Catalogs of solar wind types and their role in solar-terrestrial physics

TL;DR

This study evaluates the accuracy of solar wind type classifications in existing catalogs and emphasizes the importance of using standardized, community-accepted catalogs for analyzing solar-terrestrial interactions and geomagnetic storms.

Contribution

It compares different solar wind event catalogs, identifies discrepancies, and highlights the need for standardized classifications in solar-terrestrial physics research.

Findings

Approximately 20% of event classifications differ from the authors' catalog.

About 28% of ICME events are misclassified in the Richardson and Cane catalog.

Using unverified catalogs can lead to incorrect conclusions about solar wind-magnetosphere interactions.

Abstract

The response of the magnetosphere to interplanetary drivers depends on their type. The reliability of their identification affects the conclusions of the analysis of connections between the solar wind and the magnetosphere. In this work, we analyze the list of moderate and strong geomagnetic storms and their interplanetary sources for the period 2009 - 2019, presented in the work of Qiu et al. It is shown that some of the events in this list were identified incorrectly, and their interpretation differs in ~20% of cases from our catalog by Yermolaev et al. (http://www.iki.rssi.ru/pub/omni/) for types of solar wind Sheath, ICME and CIR, and in ~28% of cases from the Richardson and Cane catalog for ICME. Using the unadjusted list of Qiu et al. may lead to incorrect identification of interplanetary drivers of magnetic storms and erroneous conclusions. It is recommended to use the classification of interplanetary events from catalogs of events accepted by the scientific community as reference ones.