Using Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) Data for Solar Flare Predictions

Predicting where and when space weather events such as solar flares and X-rays bursts are likely to occur in a specific area of interest constitutes a significant challenge in space weather research. Space weather scientists are, therefore, gradually exploring multivariate data analysis techniques from the fields of data mining or machine learning in order to approximate future occurrences of space weather events from past distribution patterns. As solar flares emit extreme ultraviolet and X-ray radiation, which leads to ionization effect in different layers of the ionosphere, most recent works related to solar flare predictions using machine learning (ML) techniques, focused on X-ray time series predictions. Here, we suggest using support vector machine for classifying subdaily and diurnal total electron content (TEC) spatial changes prior to solar flare events, in order to assess the possibility of predicting B, C, M, and X-class solar flare events. This is done as opposed to predicting TEC time series using ML techniques. The predictions are estimated up to three days before each tested class events, along with different skill scores such as precision, recall, Heidke skill score (HSS), accuracy, and true skill statistics. The results indicate that the suggested approach has the ability to predict solar flare events of X and M-class 24 h prior to their occurrence with 91% and 76% HSS skill scores, respectively, which improves over most recent related works. However, for the small-size C and B-class flares, the suggested approach does not succeed in producing similar promising results.