When circumstances are ideal, ice crystals in the atmosphere may bend sunlight, giving the impression of a brilliant spot on each side of the sun or a halo ringing it.
Is the sun's halo influencing the ionospheric total electron content?
Hi, Chali Idosa Uga,
There isn't any direct connection between CMEs, which are explosions on the Sun, 93 million miles away, and solar halos, which are caused by ice crystals in the Earth's atmosphere only a few thousand feet overhead. CMEs do affect the Earth's radiation belts and cause displays of aurora, but these are typical 100 miles or more above the ground. Really severe solar events might conceivably cause changes in the Earth's atmosphere, but if they were big enough to affect the atmosphere directly over our heads, I would say that the effect on solar halos would be the least of our worries. I'm attaching some photos to illustrate the difference: the image of a sundog being disrupted by the launch of Solar Dynamics Observer is particularly instructive because it shows that the layer of ice crystals is quite low over the launch site.
Best wishes,
Duncan.
I have conducted the study on the responses of TEC during the sun halo days. The study between the time when the sun halo start and ends, TEC shows the decreasing character. This work is the first study conducted on the responses of ionospheric TEC to solar flares during the sun halo days over low and mid-latitude regions. I will share the paper soon.
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