Prediction of Major Solar Flares Using Interpretable Class-dependent Reward Framework with Active Region Magnetograms and Domain Knowledge

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel class-dependent reward framework for solar flare prediction, combining domain knowledge, magnetogram data, and deep learning models, achieving superior interpretability and performance over existing methods.

Contribution

The work presents the first supervised classification framework with class-dependent rewards for solar flare prediction, integrating domain knowledge and deep learning models with interpretability analysis.

Findings

CDR-Transformer achieves the best predictive performance.

Knowledge-informed features outperform magnetogram-only models.

Model interpretability highlights key magnetic parameters like TOTUSJH and R_VALUE.

Abstract

In this work, we develop, for the first time, a supervised classification framework with class-dependent rewards (CDR) to predict $\geq$MM flares within 24 hr. We construct multiple datasets, covering knowledge-informed features and line-of sight (LOS) magnetograms. We also apply three deep learning models (CNN, CNN-BiLSTM, and Transformer) and three CDR counterparts (CDR-CNN, CDR-CNN-BiLSTM, and CDR-Transformer). First, we analyze the importance of LOS magnetic field parameters with the Transformer, then compare its performance using LOS-only, vector-only, and combined magnetic field parameters. Second, we compare flare prediction performance based on CDR models versus deep learning counterparts. Third, we perform sensitivity analysis on reward engineering for CDR models. Fourth, we use the SHAP method for model interpretability. Finally, we conduct performance comparison between our models and NASA/CCMC. The main findings are: (1)Among LOS feature combinations, R_VALUE and AREA_ACR consistently yield the best results. (2)Transformer achieves better performance with combined LOS and vector magnetic field data than with either alone. (3)Models using knowledge-informed features outperform those using magnetograms. (4)While CNN and CNN-BiLSTM outperform their CDR counterparts on magnetograms, CDR-Transformer is slightly superior to its deep learning counterpart when using knowledge-informed features. Among all models, CDR-Transformer achieves the best performance. (5)The predictive performance of the CDR models is not overly sensitive to the reward choices.(6)Through SHAP analysis, the CDR model tends to regard TOTUSJH as more important, while the Transformer tends to prioritize R_VALUE more.(7)Under identical prediction time and active region (AR) number, the CDR-Transformer shows superior predictive capabilities compared to NASA/CCMC.