Abstract
We have improved considerably our scientific understanding of the key solar drivers of Space Weather, i.e., Coronal Mass Ejections, flares, in the last 20+ years thanks to a plethora of space missions and modeling advances. Yet, a major breakthrough in assessing the geo-effectiveness of a given CME and associated phenomena still escapes us, holding back actionable medium-term (up to 7 days) forecasting of Space Weather. Why is that? I adopt a two-pronged approach to search for answers. First, I assess the last 20+ years of research on solar drivers by identifying lessons-learned and paradigm shifts in our view of solar activity, always in relation to Space Weather concerns. Then, I review the state of key observation-based quantities used in forecasting to isolate the choke points and research gaps that limit medium-term forecasting performance. Finally, I outline a path forward along three vectors—breakthrough capabilities, geo-effective potential, and actionable forecast—with the strongest potential to improve space weather forecasting horizon and robustness.
Highlights
The Sun is a cauldron of activity
In analogy to terrestrial weather, we denote as Space Weather (SWx) geospace phenomena that occur on relatively short timescales and refer to longer timescale phenomena as Space Climate
The rise of SWx to societal prominence has been largely fueled by the great advances in our capabilities to observe the SunEarth system in the last 25 years, starting with the launch of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO; Domingo et al, 1995) mission in 1995, followed by the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE; Stone et al, 1998) in 1997 and the arrival of the (Wind; Acuña et al, 1995) spacecraft at the SunEarth L1 Lagrange point and culminating with the launch of the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO; Kaiser et al, 2008) and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO; Pesnell et al, 2012) in 2007 and 2010, respectively
Summary
The Sun is a cauldron of activity. Its radiative, magnetic and plasma outputs vary at all timescales, from seconds to years to decades. I focus on forecasting terrestrial SWx over medium timescales (from hours to days in advance) and review the role of solar drivers on improving the forecast accuracy. The paper begins with a short review of important lessonslearned from recent missions (section 2) and proceeds to identify three key paradigm shifts in our view of solar activity and in the interpretation of the observations (section 3) It discusses the choke points in forecasting of several key observational parameters and the research gaps from which they arise (section 4). This information could assist in targeting research or hardware development efforts that can lead to robust improvements in SWx forecasting accuracy within the decade or so
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