THE ENERGY TO POWER SOLAR ENERGETIC EVENTS IS DERIVED FROM THE RELATIVELY SLOW EVOLUTION OF THE PHOTOSPHERIC MAGNETIC FIELD. YET THE CHROMOSPHERIC AND CORONAL MAGNETIC FIELD AS INFERRED BY DYNAMIC BRIGHT CORONAL LOOP STRUCTURES AND RAPIDLY APPEARING CHROMOSPHERIC BRIGHT POINTS CAN EVOLVE VERY QUICKLY THROUGH MAGNETIC RECONNECTION EVENTS. OBSERVATIONAL CASE STUDIES AND MODEL EFFORTS HINT AT INCREASED LEVELS OF MAGNETIC REORGANIZATION AND RECONNECTION DYNAMICS AND TEMPERATURE VARIATION OCCURRING IN THESE ATMOSPHERIC LAYERS PRIOR TO LARGER ENERGETIC EVENTS SUCH AS SOLAR FLARES AND CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS. THE GOAL OF THIS PROPOSAL IS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE INITIATION OF THESE SUDDEN ENERGY RELEASES (SOLAR FLARES CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS) AND THUS SET EMPIRICALLY-DERIVED STANDARDS FOR PRE-EVENT CHROMOSPHERIC AND CORONAL BEHAVIOR TO WHICH PHYSICAL MODELS THEN NEED TO SPEAK. THE OBJECTIVES TOWARD THIS GOAL CENTER ON A STATISTICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE BEHAVIOR OF THE SOLAR CHROMOSPHERE AND CORONA IN THE HOURS BEFORE ENERGETIC EVENTS. THIS WILL BE ACHIEVED BY QUANTITATIVELY CHARACTERIZING DYNAMIC AND HEATING EVENTS IN THE SOLAR CHROMOSPHERE AND THE BEHAVIOR OF CORONAL STRUCTURE TEMPERATURE AND INTENSITY. WE PROPOSE TO ANALYZE A LARGE SAMPLE OF EVENTS AND CONTROLS WITH A STATISTICAL CLASSIFIER INVOKED IN TWO COMPLEMENTARY ANALYSIS MODES TO SPECIFICALLY IDENTIFY BEHAVIOR UNIQUE TO THE PRE-EVENT EPOCH. THE SOLE DATA SOURCE IS THE ATMOSPHERIC IMAGING ASSEMBLY (AIA) ON BOARD THE SOLAR DYNAMICS OBSERVATORY (SDO) SPECIFICALLY ARCHIVE DATA IN MULTIPLE WAVELENGTH BANDS. SUB-IMAGE EXTRACTIONS OF AIA TIME-SERIES FULL DISK DATA BASED ON HMI ACTIVE-REGIONPATCH (HARP) DEFINITIONS WILL CREATE AIA ACTIVE REGION PATCHES (AARPS) TO ALLOW TENABLE DATA REQUIREMENTS. PRE-EVENT DYNAMICS WILL BE CHARACTERIZED THROUGH THE PARAMETRIZATION OF BRIGHTNESS IMAGES RUNNING-DIFFERENCE IMAGES DEM ANALYSIS - AND THEIR TEMPORAL EVOLUTION - USING BOTH PUBLICLY-AVAILABLE ALGORITHMS AND ALREADY-DEVELOPED CODE. ANALYSIS WILL INCLUDE SAMPLES OF BOTH EVENT-PRODUCING AND EVENT-QUIET TARGET REGIONS AND EPOCHS FOR "CONTROL" DATA. ALL PARAMETERS WILL UNDERGO STATISTICAL EVALUATION USING THE NWRA CLASSIFICATION INFRASTRUCTURE (NCI) BASED ON NON-PARAMETRIC DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS (NPDA). THIS PROPOSED PROJECT INVESTIGATES THE BEHAVIOR OF THE SOLAR ATMOSPHERE PRIOR TO SOLAR ENERGETIC EVENTS WITH A FOCUS ON THE DYNAMICS AND HEATING OF THE SOLAR CORONA AND CHROMOSPHERE; IT IS BASED ON POSITIVE INITIAL RESULTS FROM PRELIMINARY RESEARCH CONDUCTED UNDER EARLIER NON-NASA FUNDING. THE RESULTS WILL PROVIDE CONSTRAINTS FOR MODELS AND THE DERIVED DATA PRODUCTS INCLUDING A NEW TIME-SERIES "AARP" AIA DATA SERIES WILL BE AVAILABLE TO THE COMMUNITY. THIS PROJECT IS DIRECTLY RELEVANT TO THE NASA HELIOPHYSICS RESEARCH PROGRAM: IT ADDRESSES THE NASA STRATEGIC GOALS FOR HELIOPHYSICS RESEARCH PROGRAM SCIENCE GOAL #1 TO "EXPLORE THE PHYSICAL PROCESSES IN THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT FROM THE SUN TO THE EARTH [...]" AND GOAL #3 TO "DEVELOP THE KNOWLEDGE AND CAPABILITY TO DETECT AND PREDICT EXTREME CONDITIONS IN SPACE [...]". THIS PROPOSED RESEARCH WILL CONTRIBUTE TOWARD SDO'S MISSION SCIENCE GOAL #7 TO INVESTIGATE "WHEN WILL ACTIVITY OCCUR AND IS IT POSSIBLE TO MAKE ACCURATE AND RELIABLE FORECASTS OF SPACE WEATHER [...]?" IT IS RELEVANT TO GOAL #3 "HOW DOES MAGNETIC RECONNECTION ON SMALL SCALES REORGANIZE THE LARGE-SCALE FIELD TOPOLOGY AND CURRENT SYSTEMS?" AND GOAL #5 "WHAT MAGNETIC FIELD CONFIGURATIONS LEAD TO THE CMES FILAMENT ERUPTIONS AND FLARES THAT PRODUCE ENERGETIC PARTICLES AND RADIATION?" ADDITIONALLY THE PROPOSED RESEARCH ADDRESSES TWO HIGH LEVEL SCIENCE GOALS FROM THE HELIOPHYSICS DECADAL SURVEY NAMELY #1 "DETERMINE THE ORIGINS OF THE SUN'S ACTIVITY AND PREDICT THE VARIATIONS IN THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT" AND #4 "DISCOVER AND CHARACTERIZE FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES THAT OCCUR BOTH WITHIN THE HELIOSPHERE AND THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE."