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Project for Data Rescues of the Analog Observational Records for the Past Solar-Terrestrial Environment

Data Rescues of the Analog Observational Records for the Past Solar-Terrestrial Environment

Solar-terrestrial environments have been closely related to modern civilizations in terms of their long-term variability (space climate) and short-term eruptions (space weather). Particularly, intense solar eruptions and resultant geomagnetic storms occasionally seriously impact the technological infrastructure of civilization. Moreover, modern datasets frequently have limitations in their chronological coverage, especially the understanding of the long-term and extreme variability of such solar-terrestrial environments. It is only since the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958) that the multiple observational record series have been systematically archived through international collaborations. In this context, analog records and historical documents have often been beneficial in studies on extreme space weather events. Therefore, to better visualize past solar-terrestrial environments, our team investigated, collected, digitized, and analyzed the past analog measurements and historical documents for visual aurorae, sunspots, and geomagnetism according to the analog collections and yearbooks.

Temporal evolutions of the three geomagnetic components at Colaba Observatory around the Carrington storm reconstructed from the yearbooks (Hayakawa et al., 2022, ApJ, 928, 32).