D4.6
Lead Beneficiary: KU Leuven
Beneficiaries involved: Hvar, ROB, MTA-KFKI-RMKI, U Oulu, DTU, IEEA, NOVELTIS
Due Date: 36 months
Goal
Development of the new methods and improvement of the existing capability for the space weather forecasting. In particular, predicting the arrival time of ICMEs and geomagnetic disturbances associated with high-speed streams from coronal holes, validation of the SOLPENCO code for extreme events, prediction of near-Earth solar wind disturbances, short-term prediction of geomagnetic storms and the time development of the improved Dst, long-term forecasting of coronal holes and solar active regions, and prediction of ionospheric scintillations.
Progress so far
KU Leuven (Giovanni Lapenta, Marina Skender and Andrey Divin)
- Selected conditions for realistic modelling of reconnection regions both in the dayside and in the tail were investigated by implicit particle-in-cell code Parsek. Collaboration with the teams of NASA MMS mission is established in order to compare the simulations with existing observations from Cluster and Themis missions, and with future MMS data. The focus has been primarily in elucidating the role of electron holes and their induced turbulence on the reconnection.
- Current sheet of finite thickness is studied in the MHD approximation. Current profile, geometrical properties and the impact of the turbulence on the system are examined in order to clarify the nature of the instability taking place. Setting the realistic current sheet in the wider frame of the CME modelling is intended.
Hvar (Bojan Vrsnak, Tomislav Zic and non-Soteria member Dijana Vrbanec) & DTU (Susanne Vennerstrom and Thea Vilstrup Falkenberg)
- The Sun-Earth event of 25 July 2004 is analysed by comparing the observed transit time and the velocity at 1 AU with the output of the numerical code ENLIL and the drag-based analytical model.
UOulu (Kalevi Mursula, Timo Asikainen and Ilpo Virtanen)
- The temporal and spatial distribution on solar X rays, and coronal mass ejections, solar background fields and coronal holes are being analysed for systematic long-term features related to solar active longitudes and their temporal alternation (flip-floping).
MTA-KFKI-RMKI (Karoly Kecskemety and Peter Kiraly)
- The events of 17 January 2005 and 19 May 2007 are analysed using SOHO LION and EPHIN energetic proton data. Attempted modelling of time profiles with SOLPENCO code in the energy range of 0.125 to 32 MeV reproduced the flux enhancements near the shock reasonably well, and the overall profiles are superpositions of at least two injections in both events.
IEEA (Yannick Beniguel and Jean-Pierre Adam)
- Software dedicated to predicting ionospheric scintillations will be made available. It will take as an input the geophysical parameters (solar spot number, magnetic activity, …) and produce as an output a probability of occurrence of scintillations in dependence on the operating frequency, local time, season and the geographic coordinates. Analysis of several data sets is performed concurrently to cross check the results of the model.
NOVELTIS (François Crespon, Eric Jeansou and Chafih Skandrani)
- TEC maps produced by SPECTRE service since April 2004 are available. TEC maps for selected solar events anterior to this date are going to be produced. TEC perturbations will be assessed for european auroral regions and compare to variations of Dst index.
ROB
- The role of the ROB will be to test the new methods developed within SOTERIA within an actual operational space weather forecast center context. This ROB contribution is currently in stand-by, as this role comes necessarily after the development of the new methods.
