• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.97-101
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• 2012

Monitoring sunspots consistently is the most basic step required to study various aspects of solar activity. To achieve this goal, the observers must regularly calculate their own correction factor $k$ and keep it stable. Relatively recently, two observing teams in South Korea have presented interesting papers which claim that revisions that take the yearly-basis $k$ into account lead to a better agreement with the international relative sunspot number $R_i$, and that yearly $k$ apparently varies with the solar cycle. In this paper, using artificial data sets we have modeled the sunspot numbers as a superposition of random noise and a slowly varying background function, and attempted to investigate whether the variation in the correction factor is coupled with the solar cycle. Regardless of the statistical distributions of the random noise, we have found the correction factor increases as sunspot numbers increase, as claimed in the reports mentioned above. The degree of dependence of correction factor $k$ on the sunspot number is subject to the signal-to-noise ratio. Therefore, we conclude that apparent dependence of the value of the correction factor $k$ on the phase of the solar cycle is not due to a physical property, but a statistical property of the data.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.139-147
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• 2020

The sunspot area is a critical physical quantity for assessing the solar activity level; forecasts of the sunspot area are of great importance for studies of the solar activity and space weather. We developed an innovative hybrid model prediction method by integrating the complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition (CEEMD) and extreme learning machine (ELM). The time series is first decomposed into intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) with different frequencies by CEEMD; these IMFs can be divided into three groups, a high-frequency group, a low-frequency group, and a trend group. The ELM forecasting models are established to forecast the three groups separately. The final forecast results are obtained by summing up the forecast values of each group. The proposed hybrid model is applied to the smoothed monthly mean sunspot area archived at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). We find a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.80% and 9.75, respectively, which indicates that: (1) for the CEEMD-ELM model, the predicted sunspot area is in good agreement with the observed one; (2) the proposed model outperforms previous approaches in terms of prediction accuracy and operational efficiency.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.67.2-67.2
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• 2016

The Sun has diverse variations in solar atmosphere's layers due to solar activity. This solar variations can be recognized easily by sunspots which appear on the solar photosphere. Thus the sunspot on the photosphere is utilized by direct index of the solar activity. The other variation of the photosphere is center-to-limb variation (CLV). In this study, we analyze the relative intensity observed by SOHO, SDO. The data of photospheric intensity are from full disk images of SOHO/MDI intensity ($6768{\AA}$, from May 1994 to March 2011) and of SDO/HMI intensity ($6173-6174{\AA}$, from May 2010 to June 2016). As the result, we found the latitudinal variation of the intensity. The daily photospheric intensity showed the solar cyclic variation with sunspot number. It has a little difference of phase with sunspot number.

• 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.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.261-268
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• 2007

We have studied the temporal variation in the North-South asymmetry of the sunspot area during the period from 1874 to 2007. Though the 9-year periodicity is commonly reported, shorter periodicities is still under study. We employ the cepstrum analysis method to analyze the noisy power spectrum of the North-South asymmetry. We demonstrate that the cleaned power spectrum shows reduction of the spurious back-ground noise level. Some of short period peaks in the power spectrum disappear after deconvolution. It should be, however, pointed out that power spectrum might look less noisy because of a filtering process during deconvolution. We conclude by pointing out that a more sophisticate filtering algorithm is required to produce a precise and reliable periodicity estimate.

• 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 Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.261-265
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• 2011

We investigate the sunspot area data spanning from solar cycles 1 (March 1755) to 23 (December 2010) in time domain. For this purpose, we employ the Hilbert transform analysis method, which is used in the field of information theory. One of the most important advantages of this method is that it enables the simultaneous study of associations between the amplitude and the phase in various timescales. In this pilot study, we adopt the alternating sunspot area as a function of time, known as Bracewell transformation. We first calculate the instantaneous amplitude and the instantaneous phase. As a result, we confirm a ~22-year periodic behavior in the instantaneous amplitude. We also find that a behavior of the instantaneous amplitude with longer periodicities than the ~22-year periodicity can also be seen, though it is not as straightforward as the obvious ~22-year periodic behavior revealed by the method currently proposed. In addition to these, we note that the phase difference apparently correlates with the instantaneous amplitude. On the other hand, however, we cannot see any obvious association of the instantaneous frequency and the instantaneous amplitude. We conclude by briefly discussing the current status of development of an algorithm for the solar activity forecast based on the method presented, as this work is a part of that larger project.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.390-395
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• 2005

Sunspots are dark areas that grow and decay on the lowest level of the sun that is visible from the Earth. Shot-term predictions of solar activity are essential to help plan missions and to design satellites that will survive for their useful lifetimes. This paper presents a parallel-structure fuzzy system(PSFS) for prediction of sunspot number time series. The PSFS consists of a multiple number of component fuzzy systems connected in parallel. Each component fuzzy system in the PSFS predicts future data independently based on its past time series data with different embedding dimension and time delay. An embedding dimension determines the number of inputs of each component fuzzy system and a time delay decides the interval of inputs of the time series. According to the embedding dimension and the time delay, the component fuzzy system takes various input-output pairs. The PSFS determines the final predicted value as an average of all the outputs of the component fuzzy systems in order to reduce error accumulation effect.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.117-127
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• 1991

Here I report the confirmation of a long-term modulation of a period of $92^{+21}_{-13}$ years with the "time-delay correlation" method on the sunspot data compiled over the last a total of 289 years. This periodicity better specifies the cycle which falls pretty well within Gleissberg cycle, and clearly contrasts with the 55 year grand cycle which Yoshimura (1979) claimed. It is argued that the period-amplitude diagram method. which Yoshimura used, ana lysed peak amplitudes only so that a large number of data were disregarded, and thus was more susceptible to a bias. The planetary tidal force on Sun as for the possible cause to the solar activity was investigated and its possibility was ruled out in view of no period correlation between them.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.139-148
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• 2022

We explore the latitudinal distribution of sunspots and pursue to establish a correlation between the statistical parameters of the latitudinal distribution of sunspots and characteristics of solar activity. For this purpose, we have statistically analyzed the daily sunspot areas and latitudes observed from May in 1874 to September in 2016. As results, we confirm that the maximum of the monthly averaged International Sunspot Number (ISN) strongly correlates with the mean number of sunspots per day, while the maximum ISN strongly anti-correlates with the number of spotless days. We find that both the maximum ISN and the mean number of sunspots per day strongly correlate with the the average latitude, the standard deviation, the skewness of the the latitudinal distribution of sunspots, while they appears to marginally correlate with the kurtosis. It is also found that the northern and southern hemispheres seem to show a correlated behavior in a different way when sunspots appearing in the northern and southern hemispheres are examined separately.