems.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Solar Physics Division Abstracts #48
- Pub Date:
- August 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017SPD....4811101B