GROUP B

SOLAR ACTIVE REGIONS AND THEIR PRODUCTION OF FLARES AND CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS

Active regions, the concentrated magnetic field configurations that result in plage, sunspots, and bright X-ray emission, also provide the energy source for the most powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Active regions form over a period of days, and typically live for weeks to months. Some regions appear to be especially dangerous from a space-weather perspective, while others do not. Any capability for predicting solar drivers for space weather on time scales ranging from hours to weeks must characterize dangerous active regions. We would also like to know if active regions can be detected and characterized before they appear on the disk. This group will discuss the advances in observations, modeling, and understanding required for this level of active-region prediction, and how these advances might be achieved in the Exploration program.