Il-Hyun Cho

SIMULTANEOUS OBSERVATION OF A HOT EXPLOSION BY NST AND IRIS

We present the first simultaneous observations of so-called “hot explosions” in the cool atmosphere of the Sun made by the New Solar Telescope (NST) of Big Bear Solar Observatory and the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) in space. The data were obtained during the joint IRIS-NST observations on 2014 July 30. The explosion of interest started around 19:20 UT and lasted for about 10 minutes. Our findings are as follows: (1) the IRIS brightening was observed in three channels of slit-jaw images, which cover the temperature range from 4000 to 80,000 K; (2) during the brightening, the Si iv emission profile showed a double-peaked shape with highly blue and redshifted components ( and 80 km s−1); (3) wing brightening occurred in Hα and Ca ii 8542 Å bands and related surges were observed in both bands of the NST Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph (FISS) instrument; (4) the elongated granule, seen in NST TiO data, is clear evidence of the emergence of positive flux to trigger the hot explosion; (5) the brightening in Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly 1600 Å images is quite consistent with the IRIS brightening. These observations suggest that our event is a hot explosion that occurred in the cool atmosphere of the Sun. In addition, our event appeared as an Ellerman bomb (EB) in the wing of Hα, although its intensity is weak and the vertical extent of the brightening seems to be relatively high compared with the typical EBs.

COMPARISON OF DAMPED OSCILLATIONS IN SOLAR AND STELLAR X-RAY FLARES

We explore the similarity and difference of the quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) observed in the decay phase of solar and stellar flares at X-rays. We identified 42 solar flares with pronounced QPPs, observed with the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) and 36 stellar flares with QPPs, observed with X-ray Multi Mirror Newton observatory (XMM-Newton). The Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) method and least-square fit by a damped sine function were applied to obtain the periods (P) and damping times (τ ) of the QPPs. We found that (1) the periods and damping times of the stellar QPPs are 16.21±15.86 min and 27.21±28.73 min, while those of the solar QPPs are 0.90±0.56 and 1.53±1.10 min, respectively. (2) The ratio of the damping times to the periods (τ/P) observed in the stellar QPPs (1.69±0.56) are statistically identical to those of solar QPPs (1.74±0.77). (3) The scalings of the QPP damping time with the period are well described by the power law in both solar and stellar cases. The power indices of the solar and stellar QPPs are 0.96±0.10 and 0.98±0.05, respectively. This scaling is consistent with the scalings found for standing slow magnetoacoustic and kink modes in solar coronal loops. Thus, we propose that the underlying mechanism responsible for the stellar QPPs is the natural magnetohydrodynamic oscillations in the flaring or adjacent coronal loops, as in the case of solar flares.

Latitudinal Distribution of Sunspots Revisited

Department of Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 702-701, KoreaCharacteristics of latitude variations of sunspots in the northern and southern hemispheres are investigated using the daily sunspot area and its latitude during the period from 1874 to 2009. Solar magnetic activity is portrayed in the form of sunspot, regions of concentrated fresh magnetic fields observed on the surface of the Sun. By defining center-of-latitude (COL) as an area-weighted latitude, we find that COL is not

Ionospheric F2-Layer Semi-Annual Variation in Middle Latitude by Solar Activity

E-mail: yskwak@kasi.re.kr Tel: +82-42-865-2039 Fax: +82-42-865-2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://cre-ativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Dependence of GCRs influx on the Solar North-South Asymmetry

Abstract We investigate the dependence of the amount of the observed galactic cosmic ray (GCR) influx on the solar North–South asymmetry using the neutron count rates obtained from four stations and sunspot data in archives spanning five solar cycles from 1953 to 2008. We find that the observed GCR influxes at Moscow, Kiel, Climax and Huancayo stations are more suppressed when the solar activity in the southern hemisphere is dominant compared with when the solar activity in the northern hemisphere is dominant. Its reduction rates at four stations are all larger than those of the suppression due to other factors including the solar polarity effect on the GCR influx. We perform the students t -test to see how significant these suppressions are. It is found that suppressions due to the solar North–South asymmetry as well as the solar polarity are significant and yet the suppressions associated with the former are larger and more significant.

The global temperature anomaly and solar North-South asymmetry

We investigate whether the global temperature anomaly is associated with the solar North-South asymmetry using data archived approximately for five solar cycles. We are motivated by both the accumulating evidence for the connection of Galactic cosmic-rays (GCRs) to the cloud coverage and recent finding of the association of GCR influx and the solar North-South asymmetry. We have analyzed the data of the observed sunspot, the GCR influx observed at the Moscow station, and the global temperature anomaly. We have found that the mean global temperature anomaly is systematically smaller (∼0.56 in the unit of its standard deviation) during the period when the solar northern hemisphere is more active than the solar southern hemisphere. The difference in the mean value of the global temperature anomaly for the two data sets sub-sampled according to the solar North-South asymmetry is large and statistically significant. We suggest the solar North-South asymmetry is related to the global temperature anomaly through modulating the amount of GCR influx. Finally, we conclude by discussing its implications on a climate model and a direction of future work.

On the Relation Between the Sun and Climate Change with the Solar North-South Asymmetry

We report the relation between the solar activity and terrestrial climate change with the solar north-south asymmetry. For this purpose, we calculate sliding correlation coefficients between sunspot numbers and earth`s mean annual temperature anomalies. Then, we compare the epoch that the sign of correlation changes with the epoch that the sign of the solar north-south asymmetry changes. We obtain that corresponding times are 1907 and 1985, respectively. Further more, these two epoches are well consistent with those of signs of the solar north-south asymmetry changes. We also obtain that the plot between sunspot numbers and temperature anomalies could be classified by 1907 and 1985. We conclude that temperature anomalies are shown to be negatively correlated with sunspot numbers when the southern solar hemisphere is more active: and vice versa.

STATISTICAL STUDY ON PERSONAL REDUCTION COEFFICIENTS OF SUNSPOT NUMBERS SINCE 1981

Using sunspot number data from 270 historical stations for the period 1981-2013, we investigate their personal reduction coefficients (k) statistically. Chang & Oh (2012) perform a simulation showing that the k varies with the solar cycle. We try to verify their results using observational data. For this, a weighted mean and weighted standard deviation of monthly sunspot number are used to estimate the error from observed data. We find that the observed error (noise) is much smaller than that used in the simulation. Thus no distinct k-variation with the solar cycle is observed contrary to the simulation. In addition, the probability distribution of k is determined to be non-Gaussian with a fat-tail on the right side. This result implies that the relative sunspot number after 1981 might be overestimated since the mean value of k is less than that of the Gaussian distribution.

Long term variability of the Sun and climate change

We explore the linkage between the long term variability of the Sun and earth`s climate change by analysing periodicities of time series of solar proxies and global temperature anomalies. We apply the power spectral estimation method named as the periodgram to solar proxies and global temperature anomalies. We also decompose global temperature anomalies and reconstructed total solar irradiance into each local variability components by applying the EMD (Empirical Mode Decomposition) and MODWT MRA (Maximal Overlap Discrete Wavelet Multi Resolution Analysis). Powers for solar proxies at low frequencies are lower than those of high frequencies. On the other hand, powers for temperature anomalies show the other way. We fail to decompose components which having lager than 40 year variabilities from EMD, but both residuals are well decomposed respectively. We determine solar induced components from the time series of temperature anomalies and obtain 39% solar contribution on the recent global warming. We discuss the climate system can be approximated with the second order differential equation since the climate sensitivity can only determine the output amplitude of the signal.