State of the Art in Space Weather Services and Forecasting

Abstract

Space weather services are an international endeavour co-ordinated by the International Space Environment Service (ISES), which sanctions nine Regional Warning Centers positioned around the globe. In the USA, the NOAA Space Environment Center’s Space Weather Operations (SWO) in Boulder plays a special role as “World Warning Agency”, acting as a hub for communication. The SWO is a joint operation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Air Force, that is staffed 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. The Sun is a focus of attention and is monitored in a number of wavelengths (optical and radio) by ground-based observatories around the world and instruments in space. In particular, solar monitors include the X-ray sensors on all NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), and optical instruments onboard interplanetary spacecraft, most notably the Japanese YOHKOH and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration/European Space Agency (NASA/ESA) SOHO spacecraft. Also of primary importance, the interplanetary medium is monitored by instruments on NASA’s ACE and WIND spacecraft. Energetic solar particles are observed on GOES, ACE and WIND. The geomagnetic field is observed by a network of ground-based observatories, and by magnetometers onboard GOES. All in all, over 2000 data streams received daily contribute to the assessment of the space environment. If the space environment is disturbed beyond preset thresholds, alerts are issued. There are alerts for solar X-ray events and energetic particle events, extraordinary radio sweeps and bursts, and geomagnetic storms. In 1999, SWO began issuing warnings (short-term, high-confidence predictions) of imminent geomagnetic activity a few minutes to a few hours in advance. Forecasts are made daily for each of the next three days for the probability of energetic flares, proton events, and geomagnetic storms, the expected value of the solar flux at a wavelength of 10.7 cm and two geomagnetic indices. transition of new models and data into operations. In addition, SEC works with value-added vendors who use their data and products to develop commercial space weather products.