Authors: Helen E. Coffey, Edward H. Erwin
Affiliation: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Geophysical
Data Center
The NOAA National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) Website at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov provides access to a number of Space Weather databases, including the USAF Radio Solar Telescope Network (RSTN) solar radio fixed frequency and spectral data. Reduced data listings of solar radio events are available, as well as the noon values of the solar radio flux at eight fixed frequencies (see ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SOLAR_RADIO). Also, the original one second data for both fixed frequency and spectral data (25-75 MHz, and more recently 25-180 MHz) from the four worldwide stations are available for downloading and plotting. Daily fixed frequency data files average 2.4 megabytes (75 mb/month). Daily spectral files average 13.4 mb (or 415 mb/month). Software to view the solar radio spectral (SRS) data, developed by John Kennewell and colleagues at Learmonth Solar Observatory, is available for download from the NGDC ftp site (see ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SOLAR_RADIO/SPECTRAL_RSTN). Future plans include an online interactive plotting capability. The SPIDR system allows plots of the fixed frequency data (see http://spidr.ngdc.noaa.gov). These solar radio data can be used to investigate the activity in the Sun’s corona and its effects on the Earth’s environment. Tables of solar radio events are in the monthly report Solar-Geophysical Data (SGD) now available in PDF format at http://sgd.ngdc.noaa.gov. The NGDC website also includes educational links.