Progress in space weather
modeling in an operational
environment
WP1/SG1.3
Tsagouri I.1, A. Belehaki1, N. Bergeot2,3, C. Cid4, V. Delouille2,3 T.
Egorova5, N. Jakowski6, I. Kutiev7, A. Mikhailov8, M. Nunez9, M.
Pietrella10, A. Potapov11, R. Qahwaji12, Y. Tulunay13, P. Velinov7, A.
Viljanen14
1National
Observatory of Athens, Greece; 2Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence; 3Royal Observatory of
Belgium; 4Universidad de Alcala, Spain; 5Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos and World
Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC), Switzerland; 6Institute of Communications and Navigation, German
Aerospace Center; 7Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria; 8Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism,
Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation (IZMIRAN), Russia; 9Universidad de Málaga, Spain; 10Instituto
Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Italy; 11Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics SB RAS, RUSSIAN
FEDERATION; 12University of Bradford, UK; 13Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey; 14Finnish
Meteorological Institute
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Introduction
This work is the output from the SG 1.3 of the COST Action ES0803
“Improvement of operational models”
SG1.3 was formulated within
WP1 “Advanced methods to
model and predict space weather
effects” to
stimulate the effective upgrade
of the existing operational
modeling capabilities for space
weather purposes in Europe.
Identification of scientific advances
(SG1.1)
Space Weather model assessment
(SG1.2)
Review of existing SW resources
(SG2.1)
Recommendations of new SW products
(SG2.3)
This work aims to review the progress achieved by European research
teams involved in the COST Action ES0803 in space weather modeling
in an operational environment
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Introduction
Within SG1.3, operational space weather modeling capabilities were addressed in
terms of three types of space weather products: nowcasts, forecasts,
alerts/warnings
The upgrade was addressed in all possible means: from the improvement of
existing codes and algorithms driven by validation and/or verification tests to the
introduction and the implementation of new models.
Models that
i) run effectively in operational systems,
ii) are currently in the process of being transitioned to operations,
iii) models that could be considered as candidates for transition to operations by
the space weather community today.
Operational specifications: the input and output parameters (including the drivers),
its operational status and whether it is supported by a comprehensive validation
plan, in order to provide a solid basis for future developments.
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
1. Solar Weather Predictions
i. Bradford's Automated Solar Activity Prediction
System (ASAP) for solar flare predictions
(Colak & Qahwaji 2009): a real-time technology
for processing satellite images to predict
extreme solar flares.
 Development of novel machine-learning and featureselection algorithms (Ahmed et al. 2011)
 Comparison of the performance of established solar imaging
systems in processing SDO data (Verbeeck et al. 2011).
 Introduction of a fast fuzzy-based solar feature detection
system for processing SDO/AIA images using fuzzy rules to
detect coronal holes and active regions (Colak & Qahwaji
2011).
 New method for the 3D visualisation of active regions and sunspots that are detected from SOHO/MDI
magnetogram and continuum images (Colak et al. 2011).
SWENET: http://www.esa-spaceweather.net/sda/asap/
NASA’s CCMC: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html
The group website at http://spaceweather.inf.brad.ac.uk.
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
1. Solar Weather Predictions
ii. SPoCA (Spatial Possibilistic Clustering Algorithm)
-suite (ROB/SIDC) for Near Real Time detection
and tracking of Active Regions and Coronal Holes
on SDO-AIA data (Delouille et al, 2012): a set of
algorithms that is able to detect, extract, and
track active regions and coronal holes on EUV
images
 The SPoCA-suite is based on a fuzzy clustering
 The algorithm was applied on the archive of SOHO-EIT
data from 1997 till 2005 (Barra et al, 2009) and to a
SDO-AIA 19.5nm dataset ranging from June 2010 until
October 2011
http://sdoatsidc.oma.be/web/sdoatsidc/SoftwareSPoCA
LMSAL to produce entries to the Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase – HEK
(http://www.lmsal.com/hek/hek_isolsearch.html)
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
1. Solar Weather Predictions
iii. UMASEP: Forecasting SEP
events (Nunez 2011)
The UMASEP system (University of
Malaga) makes real-time predictions of:
i. The time interval within which the
integral proton flux is expected to
meet or surpass the SWPC SEP
threshold of J (E >10 MeV) = 10 pr cm2 sr-1 s-1,
ii. The intensity of the first hours of Solar
Energetic Proton (SEP) events
by analyzing flare and near-Earth space
environment data (soft X-ray, differential
and integral proton fluxes).
http://spaceweather.uma.es/forecastpanel.htm
European Space Weather Portal http://www.spaceweather.eu/en/forecast/uma_sep
NASA’s integrated Space Weather Analysis (iSWA) system : http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
2. Geomagnetic Predictions
i. The UAH-Space Weather Service – warnings for geomagnetic disturbances
(Aguado et al. 2010; Cid et al. 2008; Saiz et al. 2008)
A double service:
(1) warning of severe geomagnetic disturbances by analyzing IMF z-GSM component
(2) estimation of the time remaining for the magnetosphere to recover quiet time
conditions: theoretical expectations from the hyperbolic model
http://www.spaceweather.es/
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
2. Geomagnetic Predictions
1.2
1.0
RMS error in K units
ii. The Hybrid Dourbes K model for nowcasting
and forecasting the K index (Kutiev et al.
2009)
An empirical model that provides analytical
formulas for nowcasting and forecasting a
quantity, which is a proxy to the geomagnetic K
index. HDK is based on the combined use of
solar wind parameters and ground-based
magnetic data.
0.8
0.6
HDK model with 3-hours K
0.4
HDK model with 1-hour K
0.2
0.0
0
As input it uses the on-line K index obtained
from Dourbes magnetometer and solar wind
parameters from ACE satellite.
3
6
9
12
Lead time [hours]
15
Royal Meteorological Institute, Belgium
http://gpsweather.meteo.be/geomagnetism
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
3. Satellite Environment Predictions
i. Topside Sounder Model Profiler –
assisted Digisonde (TaD) for the
reconstruction of the electron
density profiles up to
geosynchronous heights (Kutiev et al.
2009, 2012; Belehaki et al., 2009,
2011, 2012).
The new technique connects topside
empirical modeling with Digisonde
data.
Examples available at
http://www.iono.noa.gr/ElectronDensity/EDProfile.php
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
4. Communication Predictions
Ionospheric nowcasting
products: The real-time
updating of the Simplified
Ionospheric Regional Model
(SIRMUP) (Zolesi et al. 2004;
Tsagouri et al. 2005)
Upgrades to improve the
method’s performance under
low solar activity conditions
(Tsagouri et al. 2009)
DIAS system: http://dias.space. noa.gr
GIFINT services: http://gifint.ifsi.rm.cnr.it/http://gifint.ifsi.rm.cnr.it/
SWENET: http://www.esa-spaceweather.net/sda/gifint/
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
4. Communication Predictions
Introduction and Implementation of
the Solar Wind driven
autoregression model for
Ionospheric short-term Forecast
(SWIF) (Tsagouri and Belehaki,
2008; Koutroumbas et al., 2008;
Tsagouri et al., 2009) to provide
ionospheric forecasts (foF2) up to 24 h
ahead and alerts and warnings (foF2
current/past values, IMF at L1)
Implementation of the
Geomagnetically Correlated
Autoregression Model - GCAM
(Muhtarov et al., 2002) to provide
foF2 forecasts (foF2 current and past
values, Ap)
Tsagouri 2011
DIAS system: http://dias.space. noa.gr
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
5. GNSS Predictions
Ionospheric monitoring based
on GNSS data at ROB
Since the end of 2011 VTEC
maps are produced every 15
minutes on 0.5°x0.5° grid with
a latency of 5-10 minutes after
the last observation (EUREF
Permanent Network, Bruyninx
et al., 2012).
• STEC projection by a thin layer
shell approximation located at
450 km (Bergeot et al., 2011)
• Spline interpolation in a grid of
0.5°x0.5°.
ROB: http://gnss.be/Atmospheric_Maps/ionospheric_maps.php
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
5. GNSS Predictions
TEC modeling activities at German Aerospace Center (DLR) in support of TEC
monitoring activities in SWACI
DLR is establishing an operational ionosphere
data service via the SWACI since 2006.
• A family of regional empirical TEC models
the Neustrelitz TEC Model (NTCM),to provide
climatological information on TEC behavior:
the NTCM‐EU for Europe, and the NTCM‐NP
and NTCM‐SP for North and South Pole
areas, respectively (e.g., Jakowski 1996;
Jakowski et al. 1998; Jakowski et al 2011b).
• Global TEC model (NTCM‐GL) introduced by
Jakowski et al. 2011.
• A simple model‐assisted forecasting
algorithm (Jakowski et al. 2011)
SWACI: http://swaciweb.dlr.de
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
6. Predicting the space weather effects in the earth’s atmosphere
Now- and Short-term Forecasting of the Chemical Composition of the Middle
Atmosphere
A climate-chemistry-ionosphere model (CICM) SOCOLi, based on a general
circulation model for complete representation of the chemistry of neutral and
ionized species in the atmosphere from the ground up to the mesopause
(Egorova et al., 2011)
The service of the middle atmosphere parameters nowcasting is fully
operational to provide online nowcast of the middle atmosphere every 2 hours
for O3, NO, NO2, OH, H2O volume mixing ratio, electron and total positive ion
density, temperature, air density and geopotential height. A short-term
forecasting up to 1 day is also available.
PMOD/WRC: http://projects.pmodwrc.ch/lyra/nowcast_data
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Operational modeling for nowcasting and forecasting
products and tools
7. Ground based predictions
Conversion of post-analysis GIC software to
real-time analyzers
The EU/FP7 project has the following objectives:
•To produce the first European-wide real-time prototype
forecast service of GIC in power systems
•To derive the first map of the statistical risk of large GIC
throughout
Recent developments include
Update of previously existing methods and software
to be capable for European-scale GIC modeling in the
spherical geometry.
Testing of the updated GIC software using real-time
IMAGE magnetometer data
EU/FP7 project EURISGIC
http://www.eurisgic.eu/
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
COST ES0803 Recommendations
Model name and
references
Observed input Output parameters /
products and services
Validation results
Prediction mode
(key references)
Solar weather predictions
ASAP
SOHO/MDI
Colak & Qahwaji 2009 (SDO/HMI)
Continuum and
Magnetogram
images
SPoCA-suite
SDO-AIA images
UMASEP
Núñez 2011
Flare and NearEarth space
environment
data
(Soft X-ray
Differential and
integral proton
fluxes)
Real-time prediction
for the occurrence of
flares
Verbeeck et al. 2011
Colak & Qahwaji 2011
Detect, extract, and
track active regions and
coronal holes on EUV
images
SEP warnings
Núñez 2011
Forecast
Nowcast
Forecast
i) time interval within
which the integral
proton flux is expected
to meet or surpass the
SWPC SEP threshold of
J (E >10 MeV) = 10 pr
cm-2 sr-1 s-1
ii) intensity of the first
hours of SEP events.
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
COST ES0803 Recommendations
Geomagnetic predictions
UAH-SWS
Saiz et al. 2008
Aguado et al. 2010
HDK
Kutiev et al. 2009a
IMF-Bz
component
Dst index
Ground-based
magnetic data
i) Warning of severe
geomagnetic
disturbances
ii) Estimate of the time
remaining for the
magnetosphere to
recover quiet time
conditions.
K index
Kutiev et al. 2009a
Forecast
Nowcast and Forecast
Solar wind data
Satellite environment predictions
TaD
F10.7 index
Kutiev et al. 2009b
Kp index
Digisondederived
bottomside
electron density
profiles
Reconstructed electron Belehaki et al. 2009
density profiles up to
Belehaki et al. 2011
geosynchronous
heights over Digisonde
locations
Nowcast
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
COST ES0803 Recommendations
Communication predictions
SIRMUP
R12
Zolesi et al. 2004
Tsagouri et al. 2009a
Real-time foF2
observations
IMF observations foF2 for single locations Tsagouri et al. 2009b
at L1 point
Tsagouri 2011
Regional foF2
foF2
forecasting maps
observations
Alerts/Warnings
SWIF
Tsagouri et al. 2009b
GCAM
Muhtarov et al. 2002
Tsagouri 2011
Ap index
IFERM
Pietrella 2012
ap(τ)
foF2
observations
foF2
Regional nowcasting
foF2 maps
Zolesi et al. 2004
Tsagouri et al. 2005
Tsagouri et al. 2009a
Nowcast
Forecast
foF2 for single locations Tsagouri et al. 2009b
Tsagouri 2011
Regional foF2
forecasting maps
Forecast
Regional foF2
forecasting maps over
Europe
Forecast
Pietrella 2012
NPDM
F10.7
Hoque & Jakowski 2011
NmF2 at selected time Hoque & Jakowski 2011
and location
Nowcast and forecast
NPHM
hmF2 at selected time Hoque and Jakowski
and location
2012
Nowcast and forecast
F10.7
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
COST ES0803 Recommendations
GNSS predictions
VTEC- model assisted
monitoring at ROB
Bergeot et al. 2011
NTCM-GL
Model assisted TEC
Monitoring (5 min
update)
NRT GNSS data
VTEC maps
European area
VTEC disturbances
maps
TEC at selected time
and location
F10.7
(current or
predicted values
depending on
the prediction
mode)
NRT GNSS data NRT TEC maps
Global
European area
Model assisted TEC
Forecast (1h)
NRT GNSS data
Global
European area
NRT TEC map 1h
forecast
Nowcast
Jakowski et al. 2011a,b
Nowcast and forecast
Jakowski, 1996,
Jakowski et al. 1998
Gulyaeva & Jakowski,
1999
Belehaki et al. 2003
Feltens et al. 2011
Immediate control at
the end of the forecast
interval
Nowcast
Forecast
Jakowski et al. 2011b
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
COST ES0803 Recommendations
Space weather effects in the Earth’s atmosphere
CICM SOCOLi
NRT SSI data
O3, NO, NO2, OH, H2O volume
mixing ratio,
electron and total positive ion
density, temperature, air density
and geopotential height
Charge Z of the
galactic cosmic
ray particle
Atmospheric cut-offs for the
corresponding altitude;
Egorova et al. 2011
CORIMIA
Velinov et al.,
2012a,b,c
Galactic cosmic
ray spectrum
parameters
CORIAEC
Tonev & Velinov, 2011
Electron production rate for the
cusp region and corresponding
altitude;
Electron production rate for the
corresponding altitude and
geomagnetic latitude;
Distributions of electric field,
Solar wind
plasma density, potential, and
current density,
velocity,
Altitudes: 0 - 100 km,
IMF: By, Bz,
Latitudes: above 45
Nowcast and
Forecast
Velinov et al.,
2012a
Velinov et al.,
2012b
Velinov et al.,
2012c
Nowcast
Tonev & Velinov,
2011
Nowcast
Ground based predictions
Real time GIC
analyzers
RT solar wind
data
GIC
Viljanen et al. 2006 Nowcast
Ground
magnetic field
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Discussion & Conclusions
•
Considerable progress in operational space weather modeling has been recorded
in the last decade in Europe and COST ES0803 activities hold a key role in recent
developments
•
Empirical modeling and data driven techniques are still the main drivers for the
development of operational models and tools  routine observations from both
the space and the ground as well as indices and proxies are of essential
importance for the development, validation/verification, maintenance and
improvement of space weather operations  the continued improvement and
development of space weather observing capabilities could result in better
coverage, timeliness, and accuracy of space weather products and services.
•
A strong requirement for the successful transition from research to operational
models is the systematic validation of the models’ performance. COST ES0803
spent appreciable effort to put the systematic validation of the European space
weather models into discussion and to mobilize the European community
towards this direction and this effort should be continued.
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012
Thank you!
ESWW9 S5: COST ES0803 Final Results, 5-9 November 2012