NOAA Space Weather NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center:Prediction Center:Activity Report – Directions for Activity Report – Directions for the Futurethe Future

Ron ZwicklNOAA Space Weather Prediction CenterEuropean Space Weather Week Royal Library of Belgium5 – 9 November, 2007

Organizational Name Change

NOAA’s Space Environment Center (SEC) is now

Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)Beginning October 1, 2007

• The move of SEC into the National Weather Service in January 2005 signaled a new era in space weather, the need for timely, accurate information and forecasts

• Aligns SEC with other centers in the National Centers for Environment Prediction:

•Tropical Prediction Center•Climate Prediction Center•Storm Prediction Center•Space Weather Prediction Center

Recent Trends

Steady overall growth of users during Solar Minimum Fastest growing user areas: Polar Aviation & GPS

Monthly web statistics

• 50 million file transfers

• 400,000 unique customers

• Customers from 120 countries

GOES: 10 million file transfers140,000 unique users

POES: 7 million file transfers 225,000 unique users

ACE: 4 million file transfers 20,000 unique users

Drivers for Polar Aviation Flight time reductions of 1 to 3 hours Absence of turbulence and convection Aircraft with 6k to 9k mile range Economic growth of China and India

Drivers for GPS market Deep-sea drilling Surveying FAA navigation systems Defense operations Mining & Farming operations

State ATM CorporationState ATM Corporation

Crosspolar Traffic Countsfrom 2000 through Aug 2007

840 776 884

2053

3731

5308

4546

368

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Recent Trends

International Space Environment Service (ISES)

International Space Environment Service (ISES)

• Spaceweather.org will provide one-stop shopping for space weather products in support of Polar operations

- Ensures consistency of forecast products- Leverages resources of multiple agencies

• ISES members collaborating to support Polar route use

An Updated Service

Secure Data Access Agreement

• SWPC will provide high availability, secure data access to SWPC primary/secondary event and time series data for our partners

• Leverage existing SWPC expertise with commercial and open source technology (specifically MS SQL Server, Spread Messaging Service) to provide access

• New service to be implemented in 2008

Provides time sensitive information on satellite status and space weather forecasts that may cause operational disruptions. Over 400 subscribers.

Subscribed Client Organizations include (partial listing):

Allseas PGSBritish Petroleum (BP) Spectra PrecisionCGG (Compagnie Générale de Géophysique) SeadrillCase New Holland StennaDiamond Offshore Shell Exxon/Mobile TransoceanFairfield Trimble Navigation Global USACEOceaneering USDA

Satellite Status / Space Weather Updates”(FugroChance product)

Partnering with Commercial Service Providers

Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel International Effort

Panelist Affiliation Panelist AffiliationD. Biesecker

NOAA, Chair D. Pesnell NASA

M. Dikpati NCAR M. Rast U. Colorado

K. Dowdy USAFL. Svalgaard

ETK Inc.

D. Hathaway

NASAR. Thompson

IPS Australia

T. Hoeksema

Stanford U.R. Van der Linden

Royal Obs. Of Belgium

E. Kihn NOAA J. Kunches NOAA ex-officio

H. Lundstedt

Swedish Inst. of Space Sci.

O.C. St. Cyr NASA ex-officio

Start of Cycle 24: March, 2008 (±6 months)• Making Cycle 23 11.75 years long

Peak of Cycle: The panel is split!• Sunspot number of 140 (±20) in October, 2011 (F10.7 = 187 sfu)• Sunspot number of 90 (±10) in August, 2012 (F10.7 = 141 sfu)

• Cycle 24 will be neither extreme, nor average

NOAA GOES Space Environment Data NOAA’s Commitment to Space Weather Monitoring and

Open Data Policy – Past, Present, and Future

GOES SEM (Space Environment Monitor)

• Continuous observations for over 30 years -- SMS 1&2, GOES 1-12

(energetic particles, magnetic field, x-ray sensor) -- GOES-12 has first Solar X-ray imager (SXI)

• GOES-13 (and future GOES-O, and P) -- Adds medium energy electrons and protons -- Adds Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) instrument -- Improved SXI

• GOES-R series (2012+) -- Adds additional electron and proton measurements -- Adds heavy ion measurements

GOES 8-12

GOES 13 and O, P

RTSW ground system partnership:

• National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo

• Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, United Kingdom;

• NASA's Deep Space Network

• NOAA's Wallop Command and Data Acquisition station, Virginia

• NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, Colorado

• USAF stations within the Air Force Space Command Network.

NOAA Real Time Solar Wind DataNASA Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE)

NOAA efforts to sustain real time solar wind data Response to Integrated Service Change Plan:• 1,082 comments received and all were extremely positive• The suspension of those data would cause impacts ranging from significant economic loss to numerous industries, to the suspension of scientific research campaigns and investigations

• Real Time Solar Wind data will continue

Integrated Service Change Plan

Evaluation of Public Response to the Termination of Solar Wind Data

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service Silver Spring, Maryland

NASA and NOAA Bringing You STEREO

NASA: http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov

• Source for images, solar wind plasma, and energetic particles.

NOAA: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/stereo

• Page layout is identical to ACE RTSW• Source for solar wind plasma and energetic particle plots—Beacon Data• Ascii files of recent data to be accessible

STEREO / WAVES Daily Summary Plots available at http://swaves.gsfc.nasa.gov/data_access.html

Service Gaps – SWPC priorities

Radiation safety NASA/SRAG, space tourism, high fliers: all clear forecasts,

longer lead times Airlines: working on standards, operating procedures,

regional information SEP spectra, duration, fluence predictions

GIC – regional maps with nowcast & forecast Polar Route Airline Comm – regional maps with nowcast GPS

Regional products with more direct application Forecasting the ionosphere and its impact on GPS

Possible data gaps in the future: Solar wind data (ACE lifetime) Coronagraph data (SOHO/LASCO lifetime, plus STEREO)

Challenges, Needs, Tools, Plans

Challenges Integrating large volume of data into a consistent physical picture

Visualization of Active Region Magnetic fields – consistent with the data

Visualization of disturbances in interplanetary space View from above the ecliptic tracking one or more ICMEs View of High Speed Streams and the Sector Structure

Visualization of the state of the magnetosphere

Plans Focus: model transition

Prioritization: based on user requirements

Coordination: Must leverage directed research funded through NASA/NSF/DOD

Validation: ‘How good is it ?’ – a must do

Summary

Growing national need for Space Wx Services

Way forward for NOAA/SWPC: We want to focus our efforts on model transition Requires leveraging work of external partners Requires communicating problems that need to be solved

Specific Areas: Improving current forecasts: flares, proton events,

geomagnetic storms, ionosphere Service Gaps: Radiation, Airline communications, GIC, GPS

users Handling the data: visualizations, assimilation Need to measure improvements objectively

Look forward to working together with partners to meet the space weather needs of the global economy