Speaker
Stefaan Poedts
Description
See the full Abstract at http://ocs.ciemat.es/EPS2018ABS/pdf/I1.401.pdf
Forecasting space weather: modern community simulation tools and
frameworks
S. Poedts1, J. Pomoell2
1
CmPA / KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200B, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
2
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Solar Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are large-scale eruptive events in which large amounts
of plasma (up to 1013-1016 g) and magnetic field are expelled into interplanetary space at very
high velocities (typ. 450 km/s, but up to 3000 km/s). When sampled in situ by a spacecraft in
the interplanetary medium, they are termed Interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs). They are
nowadays considered to be the major drivers of “space weather” and the associated
geomagnetic activity. The detectable space weather effects on Earth appear in a broad
spectrum of time and length scales and have various harmful effects for human health and for
our technologies on which we are ever more dependent. Severe conditions in space can
hinder or damage satellite operations as well as communication and navigation systems and
can even cause power grid outages leading to a variety of socio-economic losses.
Therefore, the International Space Environment Service (ISES) has set up a collaborative
network of 16 space weather service-providing warning centres around the globe, delivering
coordinated operational space weather services for the benefit of the extensive user
community. In order to improve the forecasts and predictions, NASA, ESA and other
agencies have set-up space weather modelling frameworks. We will discuss how such
frameworks enable to run and couple different space weather models, and to validate their
results by comparing them with those of other similar models and, where possible, to in-situ
data. Examples of such frameworks are the Community Coordinated Modeling Center
(CCMC, NASA GSFC), the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF) at the Center for
Space Environment Modeling (CSEM) at the University of Michigan, and ESA’s novel
Virtual Space Weather Modeling Centre (VSWMC) that is being developed. The latter one
includes space weather models that are geographically distributed and will be demonstrated.
