ALBERT

Description: This study addresses seasonal predictability of South American rainfall during ENSO. The skill of empirical and coupled multi-model predictions is assessed and compared. The empirical model uses the previous season August-September-October Pacific and Atlantic sea surface temperatures as predictors for December-January-February rainfall. Coupled multi-model 1-month lead December-January-February rainfall predictions were obtained from the Development of a European Multi-model Ensemble system for seasonal to inTERannual prediction (DEMETER) project. Integrated (i.e. combined and calibrated) forecasts that incorporate information provided by both the empirical and the coupled multi-model are produced using a Bayesian procedure. This procedure is referred to as forecast assimilation. The skill of the integrated forecasts is compared to the skill of empirical and coupled multi-model predictions. This comparison reveals that when seasonally forecasting December-January-February South American rainfall at 1-month lead-time the current generation of coupled models have a level of deterministic skill comparable to those obtained using simplified empirical approaches. However, Bayesian combined/calibrated forecasts provide better estimates of forecast uncertainty than the coupled multi-model. This indicates that forecast assimilation improves the quality of probabilistic predictions. The tropics and the area of South Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Northern Argentina are found to be the two most predictable regions of South America. ENSO years are more predictable than neutral years, the latter having nearly null skill.

Description: The validity of a technique developed by the authors to identify historical occurrences of intense geomagnetic storms, which is based on finding approximately coincident observations of sunspots and aurorae recorded in East Asian histories, is corroborated using more modern sunspot and auroral observations. Scientific observations of aurorae in Japan during the interval 1957–2004 are used to identify geomagnetic storms that are sufficiently intense to produce auroral displays at low geomagnetic latitudes. By examining white-light images of the Sun obtained by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the Big Bear Solar Observatory, the Debrecen Heliophysical Observatory and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft, it is found that a sunspot large enough to be seen with the unaided eye by an "experienced" observer was located reasonably close to the central solar meridian immediately before all but one of the 30 distinct Japanese auroral events, which represents a 97% success rate. Even an "average" observer would probably have been able to see a sunspot with the unaided eye before 24 of these 30 events, which represents an 80% success rate. This corroboration of the validity of the technique used to identify historical occurences of intense geomagnetic storms is important because early unaided-eye observations of sunspots and aurorae provide the only possible means of identifying individual historical geomagnetic storms during the greater part of the past two millennia.

Description: Early auroral observations recorded in various oriental histories are examined in order to search for examples of strictly simultaneous and indisputably independent observations of the aurora borealis from spatially separated sites in East Asia. In the period up to ad 1700, only five examples have been found of two or more oriental auroral observations from separate sites on the same night. These occurred during the nights of ad 1101 January 31, ad 1138 October 6, ad 1363 July 30, ad 1582 March 8 and ad 1653 March 2. The independent historical evidence describing observations of mid-latitude auroral displays at more than one site in East Asia on the same night provides virtually incontrovertible proof that auroral displays actually occurred on these five special occasions. This conclusion is corroborated by the good level of agreement between the detailed auroral descriptions recorded in the different oriental histories, which furnish essentially compatible information on both the colour (or colours) of each auroral display and its approximate position in the sky. In addition, the occurrence of auroral displays in Europe within two days of auroral displays in East Asia, on two (possibly three) out of these five special occasions, suggests that a substantial number of the mid-latitude auroral displays recorded in the oriental histories are associated with intense geomagnetic storms.Key words. Magnetospheric physics (auroral phenomena; storms and substorms)

Description: The earliest known drawing of sunspots appears in The Chronicle of John of Worcester, which was compiled in the first half of the twelfth century. In this medieval chronicle, the Latin text describing the sunspots is accompanied by a colourful drawing, albeit idealised, which shows the apparent positions and sizes of two sunspots on the solar disk. The date of this observation of sunspots from Worcester, England is firmly established as AD 1128 December 8. Assuming that the drawing was prepared fairly carefully, the angular diameters of the two sunspots are at least about 3 arcmin and 2 arcmin in the northern and southern hemispheres, respectively. Similarly, the heliographic latitudes of both sunspots are within the approximate range of 25°–35°. About five days after this observation of sunspots on the solar disk, on the night of AD 1128 December 13, a red auroral display was observed from Songdo, Korea (the modern city of Kaesong). This auroral observation was recorded in the Koryo-sa, the official Korean chronicle of the period. In addition, five Chinese and five Korean descriptions of auroral displays were recorded in various East-Asian histories between the middle of AD 1127 and the middle of AD 1129. The ten oriental auroral records in this particular interval correspond to six distinct auroral events, which provide evidence for recurrent, though possibly intermittent, auroral activity on a timescale almost exactly equal to the synodic-solar-rotation period (approximately 27 days). The six distinct auroral events were apparently associated with two series of recurrent geomagnetic storms, both of which were sufficiently intense to produce mid-latitude auroral displays in East Asia. These ancient solar and auroral observations are interpreted in terms of present-day understanding of solar-terrestrial physics. Con-temporary ground-based and satellite measurements during the last few decades have indicated that recurrent geomagnetic storms are usually a feature of the declining phase of the solar cycle. In addition, the strength of such recurrent geomagnetic storms has been classified as moderate rather than intense. The recurrent geomagnetic storms occurring during the interval AD 1127–1129 must have been sufficiently intense to produce mid-latitude auroral displays over China and Korea, some of which appeared or extended south of the observing site. This last statement remains true even after proper allowance is made for the fact that during the twelfth century, the north geomagnetic pole was probably situated at the usual high geographic latitude, but in the same geographic longitude range as East Asia. Therefore, it may be inferred that the two series of intense recurrent geomagnetic storms occurred near a medieval maximum in the "eleven-year" solar cycle. Moreover, the overall level of solar activity appears to have been especially high at the end of the second decade of the twelfth century.b〉Key words. Magnetospheric physics (auroral phenomena; storms and substorms) – Solar physics, astrophysics and astronomy (photosphere and chromosphere)

Description: All the accessible auroral observations recorded in Chinese and Japanese histories during the interval AD 1840–1911 are investigated in detail. Most of these auroral records have never been translated into a Western language before. The East Asian auroral reports provide information on the date and approximate location of each auroral observation, together with limited scientific information on the characteristics of the auroral luminosity such as colour, duration, extent, position in the sky and approximate time of occurrence. The full translations of the original Chinese and Japanese auroral records are presented in an appendix, which contains bibliographic details of the various historical sources. (There are no known reliable Korean observations during this interval.) A second appendix discusses a few implausible "auroral" records, which have been rejected. The salient scientific properties of all exactly dated and reliable East Asian auroral observations in the interval AD 1840–1911 are summarised succinctly. By comparing the relevant scientific information on exactly dated auroral observations with the lists of great geomagnetic storms compiled by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and also the tabulated values of the Ak (Helsinki) and aa (Greenwich and Melbourne) magnetic indices, it is found that 5 of the great geomagnetic storms (aa〉150 or Ak〉50) during either the second half of the nineteenth century or the first decade of the twentieth century are clearly identified by extensive auroral displays observed in China or Japan. Indeed, two of these great storms produced auroral displays observed in both countries on the same night. Conversely, at least 29 (69%) of the 42 Chinese and Japanese auroral observations occurred at times of weak-to-moderate geomagnetic activity (aa or Ak≤50). It is shown that these latter auroral displays are very similar to the more numerous (about 50) examples of sporadic aurorae observed in the United States during the interval AD 1880–1940. The localised nature and spatial structure of some sporadic aurorae observed in East Asia is indicated by the use of descriptive terms such as "lightning", "rainbow", "streak" and "grid".

Description: A further study is made of the validity of a technique developed by the authors to identify historical occurrences of intense geomagnetic storms, which is based on finding approximately coincident observations of sunspots and aurorae recorded in East Asian histories. Previously, the validity of this technique was corroborated using scientific observations of aurorae in Japan during the interval 1957–2004 and contemporaneous white-light images of the Sun obtained by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the Big Bear Solar Observatory, the Debrecen Heliophysical Observatory, and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft. The present investigation utilises a list of major geomagnetic storms in the interval 1868–2008, which is based on the magnitude of the AA* magnetic index, and reconstructed solar images based on the sunspot observations acquired by the Royal Greenwich Observatory during the shorter interval 1874–1976. It is found that a sunspot large enough to be seen with the unaided eye by an "experienced" observer was located reasonably close to the central solar meridian for almost 90% of these major geomagnetic storms. Even an "average" observer would easily achieve a corresponding success rate of 70% and this success rate increases to about 80% if a minority of ambiguous situations are interpreted favourably. The use of information on major geomagnetic storms, rather than modern auroral observations from Japan, provides a less direct corroboration of the technique for identifying historical occurrences of intense geomagnetic storms, if only because major geomagnetic storms do not necessarily produce auroral displays over East Asia. Nevertheless, the present study provides further corroboration of the validity of the original technique for identifying intense geomagnetic storms. This additional corroboration of the original technique is important because early unaided-eye observations of sunspots and aurorae provide the only possible means of identifying individual geomagnetic storms during the greater part of the past two millennia.