An operational method for shock arrival time prediction by one‐dimensional CESE‐HD solar wind model

Abstract

With the purpose of operational real‐time forecasting for arrival times of flare/coronal mass ejection associated shocks in the vicinity of the Earth, a one‐dimensional hydrodynamic (HD) shock propagation model is established by a novel numerical scheme, the space‐time conservation element and solution element (CESE) method. The required observational data inputs to this new one‐dimensional CESE‐HD model are the low coronal radio Type II drift speed, the duration estimation, and the background solar wind speed for a solar eruptive event. Applying this model to 137 solar events during the period of February 1997 to August 2002, it is found that our model could be practically equivalent to the STOA, ISPM, HAFv.2, and SPM models in forecasting the shock arrival time. The absolute error in the transit time from our model is not larger than those of the other four models for the same set of events. These results may demonstrate the potential capability of our model in terms of improving real‐time forecasting because the CESE method can be extended to three‐dimensional magnetohydrodynamics (3D‐MHD) from the solar photosphere to any heliospheric position.