Review of Solar Activity - 2022

[3gMike]

I thought it might be interesting to review solar activity in 2022. I have restricted this to sunspots and flares at present. Obviously there is a lot of data to review. I have relied mainly on the SWL Archive - seeking other supporting data where necessary. This has been very time consuming, so I am posting some preliminary data to start a conversation and hope to add some more specifics at a later date.

As a starting point I considered how many ARs had been recorded, and how many produced C,M or X flares.

We saw a total of 265 ARs ( AR2916 to AR3180 ) with 25 (TBC) producing M or X flares.

It has been noted elsewhere on this forum that the total number of flares appeared to be exceptional when compared with Sunspot numbers so I have produced a couple of plots comparing Flare numbers for each month against the Average SSN and 10.7cm flux for each month. To avoid any confusion let me state that the Average in this instance refers to the average of all values recorded in the month. I produced a separate plot for C flares in order to have better scaling for the M and X flares.

 

 

I am gathering data on the most active regions in terms of number and class of flares produced, magnetic complexity, and location on disk. I will publish this as soon as possible.

[hamateur 1953]

cool mike!!

[3gMike]

Given it will take some time to collate all data I thought I would initially review the sources of X flares.

We had 7 X flares, arising from 5 spots. Recorded values were in the range X1 to X2.2, but  4 were either behind, or close to, a limb. Most were observed in April and May.

Additional data for individual spots can be found at http://helio.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/hec/hec_gui_free.php?sql=select+*+from+noaa_active_region_summary+where+nar%3D12975

 

[Bean]

Here is my daily Silso/ISN plot for all of 2022 , clearly showing a 27day (+/-) Carrington rotation when there were more Sunspots on the Earth facing disk than at other times. A second peak of daily SN developed in the final third of the year .

[hamateur 1953]

excellent! would love to prank my cardiologist and walk in with this! 🤣🤣

On 2/3/2023 at 8:13 AM, Bean said:

Here is my daily Silso/ISN plot for all of 2022 , clearly showing a 27day (+/-) Carrington rotation when there were more Sunspots on the Earth facing disk than at other times. A second peak of daily SN developed in the final third of the year .