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Space Weather Data and Services at RWC Belgium. Cis Verbeeck on behalf of the RWC team. NOAA-SWPC, July 19, 2012. Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence. Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy. Royal Observatory of Belgium. Royal Meteorological Institute. From Sun to Earth.
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Space Weather Data and Services at RWC Belgium Cis Verbeeck on behalf of the RWC team NOAA-SWPC, July 19, 2012
Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy Royal Observatory of Belgium Royal Meteorological Institute From Sun to Earth
Broad support – in house expertise Earth Atmosphere Space Weather forecast centre Outreach Operating systems Earth magnetic shield Radiation GNSS Instrumentation Space/Earth based Solar Atmosphere Sciences Meetings Climate Data Management Ionosphere Services Internal support
Space Weather Forecasting Hey, you in the audience, do you see it? Here it is! Huh? RWC Belgium since 2000 Team of 10 forecasters Duty cycle of 1 Week 16/24h human monitoring Weekly briefing Necessity of a team
Previmaster SETUP Humans Software Input Output Previmaster Who or what does the work?
What do we forecast? • Flares: • large and sudden release of energy in the solar atmosphere • several classes of flares: C, M and X-flares • estimate probability: <50% C, >50% C, >50% M, >50% X-flares • K-index: • overall geomagnetic activity • forecast over 3 days in intervals of 3 hours • ranges from 0 to 9 • daily A-index value is sent around • Proton events • F10.7: • solar radio flux at 10.7cm • forecast over 3 days • minimal value: 64
From Sun to Earth Daily forecast Fast alerts Bulletins Radiation - flares 10cm flux Particles - Protons Mass - Solar Wind - CMEs CME propagation Coronal Holes Magnetic field Geomagnetism Monitoring – interpreting – forecast - reporting
Daily Space Weather bulletin Products
Fast & automated alerts Also for geomagnetism, all quiet, … www.sidc.be *since 2011 Products
Monthly & weekly bulletins Provisional Sunspot Indices Medium-term forecast of sunspot index Table of Solar and Geomagnetic activity indices Table of noticeable events (> M flare) Forecasts of returning major sunspot groups Solar and Geomagnetic Activity report: a general description of the solar and geomagnetic conditions during the month. If applicable: a “hot items” section STCE Newsletter
International Sunspot Number Medium-term forecast of smoothed ISN Info: Ronald.Vanderlinden@oma.be
GPS space weather service • Daily, weekly and monthly bulletin on ionospheric small-scale variability over Belgium • Nowcast and short-term forecast of Dourbes K-index • Status (accuracy) of real time kinematic (RTK) GNSS positioning • Vertical TEC in Brussels
Other forecaster activities Weekly briefings The forecaster of the week presents a weekly space weather briefing. This is most often followed by an informal science discussion on a topic related to space weather or solar physics. New: Forecaster tutorials Interpretation of in situ solar wind signatures (L. Rodriguez) Quality of the forecast, what is good, what should we improve? (S. Willems) How can we use radio data while doing the forecast? (C. Marqué) K indices (S. Stankov) Space radiation effects (E. De Donder) TBD: How to use solar optical observations for SW forecasting? (F. Clette) TBD: How to use SWAP data for SW forecasting? (D. Berghmans) Training of new forecaster Jasmina Magdalenic (Ph.D. in solar physics) has joined our forecaster group in 2011, after being trained to be forecaster. Question: How do you train your people? Email address alias swforecaster@sidc.be: Used among the forecaster team and given to “special clients”. Not distributed to the general public.
Media storm in Belgian press on Feb 16 2011 A press release was sent out on Feb 15 at 14 UT to announce the first activity of solar cycle 24. The media attention on 16-17 Feb was enormous. Television interviews, radio interview, news paper reports … The central question was: “When and where will we see aurora in Belgium?” Initial speed of cloud, based on beacon STEREO data was estimated at 1000 km/s, with arrival around morning Feb 17. HI data was crucial in determining the arrival time for around 1 UT 18th. The media storm stopped before the geomagnetic storm begun. Bz was mostly positive and the CME speed had speed of 800 km/s , not enough to create a big storm. Forecasters discussed via email to help forecaster in interpreting the data. Issues: How to cope with large media attention, how to coordinate?
CACTus - Computer Aided CME Tracking http://www.sidc.be/cactus Products
CACTus – CME catalogs http://www.sidc.be/cactus • SOHO-LASCO: since 04/1997 • STEREO/COR2 A and B: since 03/2007 • Real-time: based on LASCO Quick-look; • STEREO data has a latency of 3 days.
NEMO: EIT wave & dimming detector http://www.sidc.be/nemo • EIT wave & dimming catalogs: • SOHO/EIT: 03/1997 – 03/2010 • STEREO/EUVI: selected events • Real-time detection not operational anymore since the end of EIT CME watch program • NEMO for AIA under development
Solar Weather Browser http://www.sidc.be/swb
Interactive solar map Provides flaring stats and probabilities per AR http://sidc.oma.be/html/Solarmap.html
Goal: evaluating forecast • How accurately do we forecast the K-index, F10.7 and flares? • How do we perform versus numeric models? • Which differences do we note on forecasting for days 1, 2 and 3? • How do the forecasting errors relate to the observations? • How much variability is there on the forecasting errors? • In summary: What are our weak/strong points and how to improve?
Different numerical forecasting models • Persistence: take same value as yesterday • Recurrence, with a time shift of 14 days and 27 days: • observed value of one (or half) rotation ago reoccurs • Corrected recurrence, with a time shift of 14 days and 27 days: • daily increment of one (or half) rotation ago reoccurs • Linear fit on observations of past 4 days
Evaluation: observations (2011)
Evaluation: observation and model values (2002-2011)
Evaluation: observation and model values (2002-2011)
Evaluation: observation and model values (2002-2011)
Evaluation: rmse
Evaluation: rmse
Evaluation: mean absolute errors
Evaluation: mean absolute errors
ROB data for SW operations PROBA2 – SWAP & LYRA Humain – Radio data USET – White light and chromosphere SDO – Data archive and dissemination
ROB data for SW operations PROBA2 – SWAP & LYRA Humain – Radio data USET – White light and chromosphere SDO – Data archive and dissemination
LYRA (onboard PROBA-2) LYRA GOES Info: mariedo@oma.be X and UV photometer, 4 passbands
ROB data for SW operations PROBA2 – SWAP & LYRA Humain – Radio data USET – White light and chromosphere SDO – Data archive and dissemination
One goal is to provide near real-time monitoring of solar activity for the SIDC forecasts. • Two kinds of instruments: • Radiospectrographs: observation of radio bursts linked to flares and CMEs • Radiometers: Single frequency flux monitoring for flares and daily irradiance variation (e.g.: F10.7cm) • Callisto spectrograph (45-400 MHz) plugged to a Sun-tracking log-periodic antenna • Observations since May 2008 • Data online within 15 min • Part of the CALLISTO network • Website: http://sidc.be/humain • Info: Christophe.marque@oma.be • Project started in 2008, in the framework of the Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence • Current infrastructure is being refurbished (radiotelescopes, equipment) • It involves currently a team of 4 people at SIDC
Examples of observations Type II burst
Burst activity in Humain with the nascent solar cycle (2008 - 2011)
ROB data for SW operations PROBA2 – SWAP & LYRA Humain – Radio data USET – White light and chromosphere SDO – Data archive and dissemination
Solar telescope USET Data is available via website: www.sidc.be Data will be available via the SODA (SOTERIA VSO) Info: frederic.clette@oma.be
ROB data for SW operations PROBA2 – SWAP & LYRA Humain – Radio data USET – White light and chromosphere SDO – Data archive and dissemination