Long-Term Solar Variability Studies with a Unique Solar Synoptic Archive

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project is a follow on to a successful NSF-RAPID award that will carry on an archiving of solar magnetic features maps through McIntosh Maps dating back to 1964 and inclusion of synoptic charts from 1955-1964 from the Kodaikonal Solar Observatory, will provide a comprehensive set covering 5 solar cycles. This archive will be available to researchers via the NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) archiving service ensuring they will be preserved. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center generates McIntosh Maps, thus the archive is highly relevant and growing. This unique archive provide a consistent and long term view of the evolution of the global solar field and is an important tool for improving predictive capabilities of solar activity cycles. The maps are digitized through an IDL program with makes plots from input FITS files. To date, maps for solar cycle 23 (1996-2009) have been processed. The McIntosh maps from 1964-1996 will be digitized along with H-alpha synoptic charts from (1955-1964). These were produced by at the Kodaikonal Solar Observatory following procedures laid out by Pat McIntosh before he began his mapping efforts in 1964. These maps contain information on a multitude of solar magnetic features including polar crown filaments, coronal holes and cavities, as well as active regions. This long term information is very important for solar cycle and dynamo researchers who do long term studies of solar climate.