  Sequences of line-of-sight (LOS) magnetograms recorded by the
Michelson-Doppler Imager are used to quantitatively characterize photospheric
magnetic structure and evolution in three active regions that rotated across
the Sun's disk during the Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI), in an attempt to
relate the photospheric magnetic properties of these active regions to flares
and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Several approaches are used in our analysis,
on scales ranging from whole active regions, to magnetic features, to
supergranular scales, and, finally, to individual pixels. We calculated several
parameterizations of magnetic structure and evolution that have previously been
associated with flare and CME activity, including total unsigned magnetic flux,
magnetic flux near polarity inversion lines, amount of cancelled flux, the
"proxy Poynting flux," and helicity flux. To catalog flare events, we used
flare lists derived from both GOES and RHESSI observations. By most such
measures, AR 10988 should have been the most flare- and CME-productive active
region, and AR 10989 the least. Observations, however, were not consistent with
this expectation: ARs 10988 and 10989 produced similar numbers of flares, and
AR 10989 also produced a few CMEs. These results highlight present limitations
of statistics-based flare and CME forecasting tools that rely upon
line-of-sight photospheric magnetic data alone.
