Authors: Piyush Agrawal (Southwest Research Institute), Lisa Upton (Southwest Research Institute)

Understanding the motions of solar photospheric magnetic fields is crucial, as they are a vital ingredient needed in solar dynamo models to explain and predict the solar cycle. These motions are governed by axisymmetric differential rotation and meridional circulation, as well as the turbulent convective flows associated with granular and supergranular motions. We will make robust axisymmetric flow measurements, using a pattern tracking algorithm that performs cross-correlation analysis on line-of-sight SDO/HMI magnetograms. These magnetograms have a pixel size of 0.5” and are taken at a cadence of 12min. Making these flow measurements is difficult, especially for the meridional flow, which is a few orders of magnitude smaller than the fastest convective flows. Flow measurements are averaged over each Carrington rotation (~1 month) to reduce the noise. Our goal is to improve upon existing axisymmetric flow measurements with a particular focus at higher latitudes (> 60 degrees). The high latitude meridional circulation is of particular interest, due to the currently debated polar counter-cells. We discuss the improvements made to the current method and the parameters that most affect the flow measurements. Finally, we will show the improved flow measurements and how they compare to the previous results.