ON THE SOLAR-FLARE MYTH POSTULATED BY GOSLING

The 'Solar Flare Myth' postulated by Gosling (1993) is a misunderstand ing. It is true that most sources of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can not be classified as flares in the common old sense of that word. Howe ver, just for this reason the term 'eruptive flare' has been introduce d for all solar active phenomena in which an opening of field lines is involved and which lead to magnetic-field and mass ejections resultin g in a CME. The process is essentially the same in all events, irrespe ctive of whether only a disparition brusque without any chromospheric brightening or a major two-ribbon flare is involved in it; the only di fference is the different strength of the magnetic field in which the process was accomplished. The major two-ribbon (cosmic-ray) flares cle arly represent the most energetic events of this kind, and, therefore, it is very misleading to claim that solar flares in general are pheno mena with very little importance for solar-terrestrial physics.