arXiv subjects

Karin Dissauer

Publications and source records attributed to Karin Dissauer.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Coronal dimmings as indicators of early CME propagation direction

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are solar eruptions of plasma and magnetic fields that significantly impact Space Weather, causing disruptions in technological systems and potential damage to power grids when directed towards Earth. Traditional coronagraphs along the Sun-Earth line struggle to precisely track the early evolution of Earth-directed CMEs. Coronal dimmings, localized reductions in extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray emissions, are key indicators of CMEs in the low corona, resulting from mass loss and expansion during the eruption. This study introduces a novel method, DIRECD (Dimming InfeRred Estimate of CME Direction), to estimate the early propagation direction of CMEs based on the expansion of coronal dimmings. The approach involves 3D simulations of CMEs using a geometric cone model, exploring parameters like width, height, source location, and deflection from the radial direction. The dominant direction of dimming evolution is then determined, and an inverse problem is solved to reconstruct an ensemble of CME cones at various heights, widths, and deflections. By comparing the CME orthogonal projections onto the solar sphere with the dimming geometry, the 3D CME direction is derived. Validated through case studies on October 1, 2011, and September 6, 2011, the DIRECD method reveals the early propagation directions of CMEs. The CME on October 1, 2011, predominantly expands towards the South-East, while the CME on September 6, 2011, inclines towards the North-West. These findings align with previous studies using multi-viewpoint coronagraphic observations. The study demonstrates the utility of coronal dimming information for early CME direction estimation, providing valuable data for space weather forecasting and mitigating potential adverse impacts on Earth before observation in coronographs' field-of-view.

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arXiv2024

Recovery of coronal dimmings

Coronal dimmings are regions of reduced emission in the lower corona, observed after coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and representing their footprints. In order to investigate the long-term evolution of coronal dimming and its recovery, we propose two approaches that focus on both the global and the local evolution of dimming regions: the fixed mask approach and the pixel boxes approach. We present four case studies (September 6, 2011; March 7, 2012; June 14, 2012; and March 8, 2019) in which a coronal dimming is associated with a flare/CME eruption. We identified the dimming region by image segmentation, then restricted the analysis to a specific portion of the dimming and tracked the time evolution of the dimming brightness and area. In addition, we studied the behavior of small subregions inside the dimming area, of about 3x3 pixels, to compare the recovery in different regions of the dimming. Three out of the four cases show a complete recovery 24 hours after the flare/CME eruption. The recovery of the brightness follows a two-step trend, with a steeper and quicker segment followed by a slower one. In addition, some parts of the dimming, which may be core dimmings, are still present at the end of the analysis time and do not recover within 3 days, whereas the peripheral regions (secondary dimmings) show a full recovery. We demonstrate that the primary mechanism for recovery identified in the observations is the expansion of coronal loops into the dimming region, which gradually increase their intensity. Our developed approaches enable the analysis of dimmings alongside these bright structures, revealing different timescales of recovery for core and secondary/twin dimming regions. Combined with magnetic field modeling, these methods lay the foundation for further systematic analysis of dimming recovery and enhance the knowledge gained from already-analyzed events.

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arXiv2024

Multipoint study of the rapid filament evolution during a confined C2 flare on 28 March 2022, leading to eruption

We studied the rapid filament evolution in AR 12975 during a confined C2 flare on 28 March 2022, which led to an eruptive M4 flare 1.5 h later. It is characterized by the breakup of the filament, the disappearance of its southern half, and the flow of the remaining plasma into a longer channel with a topology similar to an EUV hot channel during the flare. Our multipoint study takes advantage of Solar Orbiter's position at 0.33 AU and 83. 5° west of the Sun-Earth line. STIX and EUI onboard Solar Orbiter observed the event at the limb. AIA and HMI onboard SDO provided on-disk observations from which we derived DEM maps and NLFF magnetic field extrapolations. We find that both filament channels likely existed in close proximity before the flare. Based on field structures associated with AIA 1600 Å flare ribbons and kernels, we propose a loop-loop reconnection scenario between field lines that surround and pass beneath the shorter filament channel, and field lines following a portion of the longer channel. Reconnection occurs in an essentially vertical current sheet at a PIL below the breakup region, leading to the formation of the flare loop arcade and the EUV hot channel. The scenario is supported by concentrated currents and free magnetic energy built up by antiparallel flows along the PIL before the flare. The reconnection probably propagated to involve the original filament itself, leading to its breakup and reformation. The reconnection geometry provides a general mechanism for the formation of the long filament channel and realizes the concept of tether cutting, which was active throughout the filament's rise phase, lasting from at least 30 min before the C2 flare until the eruption. The C2 flare represents a period of fast reconnection during this otherwise more steady process, during which most of the original filament was reconnected and joined the longer channel.

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arXiv2024

Sun-as-a-star observations of obscuration dimmings caused by filament eruptions

Filament eruptions often lead to coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on the Sun and are one of the most energetic eruptive phenomena in the atmospheres of other late-type stars. However, the detection of filament eruptions and CMEs on stars beyond the solar system is challenging. Here we present six filament eruption cases on the Sun and show that filament material obscuring part of the solar disk can cause detectable dimming signatures in sun-as-a-star flux curves of He II 304 A. Those filament eruptions have similar morphological features, originating from small filaments inside active regions and subsequently strongly expanding to obscure large areas of the solar disk or the bright flare regions. We have tracked the detailed evolution of six obscuration dimmings and estimated the dimming properties, such as dimming depths, dimming areas, and duration. The largest dimming depth among the six events under study is 6.2% accompanied by the largest dimming area of 5.6\% of the solar disk area. Other events have maximum dimming depths in a range of around 1% to 3% with maximum areas varying between about 3% to 4% of the solar disk area. The duration of the dimming spans from around 0.4 hours to 7.0 hours for the six events under study. A positive correlation was found between the dimming depth and area, which may help to set constraint on the filament sizes in stellar observations.

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arXiv2023

Multi-point study of the energy release and transport in the 28 March 2022, M4-flare using STIX, EUI, and AIA during the first Solar Orbiter nominal mission perihelion

We present a case study of an M4-class flare on 28 March 2022, near Solar Orbiter's first science perihelion (0.33 AU). Solar Orbiter was 83.5° west of the Sun-Earth line, making the event appear near the eastern limb, while Earth-orbiting spacecraft observed it near the disk center. The timing and location of the STIX X-ray sources were related to the plasma evolution observed in the EUV by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on Solar Orbiter and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on the Solar Dynamics Observatory, and to the chromospheric response observed in 1600 Å by AIA. We performed differential emission measure (DEM) analysis to further characterize the flaring plasma at different subvolumes. The pre-flare magnetic field configuration was analyzed using a nonlinear force-free (NLFF) extrapolation. In addition to the two classical hard X-ray (HXR) footpoints at the ends of the flaring loops, later in the event we observe a nonthermal HXR source at one of the anchor points of the erupting filament. The evolution of the AIA 1600~Å footpoints indicates that this change in footpoint location represents a discontinuity in an otherwise continuous westward motion of the footpoints throughout the flare. The NLFF extrapolation suggests that strongly sheared field lines close to, or possibly even part of, the erupting filament reconnected with a weakly sheared arcade during the first HXR peak. The remainder of these field lines reconnected later in the event, producing the HXR peak at the southern filament footpoint. Our results show that the reconnection between field lines with very different shear in the early phase of the flare plays a crucial role in understanding the motion of the HXR footpoint during later parts of the flare. This generalizes simpler models, such as whipping reconnection, which only consider reconnection propagating along uniformly sheared arcades.

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arXiv2023

On the three-dimensional relation between the coronal dimming, erupting filament and CME. Case study of the 28 October 2021 X1.0 event

We investigate the relation between the spatiotemporal evolution of the dimming region and the dominant direction of the filament eruption and CME propagation for the 28 October 2021 X1.0 flare/CME event observed from multiple viewpoints by Solar Orbiter, STEREO-A, SDO, and SOHO. We propose a method to estimate the dominant dimming direction by tracking its area evolution and emphasize its accurate estimation by calculating the surface area of a sphere for each pixel. To determine the early flux rope propagation direction, we perform 3D reconstruction of the CME via graduated cylindrical shell modeling (GCS) and tie-pointing of the filament. The dimming initially expands radially and later shifts southeast. The orthogonal projections of the reconstructed height evolution of the erupting filament onto the solar surface are located in the sector of the dominant dimming growth, while the orthogonal projections of the inner part of GCS reconstruction align with the total dimming area. The filament reaches a maximum speed of $\approx$250 km/s at a height of about $\approx$180 Mm. The direction of its motion is strongly inclined from the radial (64$^\circ$ to the East, 32$^\circ$ to the South). The 50$^\circ$ difference in the 3D direction between the CME and the filament leg closely corresponds to the CME half-width determined from reconstruction, suggesting a potential relation of the reconstructed filament to the associated leg of the CME body. Our findings highlight that the dominant propagation of the dimming growth reflects the direction of the erupting magnetic structure (filament) low in the solar atmosphere, though the filament evolution is not related directly to the direction of the global CME expansion. The overall dimming morphology closely resembles the inner part of the CME reconstruction, validating the use of dimming observations to obtain insight into the CME direction.

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arXiv2023

Small Platforms, High Return: The Need to Enhance Investment in Small Satellites for Focused Science, Career Development, and Improved Equity

In the next decade, there is an opportunity for very high return on investment of relatively small budgets by elevating the priority of smallsat funding in heliophysics. We've learned in the past decade that these missions perform exceptionally well by traditional metrics, e.g., papers/year/\$M (Spence et al. 2022 -- arXiv:2206.02968). It is also well established that there is a "leaky pipeline" resulting in too little diversity in leadership positions (see the National Academies Report at https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/increasing-diversity-in-the-leadership-of-competed-space-missions). Prioritizing smallsat funding would significantly increase the number of opportunities for new leaders to learn -- a crucial patch for the pipeline and an essential phase of career development. At present, however, there are far more proposers than the available funding can support, leading to selection ratios that can be as low as 6% -- in the bottom 0.5th percentile of selection ratios across the history of ROSES. Prioritizing SmallSat funding and substantially increasing that selection ratio are the fundamental recommendations being made by this white paper.

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arXiv2022

Properties of Flare-Imminent versus Flare-Quiet Active Regions from the Chromosphere through the Corona II: NonParametric Discriminant Analysis Results from the NWRA Classification Infrastructure (NCI)

A large sample of active-region-targeted time-series images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory / Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, the AIA Active Region Patch database ("AARPs", Paper I: Dissauer et al 2022) is used to investigate whether parameters describing the coronal, transition region, and chromospheric emission can differentiate a region that will imminently produce a solar flare from one that will not. Parametrizations based on moment analysis of direct and running-difference images provide for physically-interpretable results from nonparametric discriminant analysis. Across four event definitions including both 24hr and 6hr validity periods, 160 image-based parameters capture the general state of the atmosphere, rapid brightness changes, and longer-term intensity evolution. We find top Brier Skill Scores in the 0.07--0.33 range, True Skill Statistics in the 0.68--0.82 range (both depending on event definition), and Receiver Operating Characteristic Skill Scores above 0.8. Total emission can perform notably as can steeply increasing or decreasing brightness, although mean brightness measures do not, demonstrating the well-known active-region-size/flare-productivity relation. Once a region is flare productive, the active-region coronal plasma appears to stay hot. The 94AA filter data provides the most parameters with discriminating power, with indications that it benefits from sampling multiple physical regimes. In particular, classification success using higher-order moments of running difference images indicate a propensity for flare-imminent regions to display short-lived small-scale brightening events. Parameters describing the evolution of the corona can provide flare-imminent indicators, but at no preference over "static" parameters. Finally, all parameters and NPDA-derived probabilities are available to the community for additional research.

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arXiv2022

Properties of Flare-Imminent versus Flare-Quiet Active Regions from the Chromosphere through the Corona I: Introduction of the AIA Active Region Patches (AARPs)

We begin here a series of papers examining the chromospheric and coronal properties of solar active regions. This first paper describes an extensive dataset of images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on the Solar Dynamics Observatory curated for large-sample analysis of this topic. Based on (and constructed to coordinate with) the ``Active Region Patches'' as identified by the pipeline data analysis system for the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on the same mission, the ``HARPs''), the ``AIA Active Region Patches'' (AARPs), described herein, comprise an unbiased multi-wavelength set of FITS files downsampled spatially only by way of HARP-centered patch extractions (full spatial sampling is retained), and downsampled in the temporal domain but still able to describe both short-lived kinematics and longer-term trends. The AARPs database enables physics-informed parametrization and analysis using Nonparametric Discriminant Analysis in Paper II of this series, and is validated for analysis using Differential Emission Measure techniques. The AARP dataset presently covers mid-2010 through December 2018, is approx 9TB in size, and available through the Solar Data Analysis Center.

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arXiv2021

Indications of stellar coronal mass ejections through coronal dimmings

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are huge expulsions of magnetized matter from the Sun and stars, traversing space with speeds of millions of kilometers per hour. Solar CMEs can cause severe space weather disturbances and consumer power outages on Earth, whereas stellar CMEs may even pose a hazard to the habitability of exoplanets. While CMEs ejected by our Sun can be directly imaged by white-light coronagraphs, for stars this is not possible. So far, only a few candidates for stellar CME detections are reported. Here we demonstrate a different approach, based on sudden dimmings in the extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) and X-ray emission caused by the CME mass loss. We report dimming detections associated with flares on cool stars, indicative of stellar CMEs and benchmarked by Sun-as-a-star EUV measurements. This study paves the way for comprehensive detections and characterizations of CMEs on stars, important for planetary habitability and stellar evolution.

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arXiv2021

SunCET: A compact EUV instrument to fill a critical observational gap

The Sun Coronal Ejection Tracker (SunCET) is an extreme ultraviolet imager and spectrograph instrument concept for tracking coronal mass ejections through the region where they experience the majority of their acceleration: the difficult-to-observe middle corona. It contains a wide field of view (0-4~\Rs) imager and a 1~Å spectral-resolution-irradiance spectrograph spanning 170-340~Å. It leverages new detector technology to read out different areas of the detector with different integration times, resulting in what we call "simultaneous high dynamic range", as opposed to the traditional high dynamic range camera technique of subsequent full-frame images that are then combined in post-processing. This allows us to image the bright solar disk with short integration time, the middle corona with a long integration time, and the spectra with their own, independent integration time. Thus, SunCET does not require the use of an opaque or filtered occulter. SunCET is also compact -- $\sim$15 $\times$ 15 $\times$ 10~cm in volume -- making it an ideal instrument for a CubeSat or a small, complementary addition to a larger mission. Indeed, SunCET is presently in a NASA-funded, competitive Phase A as a CubeSat and has also been proposed to NASA as an instrument onboard a 184 kg Mission of Opportunity.

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arXiv2020

Earth-affecting Solar Transients: A Review of Progresses in Solar Cycle 24

This review article summarizes the advancement in the studies of Earth-affecting solar transients in the last decade that encompasses most of solar cycle 24. The Sun Earth is an integrated physical system in which the space environment of the Earth sustains continuous influence from mass, magnetic field and radiation energy output of the Sun in varying time scales from minutes to millennium. This article addresses short time scale events, from minutes to days that directly cause transient disturbances in the Earth space environment and generate intense adverse effects on advanced technological systems of human society. Such transient events largely fall into the following four types: (1) solar flares, (2) coronal mass ejections (CMEs) including their interplanetary counterparts ICMEs, (3) solar energetic particle (SEP) events, and (4) stream interaction regions (SIRs) including corotating interaction regions (CIRs). In the last decade, the unprecedented multi viewpoint observations of the Sun from space, enabled by STEREO Ahead/Behind spacecraft in combination with a suite of observatories along the Sun-Earth lines, have provided much more accurate and global measurements of the size, speed, propagation direction and morphology of CMEs in both 3-D and over a large volume in the heliosphere. Several advanced MHD models have been developed to simulate realistic CME events from the initiation on the Sun until their arrival at 1 AU. Much progress has been made on detailed kinematic and dynamic behaviors of CMEs, including non-radial motion, rotation and deformation of CMEs, CME-CME interaction, and stealth CMEs and problematic ICMEs. The knowledge about SEPs has also been significantly improved.

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arXiv2020

Magnetohydrodynamic Simulation of Magnetic Null-point Reconnections and Coronal dimmings during the X2.1 flare in NOAA AR 11283

The magnetohydrodynamics of active region NOAA 11283 is simulated using an initial non-force-free magnetic field extrapolated from its photospheric vector magnetogram. We focus on the magnetic reconnections at a magnetic null point that participated in the X2.1 flare on 2011 September 6 around 22:21 UT (SOL2011-09-06T22:21X2.1) followed by the appearance of circular flare ribbons and coronal dimmings. The initial magnetic field from extrapolation displays a three-dimensional (3D) null topology overlying a sheared arcade. Prior to the flare, magnetic loops rise due to the initial Lorentz force, and reconnect at the 3D null, leading to expansion and loss of confined plasma that produce the observed pre-flare coronal dimmings. Further, the simulated dynamics documents the transfer of twist from the arcade to the overlying loops through reconnections, developing a flux rope. The non-parallel field lines comprising the rope and lower-lying arcades form an X-type geometry. Importantly, the simultaneous reconnections at the 3D null and the X-type geometry can explain the observed circular and parallel flare ribbons. Reconnections at the 3D null transform closed inner spine field lines into open field lines of the outer spine. The footpoints of these open field lines correspond to a ring-shaped coronal dimming region, tracing the dome. Further, the flux rope bifurcates because of these reconnections which also results in the generation of open magnetic field lines. The plasma loss along the open field lines can potentially explain the observed coronal dimming.

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arXiv2020

CME Acceleration as a Probe of the Coronal Magnetic Field

By 2050, we expect that CME models will accurately describe, and ideally predict, observed solar eruptions and the propagation of the CMEs through the corona. We describe some of the present known unknowns in observations and models that would need to be addressed in order to reach this goal. We also describe how we might prepare for some of the unknown unknowns that will surely become challenges.

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arXiv2020

Solar Flare-CME Coupling Throughout Two Acceleration Phases of a Fast CME

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are closely coupled through magnetic reconnection. CMEs are usually accelerated impulsively within the low solar corona, synchronized with the impulsive flare energy release. We investigate the dynamic evolution of a fast CME and its associated X2.8 flare occurring on 2013 May 13. The CME experiences two distinct phases of enhanced acceleration, an impulsive one with a peak value of ~5 km s$^{-2}$ followed by an extended phase with accelerations up to 0.7 km s$^{-2}$. The two-phase CME dynamics is associated with a two-episode flare energy release. While the first episode is consistent with the "standard" eruption of a magnetic flux rope, the second episode of flare energy release is initiated by the reconnection of a large-scale loop in the aftermath of the eruption and produces stronger nonthermal emission up to $γ$-rays. In addition, this long-duration flare reveals clear signs of ongoing magnetic reconnection during the decay phase, evidenced by extended HXR bursts with energies up to 100--300 keV and intermittent downflows of reconnected loops for >4 hours. The observations reveal that the two-step flare reconnection substantially contributes to the two-phase CME acceleration, and the impulsive CME acceleration precedes the most intense flare energy release. The implications of this non-standard flare/CME observation are discussed.

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arXiv2020

Using radio triangulation to understand the origin of two subsequent type II radio bursts

Context: Eruptive events such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and flares accelerate particles and generate shock waves which can arrive at Earth and can disturb the magnetosphere. Understanding the association between CMEs and CME-driven shocks is therefore highly important for space weather studies. Aims: We present a study of the CME/flare event associated with two type II bursts observed on September 27, 2012. The aim of the study is to understand the relationship between the observed CME and the two distinct shock wave signatures. Methods: The multi-wavelength study of the eruptive event (CME/flare) was complemented with radio triangulation of the associated radio emission and modelling of the CME and the shock wave employing MHD simulations. Results: We found that, although temporal association between the type II bursts and the CME is good, the low-frequency type II(LF-type II) burst occurs significantly higher in the corona than the CME and its relationship to the CME is not straightforward. The analysis of the EIT wave (coronal bright front) shows the fastest wave component to be in the southeast quadrant of the Sun. This is also the quadrant in which the source positions of the LF-type II were found to be located, probably resulting from the interaction between the shock wave and a streamer. Conclusions: The relationship between the CME/flare event and the shock wave signatures is discussed using the temporal association,as well as the spatial information of the radio emission. Further, we discuss the importance and possible effects of the frequently non-radial propagation of the shock wave.

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arXiv2020

Evolution of coronal mass ejections and the corresponding Forbush decreases: modelling vs multi-spacecraft observations

One of the very common in situ signatures of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), as well as other interplanetary transients, are Forbush decreases (FDs), i.e. short-term reductions in the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) flux. A two-step FD is often regarded as a textbook example, which presumably owes its specific morphology to the fact that the measuring instrument passed through the ICME head-on, encountering first the shock front (if developed), then the sheath and finally the CME magnetic structure. The interaction of GCRs and the shock/sheath region, as well as the CME magnetic structure, occurs all the way from Sun to Earth, therefore, FDs are expected to reflect the evolutionary properties of CMEs and their sheaths. We apply modelling to different ICME regions in order to obtain a generic two-step FD profile, which qualitatively agrees with our current observation-based understanding of FDs. We next adapt the models for energy dependence to enable comparison with different GCR measurement instruments (as they measure in different particle energy ranges). We test these modelling efforts against a set of multi-spacecraft observations of the same event, using the Forbush decrease model for the expanding flux rope (ForbMod). We find a reasonable agreement of the ForbMod model for the GCR depression in the CME magnetic structure with multi-spacecraft measurements, indicating that modelled FDs reflect well the CME evolution.

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arXiv2020

Coronal dimmings associated with coronal mass ejections on the solar limb

We present a statistical analysis of 43 coronal dimming events, associated with Earth-directed CMEs that occurred during the period of quasi-quadrature of the SDO and STEREO satellites. We studied coronal dimmings that were observed above the limb by STEREO/EUVI and compared their properties with the mass and speed of the associated CMEs. The unique position of satellites allowed us to compare our findings with the results from Dissauer et al. (2018b, 2019), who studied the same events observed against the solar disk by SDO/AIA. Such statistics is done for the first time and confirms the relation of coronal dimmings and CME parameters for the off-limb viewpoint. The observations of dimming regions from different lines-of-sight reveal a similar decrease in the total EUV intensity ($c=0.60\pm0.14$). We find that the (projected) dimming areas are typically larger for off-limb observations (mean value of $1.24\pm1.23\times10^{11}$ km$^2$ against $3.51\pm0.71\times10^{10}$ km$^2$ for on-disk), with a correlation of $c=0.63\pm0.10$. This systematic difference can be explained by the (weaker) contributions to the dimming regions higher up in the corona, that cannot be detected in the on-disk observations. The off-limb dimming areas and brightnesses show very strong correlations with the CME mass ($c=0.82\pm0.06$ and $c=0.75\pm0.08$), whereas the dimming area and brightness change rate correlate with the CME speed ($c\sim0.6$). Our findings suggest that coronal dimmings have the potential to provide early estimates of mass and speed of Earth-directed CMEs, relevant for space weather forecasts, for satellite locations both at L1 and L5.

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