• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.291-294
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• 1996

The .Japanese sun observing satellite, Yohkoh, has been operational for five years and her scientific instruments are still in good condition. They have revealed ample of evidences that solar flares were triggered by magnetic reconnection, which was, for the first time, clearly indicated to take place in the solar corona. Cusp structures in soft X-rays and a new type of hard X-ray sources at the top of flaring loops have strongly supported the scenario originally proposed by C-S-H-KP. Nonthermal energy input in hard X-rays and thermal energy estimated from soft X-rays are fundamentally consistent with the interpretation of thick-target and chromospheric-evaporation models (Neupert effect). X-ray jets, another discovery of Yohkoh, were also associated with magnetic reconnection, as a result of the interaction of emerging fluxes with pre-existing coronal loops. Temperature structures of active regions, quiet sun, and coronal holes had very dynamic differential-emission-measure (DEM) distributions and high-temperature tails of DEM were considered to come from the contribution of flare-like activity.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.89-97
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• 2019

We demonstrate the subsurface origin of the observed evolution of the solar active region 10930 (AR10930) associated with merging and breakup of magnetic polarity regions at the solar surface. We performed a magnetohydrodynamic simulation of an emerging magnetic flux tube whose field-line twist is asymmetrically distributed along its axis, which is a key to merging and fragmentation in this active region. While emerging into the surface, the flux tube is subjected to partial splitting of its weakly twisted portion, forming separate polarity regions at the solar surface. As emergence proceeds, these separate polarity regions start to merge and then break up, while in the corona sigmoidal structures form and a solar eruption occurs. We discuss what physical processes could be involved in the characteristic evolution of an active region magnetic field that leads to the formation of a sunspot surrounded by satellite polarity regions.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.42-42
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• 2009

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.99-99
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• 2011

A statistical study of coronal hole merging and splitting has been performed through Solar Cycle 23. The NOAA/SESC solar synoptic maps are examined to identify inarguably clear events of coronal hole merging and splitting. The numbers of merging events and splitting events are more or less comparable regardless of the phase in the solar cycle. The number of both events, however, definitely shows the phase dependence in the solar cycle. It apparently has a minimum at the solar minimum whereas its maximum is located in the declining phase of the sunspot activity, about a year after the second peak in Solar Cycle 23. There are more events of merging and splitting in the descending phase than in the ascending phase. Interestingly, no event is found at the local minimum between the two peaks of the sunspot activity. This trend can be compared with the variation of the average magnetic field strength and the radial field component in the solar wind through the solar cycle. In Ulysses observations, both of these quantities have a minimum at the solar minimum while their maximum is located in the descending phase, a while after the second peak of the sunspot activity. At the local minimum between the two peaks in the solar cycle, the field strength and the radial component both have a shallow local minimum or an inflection point. At the moment, the physical reason for these resembling tendencies is difficult to understand with existing theories. Seeing that merging and splitting of coronal holes are possible by passage of opposite polarity magnetic structures, we may suggest that the energizing activities in the solar surface such as motions of flux tubes are not exactly in phase with sunspot generation, but are more active some time after the sunspot maximum.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.348-357
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• 2008

The classification of the effect of ionospheric disturbances on the radio occultation signal amplitude has been introduced based on an analysis of more than 2000 seances of radio occultation measurements per formed with the help of the CHAMP German satellite. The dependence of the histograms of variations in the radio occultation signal amplitude on the IMF variation index has been revealed. It has been indicated that it is possible to introduce the radio occultation index characterizing the relation between ionospheric disturbances and solar activity. An amplitude radio occultation (RO) method is proposed to study connection between the ionospheric and solar activity on a global scale. Sporadic amplitude scintillation observed in RO experiments contain important information concerning the seasonal, geographical, and temporal distributions of the ionospheric disturbances and depend on solar activity. The probability of strong RO amplitude variations (RO $S_4$ index greater than 0.2) in the CHAMP RO signals diminishes sharply with the weakening of solar activity from 2001 to 2008. The general number of RO events with strong amplitude variations can be used as an indicator of the ionospheric activity. We found that during 2001-2008 the daily globally averaged RO $S_{4a}$ index depends essentially on solar activity. The maximum occurred in January 2002, minimum has been observed in summer 2008. Different temporal behavoir of $S_{4a}$ index has been detected for polar (with latitude greater than $60^{\circ}$) and low latitude (moderate and equatorial) regions. For polar regions $S_{4a}$ index is slowly decreasing with solar activity. In the low latitude areas $S_{4a}$ index is sharply oscillating, depending on the solar ultraviolet emission variations. The different geographical behavoir of $S_{4a}$ index indicates different origin of ionospheric plasma disturbances in polar and low latitude areas. Origin of the plasma disturbances in the polar areas may be connected with influence of solar wind, the ultraviolet emission of the Sun may be the main cause of the ionospheric irregularities in the low latitude zone. Therefore, the $S_{4a}$ index of RO signal is important radio physical indicator of solar activity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.27-28
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• 2011

A solar flares have the 11-year cycle and release a large energy which may produce coronal mass ejections (CME). The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) predicted that the sun spot activity will be maximized in 2013-2014. A strong solar flare can cause the disturbance of global positioning system including various communication of TV, radio broadcasting. The actual solar storm in 1989 caused power outages in Canada during 9 hours and about 600 million people had experienced a blackout. Such a solar storm can shorten the GPS satellite's life span about 5 to 10 years which can be resulted in economic loss considering the amount of multi-billion won. This paper analyzed the recent solar storm of X-class occurred on 15th of February about 10:45 this year that was reached Korea (Bohyun observatory) on 18th of February about 10:30 (local time), and compared with the data of before and after a week. The proton data of 18th of February considered that the solar strom reached on earth showed a fluctuation compared to the data of before and after a week. The positioning results at Daejeon also showed higher positioning error compared to the data of before and after a week results.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.477-482
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• 2011

Solar flares have the 11-year cycle and release a large energy which may produce coronal mass ejections (CME). The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) predicted that the sun spot activity will be maximized in 2013-2014. A strong solar flare can cause the disturbance of global positioning system including various communication of TV, radio broadcasting. The actual solar storm in 1989 caused power outages in Canada during 9 hours and about 600 million people had experienced a blackout. Such a solar storm can shorten the GPS satellite's life span about 5 to 10 years which can resulted in economic loss considering the amount of multi-billion won. This paper analyzed the influence of recent X-class solar storm occurred on 15th of February about 10:45 this year that was reached Korea (Bohyun observatory) on 18th of February about 10:30 (01:30 - UTC), and compared with the data before and after a week. The proton data of 18th of February considered that the solar storm reached on earth showed a fluctuation compared to the data before and after a week. The positioning results at Daejeon and Seoul of Korea also showed higher positioning error compared to the data before and after a week results.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

Characteristics 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 monotonically decreasing as commonly assumed. In fact, small humps (or short plateaus) between solar minima can be seen around every solar maxima. We also find that when the northern (southern) hemisphere is magnetically dominant, COL is positive (negative), except the solar cycle 23, which may give a hint that these two phenomena are consistently regulated by one single mechanism. As a result of periodicity analysis, we find that several significant periodicities, such as, of ~5.5, ~11, ~49, and ~167 years.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.99-106
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• 2007

Statistical analyses were performed to investigate the relative success and accuracy of daily maximum X-ray flux (MXF) predictions, using both multilinear regression and autoregressive time-series prediction methods. As input data for this work, we used 14 solar activity parameters recorded over the prior 2 year period (1989-1990) during the solar maximum of cycle 22. We applied the multilinear regression method to the following three groups: all 14 variables (G1), the 2 so-called 'cause' variables (sunspot complexity and sunspot group area) showing the highest correlations with MXF (G2), and the 2 'effect' variables (previous day MXF and the number of flares stronger than C4 class) showing the highest correlations with MXF (G3). For the advanced three days forecast, we applied the autoregressive timeseries method to the MXF data (GT). We compared the statistical results of these groups for 1991 data, using several statistical measures obtained from a $2{\times}2$ contingency table for forecasted versus observed events. As a result, we found that the statistical results of G1 and G3 are nearly the same each other and the 'effect' variables (G3) are more reliable predictors than the 'cause' variables. It is also found that while the statistical results of GT are a little worse than those of G1 for relatively weak flares, they are comparable to each other for strong flares. In general, all statistical measures show good predictions from all groups, provided that the flares are weaker than about M5 class; stronger flares rapidly become difficult to predict well, which is probably due to statistical inaccuracies arising from their rarity. Our statistical results of all flares except for the X-class flares were confirmed by Yates' $X^2$ statistical significance tests, at the 99% confidence level. Based on our model testing, we recommend a practical strategy for solar X-ray flare predictions.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.840-842
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• 2003

Recent satellite data have revealed a correlation between the Sun’s activities and the Earth’s atmosphere . Many scientists have been conjectured a more direct connections between solar variability and the Earth’s atmosphere from satellite data analysis. During solar storms, more energetic particles reach the Earth’s atmosphere and this phenomenon have effects on the Earth’s atmospheric environment. Consequently, scientists suggest that these variations will affect a global climate change. In this study, we investigate the confirmative research results of atmospheric effects due to solar activities, especially solar storms.