Authors: David McKenzie; Robert Leamon
Affiliation: Montana State University; L-3 Communications/GSI
Coronal mass ejections — particularly those with flux rope structures — have the potential to trigger geomagnetic storms, depending on the properties of the flux ropes. Eruptions of both filaments and coronal sigmoids have been indicated as important drivers of space weather, and both filaments and sigmoids have been modeled with flux rope structure. However, the analysis reported by Leamon et al. (2002) suggested that magnetic clouds associated with filament eruptions are different from magnetic clouds associated with erupting sigmoids. In this investigation, we are exploring the possibility of predicting the geoeffectiveness of CMEs through analysis of the pre-eruption magnetic structures.