Abstract
K index is the oldest measure of geomagnetic activity estimation in a unified scale over the globe, maintained until today. Recently, Russian and Japanese scientific teams have managed to digitize a huge collection of K index analog records from the observatories located in the northwestern Pacific region. This has made it possible to study long-term evolution of geomagnetic activity in this area over 1954–2020. Using these unique data, we reveal their most appropriate distribution laws. We also analyze the correlation between their time-varying distribution features and sunspot numbers over the 19–24 solar cycles. The distribution features are considered in terms of (a) quasi-linear regression coefficients derived from logarithmic scale cumulative frequency distributions, and (b) occurrences of different K index values binned by year as a function of time. We establish that the probability of K ≥ 8 event detected simultaneously at all observatories in the region over the period of simultaneous data availability is less than one hundredth of a percent; the same for the clusters of neighboring observatories is an order of magnitude larger.
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Availability of data and material
K indices from Soviet/Russian observatories since 1957 are available at World Data Center for Solar-Terrestrial Physics in Moscow (http://www.wdcb.ru/stp/geomag/geomagn_K_C_ind.html) and PANGAEA data repository (https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.922233). K indices from Japanese observatories used in the study are available at Kakioka magnetic observatory (http://www.kakioka-jma.go.jp/obsdata/dataviewer/en). Planetary Kp index values are available at GFZ-Potsdam (https://www.gfz-potsdam.de/en/kp-index/). Sunspot numbers are managed by World Data Center SILSO, Royal Observatory of Belgium (http://www.sidc.be/silso/datafiles).
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The developed software is not available online.
Notes
Since we determine linear trend from data presented in the logarithmic scale, strictly speaking we do not perform linear regression. Instead, we introduce the term ‘quasi-linear regression’.
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Acknowledgements
The results presented in this paper use data collected at the INTERMAGNET magnetic observatories (http://intermagnet.org). We express our gratitude to the national institutes that support them, INTERMAGNET community for promoting the high standards of magnetic observatory practice and the Interregional Geomagnetic Data Center (http://geomag.gcras.ru) for making the data available online. The facilities of the GC RAS Common Use Center “Analytical Center of Geomagnetic Data” (http://ckp.gcras.ru) were used for conducting the research. We are grateful to Dr. V. Kossobokov and anonymous reviewer for their valuable suggestions, which have made our results more sound. We also thank Dr. Seiki Asari (Japan Meteorological Agency, Kakioka Magnetic Observatory—Technical Division) for sharing information on the K index determination at Kakioka magnetic observatory.
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The research was conducted in the framework of budgetary funding of the Geophysical Center RAS, adopted by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
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AS set the problem, elaborated the research scheme and wrote the manuscript text. SB did programming and generated figures. MN made an overview of the previous studies and pre-processed K index data.
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Soloviev, A., Bogoutdinov, S. & Nisilevich, M. On the Frequency Distribution of Geomagnetic K Indices in the Northwestern Pacific Region Over the 19–24 Solar Cycles. Pure Appl. Geophys. 179, 4179–4196 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-021-02862-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-021-02862-4