Please consider the following questions and please respond in writing below the question.

Contents 1 WP2 2 WP3 3 WP4 4 WP5

WP2

• Q: provide details on how the SOTERIA database extends the database from the MDI mission archive. What actual contribution was made by Soteria money?

The MDI mission archive at Stanford only contains calibrated images, it does not contain any extracted data for any solar features, they can be simply reckoned as raw data. Our goal in WP2 was to extract position, area and magnetic field data for photospheric features (sunspots and faculae) with hourly time resolution, i.e. to produce value-added data. This goal met the requirement of the call: "Improvement of the scientific results that can be obtained from collected space data by supporting the scientific community and European networking (including in EU countries that are not ESA members) in order to reach a level of at least 80% of available data to be processed."

Progress achieved by the support of SOTERIA in comparison with the baseline of data availability before SOTERIA:

1. Baseline for facular data: No public catalogue of extracted data has been available for white-light faculae at all since 1976.

Progress: Publication of detailed facular data based on SOHO/MDI images is a real novelty in the recent decades. The first catalogue of positions and area of continuum faculae for the years 1996-2010 is a pioneering dataset concerning its unprecedented hourly-time resolution too.

2. Baseline for sunspot data: The methodology to measure sunspot data based on MDI images was started developing in KO before SOTERIA. A preliminary version of numerical sunspot data of 1996-2007 and some preliminary sunspot group data for 1996-1997 became available at the time of the submission of SOTERIA proposal. As it turned out later, a similar but independent project was started at Bradford University to produce MDI sunspot data in the EGSO Solar Feature Catalogue (SFC). The EGSO data for 1996-2004 were published at about the same time when the preliminary KO data became available. (We do not know about any other publicly available MDI sunspot catalogue produced by any other teams.) The publication of SFC did not make the planned SDD out-dated because the SDD aimed at reaching higher level of processed data than SFC. There are two important differences between SFC and SDD datasets: 1.) the time resolution of EGSO data is max. 6 hours while that of SDD is max. 1 hour; 2.) the SFC does not contain information on sunspot groups, only the spots are identified in it.

Progress: The preliminary data showed that the whole SDD software package had to be improved after the start of SOTERIA to get more precise data. This work was combined with the update of the set of parameters determining the identification of sunspots because the MDI magnetograms were recalibrated in December, 2008. After that, several new auxiliary softwares were developed to check the quality of the data at each main phase of the data evaluation. Thanking to the SOTERIA support the SDD catalogue for 1996-2010 contains now high-quality numerical data of positions, area and the umbral and penumbral average line-of-sight magnetic field for sunspots with unprecedented hourly-time resolution. The whole sunspot dataset contains data of 2,667,010 features derived from 49,017 MDI continuum images (SFC contains 368,676 features extracted from 10,082 MDI images). The complex analyses of solar activity and its evolutionary trends need not only data of individual sunspots but they need information on active regions. Thus, its a very important task to arrange spots into sunspot groups. There is no software at present which would be able to do this task automatically in a reliable way. We had to use a time consuming half-automatic methodology by combining the personal preliminary active region identification (DPD), the automatic separation of sunspot groups on the basis of the preliminary data, and the persistent personal checking and correction of the data. The detailed catalogue of sunspot groups along with active region images with identifications of spots is a novelty in this form.

The whole value-added SDD dataset is an actual contribution to the exploitation of the MDI raw data in the presented form. It provides new public sunspot and facular data at the highest level of measurements prepared for further scientific studies sampled with the highest time-resolution at present. This catalogue could not be created without the SOTERIA support.

• Q: Alexi queried what the evolution of the sunspot indexes is intended to be. Please explain how the group intends to take that forward and produce a reference index

ROB created a merged catalogue from the traditional Debrecen sunspot catalogue, the DPD, and the USAF data that expands even more the base of parameters. The exploitation of this merged catalogue is still going on to analyze cycle 23 characteristics, also with regard to similarities with older regimes of activity in the Sun. ROB is cooperating with CNRS on Singular Value Decomposition/ Principal Component Analysis of the sunspot parameters of this very detailed catalog resulting from the SOTERIA work. This study will enable the creation of solar proxies with the large detailed base of parameters from the merged catalog. ROB is also working on extending the catalog backwards on 1 or 2 cycles before the end of 2012. Following interesting results from Lefevre & Clette (2011), and a first Sunspot Workshop in Sept. 2011 in Sunspot (NM), ROB is now co-organizing Sunspot Workshop No.2 in Brussels in May 2012. The methods of production of the reference index Ri are being scrutinized and solutions for better computation stem from analysis based on databases created in the context of the SOTERIA project.

WP3

• Q: clarify the project actual contribution to the deliverables, compared with contributions from other sources. Especially for Proba2 and SphinX. Alexi pointed out that in the report is sometimes difficult to understand where the project made an actual contribution to mission databases. It would have been helpful if it was mentioned which products would not have been possible without the project funding.

• R - WPL on deliverables: Focus contributions by the SOTERIA project to each deliverable - D3.1 Collaborative effort by particpants of WP3; D3.2 Establishment of COR 2 CME list and statistical approach of CME modeling beyond single event studies; D3.3 Collaborative efforts by participants of WP3; D3.4 Facilitation of high cadence observation within project time and provision of data base to scientific community; D3.5 see answers provided below; D3.6 Provision of access to calibrated database for scientific community and event lists; D3.7 Interface to SODA, data archiving, implementation of SolarSoft Library, public display; D3.8 (see below); D3.9 Collaborative effort by participants of WP3.

• R - PROBA2: The FP7 funding concept is based on co-funding which obviously means that it is combined with other resources. As far as I understood, there is no requirement to have identifiable units that are "FP7 only". It is clear that PROBA2 would also have had a mission archive without SOTERIA. Deliverable 3.8 (and presumably many others) is thus indeed not of the type "products would not have been possible without the project funding'". The contribution and the value of a project like SOTERIA is much more at a community level. Thanks to SOTERIA we have been able to interact deeper and more frequent with partners in the SOTERIA consortia that are (have become) the users of SWAP and LYRA data. Thanks to the SOTERIA resources (leading to the hiring of a computer scientist) did the PROBA2 researchers have the time left after developing the PROBA2 archive to interact with the users of this system and explain them the use and the limitations.

• R - SphinX:The funds available for SphinX project before SOTERIA would allow only for finalizing the experiment construction, calibration, launch, basic maintenance in space, creation of simple website and level-0 (raw) data repository in a form of FTP mirror. Such a limited resources would significantly reduce expected science output from the experiment and restrict results of its data analysis.

Therefore, at that time, SRC-PAS team was looking intensively for additional external support for extending manpower and upgrade the local IT infrastructure necessary to better exploit SphinX instrument data stream and bring the project output to the world recognized levels and standards. This support and help came from SOTERIA. During preparation of the SOTERIA proposal SRC-PAS team defined additional tasks and science goals for SphinX and applied for necessary man-months to achieve them. SOTERIA sources allowed to involve in the SphinX project not only more scientists but also to support engineers, technicians and programmers from SRC-PAS.

Several changes of the SphinX on-board software were made during the mission duration in order to increase science output and develop the optimum observation strategy. Changes of the on-board software for instrumentation in space are time consuming tasks. They necessitate many verification and validation steps before sending new programs to the satellite during telemetry uplinks. Single error in the code would have a fatal impact on the entire experiment mission. Performed, multiple SphinX on-board software changes allowed to increase amount of data sent to telemetry, mitigation of single event upset features in data and selection of better performing in orbit electronic system (SphinX had two electronic system for each detector). Comparison of SphinX data obtained using subsequent on-board software versions allowed to better understand overall instrument performance in space and had significant positive impact on data reduction and creation of SphinX database.

SOTERIA support made possible to prepare SphinX data catalogues that allow for public access to data and have advanced visualization features. These catalogues are available at the following WWW sites:

http://156.17.94.1/sphinx_catalogue/SphinX_cat_main.html,

http://156.17.94.1/sphinx_l1_catalogue/SphinX_cat_main.html.

Reduction of experiment data from Level-0 to Level-1 format and encoding SphinX measurements in standard FITS format were also covered by SOTERIA. Without SOTERIA funds only level-0 catalogue creation, with much reduced data visualization, would have been possible.

Processing SphinX calibration information was performed using SOTERIA resources alone. This effort resulted in providing detector response matrix for SphinX which can be downloaded by users at

http://156.17.94.1/sphinx_l1_catalogue/CALIB_SOFT_GUIDE/SPHINX_RSP_256_nom_D1.fts

Also SphinX data user guide was written using support from SOTERIA. This document is available at

http://156.17.94.1/sphinx_l1_catalogue/CALIB_SOFT_GUIDE/SphinX_user_guide_v1_1.pdf

The SphinX data catalogues, detector response matrix and user guide document provide the users with all necessary information needed for SphinX data processing and scientific analysis. Now the data from SphinX archive are being used by science groups from UK, USA, Italy, Austria and Russia, and very soon analysis will be performed by other groups in Greece, Germany and Switzerland. Without the information available at the SphinX level-1 catalogue site the external users would not be able to know all the instrumental effects in SphinX data and therefore would be unable to perform any kind of scientific analysis.

The background signal in SphinX detectors coming from energetic particle hits has been analyzed using SOTERIA resources exclusively. This activity brought two publications to the Consortium (compare also the response of LPI to the WP4 questions).

Several hundreds of small solar events have been identified in SphinX data. A catalogue of these events is now available at

http://156.17.94.1/sphinx_catalogue/event_catalogue/SphinX_level_0_event_catalog.txt

and at the SOTERIA Online Solar Event Catalogue

http://soteria-event.uni-graz.at/soteria-select3.php?catalogues=cat26&Submit1=next

This work could not have been performed automatically and necessitated additional manpower at SRC-PAS which was covered from SOTERIA.

Extension of the local IT infrastructure, including purchase of new servers and upgrade of LAN throughput necessary for SphinX data processing, was made at SRC-PAS from SOTERIA funds. Without this the reduction of SphinX data would continue up to now. This activity required multiple processing of tens of thousands of files with the instrument data, ancillary data and visualizations.

There are publications with acknowledgements to SOTERIA where more information about the SphinX project can be found:

a) SphinX soft X-ray spectrophotometer: Science objectives, design and performance Gburek, S.; Sylwester, J.; Kowalinski, M.; Bakala, J.; Kordylewski, Z.; Podgorski, P.; Plocieniak, S.; Siarkowski, M.; Sylwester, B.; Trzebinski, W.; Kuzin, S. V.; Pertsov, A. A.; Kotov, Yu. D.; Farnik, F.; Reale, F.; Phillips, K. J. H. Solar System Research, Volume 45, Issue 3, pp.189-199, 06/2011 ADS link: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011SoSyR..45..189G

b) Soft X-ray variability over the present minimum of solar activity as observed by SphinX Gburek, S.; Siarkowski, M.; Kepa, A.; Sylwester, J.; Kowalinski, M.; Bakala, J.; Podgorski, P.; Kordylewski, Z.; Plocieniak, S.; Sylwester, B.; Trzebinski, W.; Kuzin, S. Solar System Research, Volume 45, Issue 2, pp.182-187, 04/2011 ADS link: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011SoSyR..45..182G

All the mentioned above activities would have been impossible without SOTERIA support or the funds for them had to be find elsewhere.

WP4

• Q: explain the impact of the recalculation of Dst. Alexi inquired on the impact of the recalculation of Dst, following the development of the Dcx index by SOTERIA.

• R: The Dst index has several types of flaws that we have corrected by recalculating the index and modifying the recipe slightly. A major problem with the original Dst index is that only the basic method of calculation is generally known. The details are, however not, thus, in a strict sense, it is not a reproducible scientific quantity. On the contrary, all the steps in our Dxt/Dcx index calculation have been documented meticulously accurately in our first papers.

• One of the largest virtues of recalculating Dst is that we get also the "local" Dst indices, i.e., the separate station Dst indices. This advantage has been already used in a recent paper which was on a submitted status in Soteria pub list but is in press now: "O. S. Yakovchouk, K. Mursula, L. Holappa, I. S. Veselovsky, and A. Karinen, Average properties of geomagnetic storms in 1932-2009, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2011JA017093, 2012, available in web, in press."

• Another important benefit of the Dcx index is that it corrects the fact that the local Dst indices have different weights in Dst recipe. This was changed as part of Soteria, and led to a paper which is in our publ list: "Mursula, K., L. Holappa, and A. Karinen, Unequal weights of stations in the Dst index, J. Atm. Solar-Terr. Phys., 73, pp. 316-322, doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2010.04.007, 2011."

• A additional significant impact is that during recalculation we extended the Dst time interval and can now study storms for 25 years earlier than previously. We reported on this at ESWW8 last November and we are preparing another paper on this. This also means that now, for the first time, is a long homogenous time-series of a Dst index available. During Soteria, we also extended the station network during the last >10 years, which led to increased local time accuracy. We also constructed the real-time server.

• Q: Alexi asked to elaborate on the Task 4.2's study on environmental effects on spacecraft, mentioned in the final report. She also commented that from the report the contribution provided by the study is unclear. Is there any published results?

• R: The WP4 study of environmental effects on spacecraft consists of several parts:
• A study of radiation belts effects on the functioning of the TESIS and SPHINX instruments on-board CORONAS-Photon spacecraft has been made especially for SOTERIA by LPI and SRC PAN teams. The SRC PAN team published the part of the deliverable concerning SPHINX data in the Ukrainian journal (the link is http://www.cbk.pan.wroc.pl/body/publikacje/2011/Dudnik.pdf). Another publication has been submitted in September 2011 to the russian journal Astronomiceskii Vestnik (in English translation - Solar System Research). The LPI part concerning the TESIS data and comparison with SPENVIS model has not been published so far, but was presented at the rescent ESWW8.

• A study on the radiation effects on the NOAA/MEPED energetic proton measurements on the NOAA POES spacecraft, including a long time recalibration conducted by UOulu. This has been published: "T. Asikainen and K. Mursula, Recalibration of NOAA/MEPED energetic proton measurements, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 73, pp. 335-347, doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2009.12.011, 2011"

• A study the use geomagnetic activity indices as a measure of Joule heating and the associated effect on altitude loss of the CHAMP satellite conducted by DTU. This has not been published yet but was presented at ESWW8.

WP5

• Q: Please explain the flare prediction model in a few lines.

Following a previous review question, the explanation below was added in the deliverable report:

" The Zurich sunspot group classification labels sunspot groups according to their apparent complexity. McIntosh (1990, Sol. Phys 125, 251) modified this classification scheme and noted that the modified version had a superior correlation with flare probabilities: for different classes of sunspot group, the chance to produce a flare in the next 24 hours can significantly differ.

In this work we have implemented the ideas of McIntosh on the basis of the observations and group identification of the Catania Astrophysical Observatory. These data are communicated over the ISES network in the so-called USSPS format. RWC Belgium receives and accumulates the received sunspot group labels and converts them with the present tool in flare forecast graphs.

Recent variants and typical succes rate of the McIntosh technique can be found in the literature (see e.g. Bornmann & Shaw 1994, Sol Phys 150, p127 or Norquist 2011, Sol Phys 269, p111). The succes rate of our specific implementation is modulated by the quality and regularity of the observation & identification at Catania Solar Observatory, and the processing of this data through the ISES and RWC Belgium software. Statistics of this can only be available after a few years of operation. "