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Detailed Reference Information |
Webb, D.F. and Howard, R.A. (1994). The solar cycle variation of coronal mass ejections and the solar wind mass flux. Journal of Geophysical Research 99. doi: 10.1029/93JA02742. issn: 0148-0227. |
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Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are an important aspect of coronal physics and a potentially significant contributor to perturbations of the solar wind, such as its mass flux. Sufficient data on CMEs are now available to permit study of their longer-term occurrence patterns. Here we present the results of a study of CME occurrence rates over more than a complete 11-year solar sunspot cycle and a comparison of these rates with those of other activity related to CMEs and with the solar wind particle flux at 1 AU. The study includes an evaluation of corrections to the CME rates, which include instrument duty cycles, visibility functions, mass detection thresholds, and geometrical considerations. The main results are as follows: (1) The frequency of occurrence of CMEs tends to track the solar activity cycle in both amplitude and phase; (2) the CME rates from different instruments, when corrected for both duty cycles and visibility functions, are reasonably consistent; (3) considering only longer-term averages, no one class of solar activity is better correlated with CME rate than any other; (4) the ratio of the annualized CME to solar wind mass flux tends to track the solar cycle; and (5) near solar maximum, CMEs can provide a significant fraction (i.e., ≈15%) of the average mass flux to the near-ecliptic solar wind. |
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Abstract |
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Keywords
Solar Physics, Astrophysics, and Astronomy, Flares and mass ejections, Interplanetary Physics, Flare and stream dynamics, Interplanetary Physics, Solar wind plasma, Solar Physics, Astrophysics, and Astronomy, Corona and transition region |
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Publisher
American Geophysical Union 2000 Florida Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009-1277 USA 1-202-462-6900 1-202-328-0566 service@agu.org |
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