Loading...
A comparison of flare forecasting methods, I: results from the “All-clear” workshop
Barnes, G. Leka, K.D. Schrijver, C.J. Colak, Tufan Qahwaji, Rami S.R. Ashamari, Omar Yuan, Y. Zhang, J. McAteer, R.T.J. Bloomfield, D.S.
Barnes, G.
Leka, K.D.
Schrijver, C.J.
Colak, Tufan
Qahwaji, Rami S.R.
Ashamari, Omar
Yuan, Y.
Zhang, J.
McAteer, R.T.J.
Bloomfield, D.S.
An error occurred retrieving the object's statistics
Publication Date
2016-10
End of Embargo
Supervisor
Rights
© 2016 American Astronomical Association. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Peer-Reviewed
Yes
Open Access status
Accepted for publication
2016-07-05
Institution
Department
Awarded
Embargo end date
Abstract
Solar flares produce radiation which can have an almost immediate effect on the near-Earth environ-
ment, making it crucial to forecast flares in order to mitigate their negative effects. The number of
published approaches to flare forecasting using photospheric magnetic field observations has prolifer-
ated, with varying claims about how well each works. Because of the different analysis techniques and
data sets used, it is essentially impossible to compare the results from the literature. This problem
is exacerbated by the low event rates of large solar flares. The challenges of forecasting rare events
have long been recognized in the meteorology community, but have yet to be fully acknowledged
by the space weather community. During the interagency workshop on “all clear” forecasts held in
Boulder, CO in 2009, the performance of a number of existing algorithms was compared on common
data sets, specifically line-of-sight magnetic field and continuum intensity images from MDI, with
consistent definitions of what constitutes an event. We demonstrate the importance of making such
systematic comparisons, and of using standard verification statistics to determine what constitutes
a good prediction scheme. When a comparison was made in this fashion, no one method clearly
outperformed all others, which may in part be due to the strong correlations among the parameters
used by different methods to characterize an active region. For M-class flares and above, the set of
methods tends towards a weakly positive skill score (as measured with several distinct metrics), with
no participating method proving substantially better than climatological forecasts.
Version
Accepted Manuscript
Citation
Barnes G, Leka KD and Schrijver CJ et al. (2016) A comparison of flare forecasting methods, I: results from the “All-clear” workshop. The Astrophysical Journal. 829(2).
Link to publisher’s version
Link to published version
Link to Version of Record
Type
Article