The RAS Discussion meeting on “A Comparison of Solar Eruption Models from Local and Global Perspectives: Observation and Theory” will be held at Burlington House on Friday 13 January 2012 from 10.30am. The deadline for the submission of abstracts will be 9 December 2011. Please note these dates in your diaries.

Further information can be found at http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/~bhk/ras2012.htm

In an area that has attracted considerable controversy and debate over many years, theoretical ideas are beginning to show signs of convergence, while an unparalleled array of observational assets in space, e.g. SOHO, Hinode, Stereo and more recently NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), is allowing increasingly stringent testing of the available models. Key questions centre on:

1. the role of magnetic flux ropes — do they form prior to the eruption through flux emergence or cancellation driven by active-region and global flows, or are they formed as a consequence;
2. the main driver of the eruption process – magnetic reconnection or ideal MHD process;
3. the importance of the helical kink and torus instabilities;
4. global coronal non-equilibrium and coronal mass ejection occurrence;
5. the role of magnetic rearrangement processes in the corona e.g. tether cutting, magnetic breakout — similarities and differences.

The study of solar eruptions is assuming a growing importance given the increased concern about the disruptive role of e.g. Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), in the near-earth environment. The meeting will seek to confront the leading theoretical ideas with the now substantial and expanding body of observational material that relates to the magnetic fields and plasmas that are studied both at the Sun’s surface and in its high atmosphere.