Empirical Relationship Between CME Parameters and Geo-effectiveness of Halo CMEs in the Rising Phase of Solar Cycle 24 (2011 – 2013)

We analyzed the physical characteristics of 40 halo coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and their geo-effective parameters observed during the period 2011 to 2013 in the rising phase of Solar Cycle 24. Out of all halo CMEs observed by SOHO/LASCO, we selected 40 halo CMEs and investigated their geomagnetic effects. In particular, we estimated the CME direction parameter (DP) from coronagraph observations, and we obtained the geomagnetic storm disturbance index (Dst) value corresponding to each event by following certain criteria. We studied the correlation between near-Sun parameters of CMEs such as speed and DP with Dst. For this new set of events in the current solar cycle, the relations are found to be consistent with those of previous studies. When the direction parameter increases, the Dst value also increases for symmetrical halo CME ejections. If DP>0.6, these events produce high Dst values. In addition, the intensity of geomagnetic storm calculated using an empirical model with the near-Sun parameters is nearly equal to the observed values. More importantly, we find that the geo-effectiveness in the rising phase of Solar Cycle 24 is much weaker than that in Cycle 23.