Analysis of the Possibilities of Short-Term Prediction of Geomagnetic Perturbations from Observations of Coronal Mass Ejections at the BSA LPI Radio Telescope

Abstract

From April 2021 to October 2022, in the monitoring data obtained daily at the Big Scanning Antenna radio telescope (BSA LPI), 11 events were identified for which X-ray flares in the solar corona were followed by magnetic storms on Earth. Interplanetary scintillation monitoring data were considered together with data on solar flare activity and a simple kinematic model of ejection propagation. Based on the estimated ejection velocity between the Sun and the probed region, under the assumption of a constant velocity, the time of arrival of the ejection to the Earth was calculated. Of the 11 events considered, 7 are associated with solitary flares followed by a coronal mass ejection (CME) and 4 are more complex and possibly associated with corotating perturbations or a superposition of corotating and flare perturbations. For the entire set of events, the average time of the real onset of a magnetic storm after the time predicted by the model was 3.6 h and the average time between the onset of scintillation enhancement and the onset of a magnetic storm was 20.1 h. For events associated with solitary flares, the magnetic storm began, on average, 0.8 hours after the predicted time and 15.6 hours after the onset of scintillation enhancement. The delay of magnetic storms with respect to the predicted time is apparently related to the deceleration of the ejection between the probed region of the solar wind and the Earth’s orbit.