Space Weather Services Research Articles

International Collaboration Within the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space: Framework for International Space Weather Services (2018–2030)

AbstractSevere space weather is a global threat that requires a coordinated global response. In this Commentary, we review some previous successful actions supporting international coordination between member states in the United Nations (UN) context and make recommendations for a future approach. Member states of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) recently approved new guidelines related to space weather under actions for the long‐term sustainability of outer space activities. This is to be followed by UN Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE)+50, which will take place in June 2018 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the first UNISPACE I held in Vienna in 1968. Expanded international coordination has been proposed within COPUOS under the UNISPACE+50 process, where priorities for 2018–2030 are to be defined under Thematic Priority 4: Framework for International Space Weather Services. The COPUOS expert group for space weather has proposed the creation of a new International Coordination Group for Space Weather be implemented as part of this thematic priority. This coordination group would lead international coordination between member states and across international stakeholders, monitor progress against implementation of guidelines and best practices, and promote coordinated global efforts in the space weather ecosystem spanning observations, research, modeling, and validation, with the goal of improved space weather services. We argue that such improved coordination at the international policy level is essential for increasing global resiliency against the threats arising from severe space weather.

Space Weather Service for Chinese Space Science Satellites

Strategic Priority Research Program on Space Science has gained remarkable achievements. Space Environment Prediction Center (SEPC) affiliated with the National Space Science Center (NSSC) has been providing space weather services and helps secure space missions. Presently, SEPC is capable to offer a variety of space weather services covering many phases of space science missions including planning, design, launch, and orbital operation. The service packages consist of space weather forecasts, warnings, and effect analysis that can be utilized to avoid potential space weather hazard or reduce the damage caused by space storms, space radiation exposure for example. Extensive solar storms that occurred over Chinese Ghost Festival (CGF) in September 2017 led to a large enhancement of the solar energetic particle flux at 1 AU, which affected the near Earth radiation environment and brought great threat to orbiting satellites. Based on the space weather service by SEPC, satellite ground support groups collaborating with the space Tracking, Telemetering and Command system (TT&C) team were able to take immediate measures to react to the CGF solar storm event.

A new electron density model of the plasmasphere for operational applications and services

The Earth's plasmasphere contributes essentially to total electron content (TEC) measurements from ground or satellite platforms. Furthermore, as an integral part of space weather, associated plasmaspheric phenomena must be addressed in conjunction with ionosphere weather monitoring by operational space weather services. For supporting space weather services and mitigation of propagation errors in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) applications we have developed the empirical Neustrelitz plasmasphere model (NPSM). The model consists of an upper L shell dependent part and a lower altitude dependent part, both described by specific exponential decays. Here the McIllwain parameter L defines the geomagnetic field lines in a centered dipole model for the geomagnetic field. The coefficients of the developed approaches are successfully fitted to numerous electron density data derived from dual frequency GPS measurements on-board the CHAMP satellite mission from 2000 to 2005. The data are utilized for fitting up to the L shell L = 3 because a previous validation has shown a good agreement with IMAGE/RPI measurements up to this value. Using the solar radio flux index F10.7 as the only external parameter, the operation of the model is robust, with 40 coefficients fast and sufficiently accurate to be used as a background model for estimating TEC or electron density profiles in near real time GNSS applications and services. In addition to this, the model approach is sensitive to ionospheric coupling resulting in anomalies such as the Nighttime Winter Anomaly and the related Mid-Summer Nighttime Anomaly and even shows a slight plasmasphere compression of the dayside plasmasphere due to solar wind pressure. Modelled electron density and TEC values agree with estimates reported in the literature in similar cases.

Histogram-based ionogram displays and their application to autoscaling

A simple method is described for displaying and auto scaling the basic ionogram parameters foF2 and h’F2 as well as some additional layer parameters from digital ionograms. The technique employed is based on forming frequency and height histograms in each ionogram. This technique has now been applied specifically to ionograms produced by the IPS5D ionosonde developed and operated by the Australian Space Weather Service (SWS). The SWS ionograms are archived in a cleaned format and readily available from the SWS internet site. However, the method is applicable to any ionosonde which produces ionograms in a digital format at a useful signal-to-noise level. The most novel feature of the technique for autoscaling is its simplicity and the avoidance of the mathematical imaging and line fitting techniques often used. The program arose from the necessity to display many days of ionogram output to allow the location of specific types of ionospheric event such as ionospheric storms, travelling ionospheric disturbances and repetitive ionospheric height changes for further investigation and measurement. Examples and applications of the method are given including the removal of sporadic E and spread F.

The Mexican Early Warning System for Space Weather

AbstractEarly Warning of Space Weather phenomena is one of the most important products produced by Mexican Space Weather Service (SCiESMEX). The aim is to deliver a verified warning to Mexican National Center for Disaster Prevention (CENAPRED) as well as to general public in near-real time automatically. First, the international pubic warning (or alert) is produced by Space Weather Prediction Center of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S.A. Further, the alert is received by SCiESMEX system, decodified, translated in Spanish and put in the context of local current conditions. The alerts are transformed and validated in agreement to Mexican policies of civil protection and CENAPRED protocols. The automatic system segments the information and delivers the corresponding web- page-alerts, emails, twits, facebook messages and SMS. The latency of the alert is 5 minutes. The code is running since January of 2015 without major interruptions.

SWERTO: a Regional Space Weather Service

AbstractThe Space WEeatherR TOr vergata university (SWERTO) service is an operational Space Weather service based on multi-instrument data from space-based (PAMELA, ALTEA) and ground-based (IBIS, MOTHII) instruments. The service (spaceweather.roma2.infn.it) is located at the Physics Department of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy (UTOV) and will allow registered users to access scientific data from instrumentation available to UTOV researchers through national and international collaborations. It will provide intuitive software for the selection and visualization of such data and results from prototype forecasting codes for flare probability and Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) fluxes. The service is designed to promote access to technical and scientific information by the regional industries which employ technologies vulnerable to Space Weather effects. Basically, SWERTO aims to: i) design and construct a data-base with particle fluxes recorded by space missions and spectro-polarimetric measurements of the solar photosphere; ii) allow an Open Access to the data-base and to prototype forecasts to regional industries involved and exposed to Space Weather effects; iii) implement a tutorial and a FAQ section to help decision makers to became aware of and evaluate the risks from Space Weather events; iv) outreach and customer products. SWERTO has been financed by the Regione Lazio FILAS-RU-2014-1028 grant.

The Forecast of Space Weather According to Ground-Based Observatories

AbstractThe space weather forecast can be conditionally divided into three components: 1) The forecast of recurrent slowly varying events which are associated with the topology of a large-scale magnetic field; 2) Evaluation of fluxes of ultraviolet and extreme radiation; 3) Detecting and determining the parameters of eruptions and CME. All three components can be observed and evaluated by ground-based telescopes. In this article we describe the telescopes of the space weather service in Kislovodsk Mountain Astronomical Station. Telescope-magnetograph STOP for the forecast of recurrent events and patrol telescopes-spectrographs for detecting CME and estimating hard radiation fluxes.

Virtual Planetary Space Weather Services offered by the Europlanet H2020 Research Infrastructure

Under Horizon 2020, the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure (EPN2020-RI) will include an entirely new Virtual Access Service, “Planetary Space Weather Services” (PSWS) that will extend the concepts of space weather and space situational awareness to other planets in our Solar System and in particular to spacecraft that voyage through it. PSWS will make twelve new services accessible to the research community, space agencies, and industrial partners planning for space missions. These services will in particular be dedicated to the following key planetary environments: Mars (in support of the NASA MAVEN and European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express and ExoMars missions), comets (building on the outstanding success of the ESA Rosetta mission), and outer planets (in preparation for the ESA JUpiter ICy moon Explorer mission), and one of these services will aim at predicting and detecting planetary events like meteor showers and impacts in the Solar System. This will give the European planetary science community new methods, interfaces, functionalities and/or plugins dedicated to planetary space weather as well as to space situational awareness in the tools and models available within the partner institutes. A variety of tools (in the form of web applications, standalone software, or numerical models in various degrees of implementation) are available for tracing propagation of planetary and/or solar events through the Solar System and modelling the response of the planetary environment (surfaces, atmospheres, ionospheres, and magnetospheres) to those events. But these tools were not originally designed for planetary event prediction and space weather applications. PSWS will provide the additional research and tailoring required to apply them for these purposes. PSWS will be to review, test, improve and adapt methods and tools available within the partner institutes in order to make prototype planetary event and space weather services operational in Europe at the end of 2017. To achieve its objectives PSWS will use a few tools and standards developed for the Astronomy Virtual Observatory (VO). This paper gives an overview of the project together with a few illustrations of prototype services based on VO standards and protocols.

Study of ionospheric scintillation characteristics in Australia with GNSS during 2011–2015

Ionospheric scintillation has a great impact on radio propagation and electronic system performance, thus is extensively studied currently. The influence of ionospheric scintillation on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is particularly evident, making GNSS an effective method to study characteristics of scintillation. In this paper, spatial-temporal statistical features of ionospheric scintillation are intensively studied based on GNSS scintillation data provided by Space Weather Service (SWS) in Australia. Most scintillation data are measured by observation stations in Australia region during 2011–2015. A data processing and analyzing framework is proposed to investigate scintillation features in this paper. General pictures of amplitude scintillation activities observed at different stations are first explored. It is found that scintillation activity presents a manifest seasonal variation at most stations during the researched time spans. The probabilities of amplitude scintillation of different intensities are also evaluated. In the experiment to investigate signal amplitude distributions, Nakagami-m and α-μ distribution models are applied to describe the measured amplitude distribution curves. The result shows that the α-μ model provides a more approximate description for the measured distributions. Kurtosis and information entropy are also calculated to further verify this conclusion. The proposed study is of great significance for a better understanding of ionospheric scintillation in the region of Australia, and for discovering the effects of scintillation on GNSS signals.

Mexican Space Weather Service (SCiESMEX)

AbstractLegislative modifications of the General Civil Protection Law in Mexico in 2014 included specific references to space hazards and space weather phenomena. The legislation is consistent with United Nations promotion of international engagement and cooperation on space weather awareness, studies, and monitoring. These internal and external conditions motivated the creation of a space weather service in Mexico. The Mexican Space Weather Service (SCiESMEX in Spanish) (www.sciesmex.unam.mx) was initiated in October 2014 and is operated by the Institute of Geophysics at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). SCiESMEX became a Regional Warning Center of the International Space Environment Services (ISES) in June 2015. We present the characteristics of the service, some products, and the initial actions for developing a space weather strategy in Mexico. The service operates a computing infrastructure including a web application, data repository, and a high‐performance computing server to run numerical models. SCiESMEX uses data of the ground‐based instrumental network of the National Space Weather Laboratory (LANCE), covering solar radio burst emissions, solar wind and interplanetary disturbances (by interplanetary scintillation observations), geomagnetic measurements, and analysis of the total electron content (TEC) of the ionosphere (by employing data from local networks of GPS receiver stations).

The National Space Weather Program: Two decades of interagency partnership and accomplishments

AbstractThis paper describes the development of the United States National Space Weather Program (NSWP) from early interests in space environmental phenomena and their impact through the culmination of the program in 2015. Over its 21 year run, the NSWP facilitated substantial improvements in the capabilities of Federal Space Weather services and fostered broad and enduring partnerships with industry and the academic community within the U.S. and internationally. Under the management of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research a coalition of 10 federal agencies worked together from 1994 to 2015 to advance the national space weather enterprise. The paper describes key events and accomplishments of the NSWP interagency partnership while recognizing the great achievements made by the individual agencies. In order to provide context, the paper also discusses several important events outside the NSWP purview. Some of these external events influenced the course of the NSWP, while others were encouraged by the NSWP partnership. Following the establishment of the Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation Task Force of the National Science and Technology Council in the White House and the deactivation of the NSWP Council, the agencies now play a supporting role in the national effort as the federal engagement in the National Space Weather Partnership graduates to a higher level.

Services for Space Mission Support Within The ESA Space Situational Awareness Space Weather Service Network

Spacecraft operations are by nature complex and every satellite's operational environment poses a range of potential risks, often a unique combination for a given orbit. The implications of interruptions of operations, data transfer and service provision, are serious, both in terms of cost and capability, thus it is imperative to mitigate against all operational risks to the fullest extent possible. In the frame of its Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme, the European Space Agency (ESA) is establishing a Space Weather Service Network to support end-users, in a wide range of affected sectors, in mitigating the effects of space weather on their systems, reducing costs and improving reliability. This service network is currently in a test and validation phase and encourages user engagement and feedback. The network is organised around five Expert Service Centres (ESCs) focusing on Solar Weather, Heliospheric Weather, Space Radiation Environment, Ionospheric Weather and Geomagnetic Conditions. Each ESC is connecting different expert groups, federating their space weather products, and ensuring the quality and consistency of the provided information. The service network also includes a central Data Centre and the SSA Space Weather Coordination Centre (SSCC). In this presentation we give an overview of the current status of the network (http://swe.ssa.esa.int/), the targeted end-user groups and Expert Service Centres with a focus on the space community.

Performance of GPS slant total electron content and IRI-Plas-STEC for days with ionospheric disturbance

Total Electron Content (TEC) is an important observable parameter of the ionosphere which forms the main source of error for space based navigation and positioning systems. Since the deployment of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), cost-effective estimation of TEC between the earth based receiver and Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites became the major means of investigation of local and regional disturbance for earthquake precursor and augmentation system studies. International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) extended to plasmasphere (IRI-Plas) is the most developed ionospheric and plasmaspheric climatic model that provides hourly, monthly median of electron density distribution globally. Recently, IONOLAB group (www.ionolab.org) has presented a new online space weather service that can compute slant TEC (STEC) on a desired ray path for a given date and time using IRI-Plas model (IRI-Plas-STEC). In this study, the performance of the model based STEC is compared with GPS-STEC computed according to the estimation method developed by the IONOLAB group and includes the receiver bias as IONOLAB-BIAS (IONOLAB-STEC). Using Symmetric Kullback–Leibler Distance (SKLD), Cross Correlation (CC) coefficient and the metric norm (L2N) to compare IRI-Plas-STEC and IONOLAB-STEC for the month of October 2011 over the Turkish National Permanent GPS Network (TNPGN-Active), it has been observed that SKLD provides a good indicator of disturbance for both earthquakes and geomagnetic storms.

Comparison of space weather services: information systems, activity and forecasts

Comparison of space weather services: information systems, activity and forecasts

Operational Space Weather Services in National Space Science Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Operational Space Weather Services in National Space Science Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Online, automatic, ionospheric maps: IRI-PLAS-MAP

Global and regional behavior of the ionosphere is an important component of space weather. The peak height and critical frequency of ionospheric layer for the maximum ionization, namely, hmF2 and foF2, and the total number of electrons on a ray path, Total Electron Content (TEC), are the most investigated and monitored values of ionosphere in capturing and observing ionospheric variability. Typically ionospheric models such as International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) can provide electron density profile, critical parameters of ionospheric layers and Ionospheric electron content for a given location, date and time. Yet, IRI model is limited by only foF2 STORM option in reflecting the dynamics of ionospheric/plasmaspheric/geomagnetic storms. Global Ionospheric Maps (GIM) are provided by IGS analysis centers for global TEC distribution estimated from ground-based GPS stations that can capture the actual dynamics of ionosphere and plasmasphere, but this service is not available for other ionospheric observables. In this study, a unique and original space weather service is introduced as IRI-PLAS-MAP from www.ionolab.org. IRI-PLAS-MAP assimilates the GIM-TEC values into IRI Extended to Plasmasphere (IRI-Plas) model for a user defined region, date and time period, thus integrating the ionospheric dynamics into the model. The user can choose to compute IRI-PLAS-TEC, -foF2, -hmF2 or the W-index (an indicator of ionospheric disturbance) by assimilating either one-hour time resolution UHRG GIM or two-hour time resolution JPL GIM. IRI-PLAS-MAP can provide hmF2, foF2, TEC and W-index maps in both IGS standard IONEX text file format and graphical format. The desired IRI-PLAS-MAPs can be downloaded through the link that is sent to the user e-mail when the files are ready. This unique service allows the users from all disciplines to observe, model and monitor ionospheric parameters of space weather.

Developing Space Weather products and services in Europe – Preface to the Special Issue on COST Action ES0803

COST Action ES0803 “Developing Space Weather products and services in Europe” primarily aimed at forming an interdisciplinary network among European scientists dealing with different issues relevant to Geospace as well as warning system developers and operators in order to assess existing Space Weather products and recommend new ones. The work that has been implemented from 2008 to 2012 resulted in advances in modeling and predicting Space Weather, in recommendations for the validation of Space Weather models, in proposals for new Space Weather products and services, and in dissemination, training, and outreach activities.This preface summarizes the most important achievements of this European activity that are detailed in this special issue by the key scientists who participated in COST Action ES0803.

Exploitation, dissemination, education and outreach in the frame of the COST actionES0803“developing space weather products and services in Europe”

COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is one of the longest-running European frameworks supporting cooperation among scientists and researchers across Europe. Its action ES0803 “Developing Space Weather Products and Services in Europe” involves the task “Exploitation, Dissemination, Education and Outreach”. To meet the objectives of this task, we describe how we developed and maintained the Space Weather Portal , initiated the electronic Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate, took care of the scientific organization of the annual European Space Weather Week conference and of two schools for scientists and students from the space weather community. We also describe several dissemination projects supported by the action, which target the non-specialist in the field of space weather.

Development of Operational Space Weather Prediction Models

In this report, we summarize the needs of space weather models, and recommend that developing operational prediction models, rather than transitioning from research to operation, is a more feasible and critical way for space weather services in the near future. Operational models for solar wind speed, geomagnetic indices, magnetopause, plasma sheet energetic electrons, inner boundary of ion plasma sheet, energetic electrons in outer radiation belt, and thermospheric density at low Earth orbit, have been developed and will be introduced briefly here. Their applications made a big progress in space weather services during the past two years in China.

Online user‐friendly slant total electron content computation from IRI‐Plas: IRI‐Plas‐STEC

Slant total electron content (STEC), the total number of free electrons on a ray path, is an important space weather observable. STEC is the main input for computerized ionospheric tomography (CIT). STEC can be estimated using the dual‐frequency GPS receivers. GPS‐STEC contains the space weather variability, yet the estimates are prone to measurement and instrument errors that are not related to the physical structure of the ionosphere. International Reference Ionosphere Extended to Plasmasphere (IRI‐Plas) is the international standard climatic model of ionosphere and plasmasphere, providing vertical electron density profiles for a desired date, time, and location. IRI‐Plas is used as the background model in CIT. Computation of STEC from IRI‐Plas is a tedious task for researchers due to extensive geodetic calculations and IRI‐Plas runs. In this study, IONOLAB group introduces a new space weather service to facilitate the computation of STEC from IRI‐Plas (IRI‐Plas‐STEC) at www.ionolab.org. The IRI‐Plas‐STEC can be computed online for a desired location, date, hour, elevation, and azimuth angle. The user‐friendly interface also provides means for computation of IRI‐STEC for a desired location and date to indicate the variability in hour of the day, elevation, or azimuth angles. The desired location can be chosen as a GPS receiver in International GNSS Service (IGS) or EUREF Permanent Network (EPN). Also instead of specifying elevation and azimuth angles, the user can directly choose from the GPS satellites and obtain IRI‐Plas‐STEC for a desired date and/or hour. The computed IRI‐Plas‐STEC values are presented directly on the screen or via e‐mail as both text and plots.