Session 7 - Best practice in transitioning existing space science tools to operational SW prediction systems

David Jackson (Met Office), Suzy Bingham (Met Office), Giovanni Lapenta (KUL), Stefaan Poedts (KUL), Manolis Georgoulis (Athens), Mauro Messerotti (Trieste), Daniel Matthiae (DLR)
Wednesd 16/11, 10:00-13:00
Delvaux

Operational space weather prediction remains in its infancy. Accordingly, there is considerable scope to integrate best practices from other disciplines (e.g. terrestrial weather forecasting, ground- and space-based observations) into operational space weather systems, and examples of the successful application of such best practices are vitally important in illustrating how things should be done. Furthermore, organisations such as the World Meteorological Organization and the International Space Environment Service play an important role in developing and implementing guidelines for best practice in operational space weather activities. We welcome contributions covering all aspects of this topic. We particularly welcome "use cases" showing how good practice has been followed in developing new operational space weather prediction services (e.g., WSA Enlil predictions), and also presentations highlighting results from ESA/EC projects focused on applying models or analysis tools for operational implementation. We also welcome assessments from end users on how well operational services meet their requirements, as well as how this feedback can be used to drive further operational improvements. We also seek contributions covering other relevant areas, such as: - robustness, reliability and testing of near-real time observation processing and space weather prediction modelling; - use of near real time verification to assess system performance and to act as a benchmark against which future improvements can be measured; - system resilience (e.g., backup data streams, 24/7 operations.

Poster Viewing
Wednesday November 16, 11:00 - 11:00, Poster Area

Talks
Wednesday November 16, 11:00 - 13:00, Delvaux

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Talks : Time schedule

Wednesday November 16, 11:00 - 13:00, Delvaux

11:00	Utilizing Scientific Advances in Operational Systems	Onsager, T et al.	Invited Oral
	T. G. Onsager, T. E. Berger, H. J. Singer
	NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
	As scientific understanding of space weather phenomena improves, utilizing this knowledge to improve services to users of space weather information will always be a priority. Through experience with specific models, considerable progress has been made in recent years on establishing best practices for transitioning space weather tools into operational systems. In this presentation, four main elements of this process will be described: 1) demonstrating sufficient model value to justify the cost of operational use; 2) developing operational software from research code; 3) implementing model and product-generation software on an operational computer; and 4) ensuring continuous improvement of operational models as scientific advances occur. Specific models and efforts involving interagency and international collaborations will be shown to illustrate progress in these four areas.
11:15	Assessment, dissemination and prototyping of space weather models, forecasting techniques and procedures at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center.	Kuznetsova, M et al.	Oral
	M. Kuznetsova, L. Rastaetter, A. Taktakishvili, P. J. Macneice, M. L. Mays, A. Pulkkinen, J. Boblitt, R. Mullinix, J-S. Shim, C. Wiegand, and Y. Zheng
	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Community Coordinated Modeling Center
	The CCMC is addressing the need for rapid evaluation and experimental implementation of latest advances in research and newly emerging ideas in the fast growing field of space weather. The CCMC is effectively serving as a hub in the interconnected Research-Assessment-Dissemination-Prototyping-Operations system for coordinated and collaborative development of new operational space weather prediction services. Partnership with operational agencies and NASA missions users of space weather applications is a key for developing actionable displays and tools ready-to-be-used by forecasters and decision makers. The presentation will review CCMC support of NASA/NSF Partnership For Collaborative Space Weather Modeling, recent progress towards ingestion, assessment, dissemination and prototyping of new forecasting techniques and procedures, and perspectives on further expanding of CCMC partnership with NOAA/SWPC and space weather research and operational institutions world-wide.
11:25	Aspects of operational climate and weather modelling	Folini, D et al.	Invited Oral
	Doris Folini
	Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
	Key requirements for operational weather and climate products range from reliability over time criticality to reproducibility. I will survey these demands and sketch how the communities meet associated implications for model development, how they port and test new models into existing operational model suites. Issues here comprise technical aspects, like naming conventions or automated model testing, physical aspects like the definition of model skill or automated calibration of sub-grid scale parameterizations, as well as more costumer product related aspects like false alarm rates. Finally, I will briefly touch on driving factors behind model development, from costumer demands to exploitation of modern compute architectures.
11:40	SOL-TERRA: A Roadmap for Operational Coupled Sun-to-Earth Space Weather Forecasting	Lawrence, G et al.	Invited Oral
	Alastair Pidgeon[1], Gareth Lawrence[1], Simon Reid[1], David Jackson[2], Mike Marsh[2], Mario M. Bisi[3], Yulia Bogdanova[3] and Mike Hapgood[3]
	[1]RHEA TECH; [2]Met Office; [3]STFC RAL Space
	The ability to accurately forecast space weather is still far behind terrestrial weather forecasts. In the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre, highly-trained forecasters use computer models to help provide warnings of possible events and their potential impacts. The objective is to improve forecast accuracy via both better models and a coupled system that represents the whole Sun-Earth environment. Many research models have been developed internationally, but typically they focus only on specific areas of the Sun-Earth system; there is a pressing need for a detailed assessment of their suitability to operate within a coupled space weather forecast system. For a given model to be appropriate for operational forecasting, it is crucial for them to meet certain requirements: they should be robust, validated, capable of producing timely forecasts, able to couple to other models, and they should adopt good quality software engineering principles to facilitate maintenance and evolution. The goal of the Sol-Terra project is to produce a roadmap for a future coupled Sun-to-Earth operational space weather forecasting system covering domains from the Sun down to the ionosphere and the Earth’s neutral atmosphere. We surveyed globally to determine what models have been developed to address which particular problems in space science, and assessed how they met the requirements detailed above. We then selected an optimal set of models for use in operational space weather forecasting, and architecture options for realising such an operational system were studied. We present the principal findings of the Sol-Terra project, a roadmap for the realisation of an operational coupled Sun to Earth space weather forecast modelling system, and the main areas where further work is needed and best practice can be applied. These findings have been reviewed by a group of external stakeholders. The methodology used is not only useful for space weather applications, but potentially also for the development of other coupled modelling systems within the weather and climate domain. The SOL-TERRA project is supported within the UK Space Agency’s National Space Technology Programme under contract number RP10G0348A03.
11:55	KSWC’s space science tools to operational SW prediction systems	Kichang, Y et al.	Invited Oral
	KiChang Yoon, Jang Suk Choi, Dong Kyu Kim, Yeongoh Choi,
	Korean Space Weather Center of Radio Research Agency
	The Korean Space Weather Center (KSWC) of the National Radio Research Agency (RRA) is a government agency which is the official source of space weather information for Korean Government and the primary action agency of emergency measure to severe space weather condition. KSWC’s main role is providing alerts, watches, and forecasts in order to minimize the space weather impacts on both of public and commercial sectors of satellites, aviation, communications, navigations, power grids, and etc. KSWC is also in charge of monitoring the space weather condition and conducting research and development for its main role of space weather operation in Korea. In this session, we will present our recent efforts on development of application-oriented space weather research products and services on user needs such as ASSA which is Automated Synoptic Sunspot Analyzer, prediction of electron density for next 3-day in satellite orbit, and ARMAS (Automated Radiation Measurement for Aviation Safety).
12:10	Forecast Development at the Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre	Nikolic, L et al.	Oral
	Ljubomir Nikolic
	Canadian Hazards Information Service, Natural Resources Canada
	The origins of the Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre (CSWFC) go back to the early 1970s, when a forecast service was established to meet the needs of magnetic surveyors. Since that time, the forecast service has greatly evolved; from once a day manually updated geomagnetic forecast, to an automated 24/7 space weather forecast system. At the same time, however, the complexity of the forecast framework has grown, which poses a challenge for the implementation of new numerical models and applications. In order to enable forecast improvements with better integration of research and operations in an environment which is driven by IT security and consolidation, the CSWFC is undertaking work to redesign and modernize the forecast system. The focus of this presentation is on our experience and efforts in the space weather system development. In particular, (a) data acquisition, quality control and pre-processing; (b) nowcast/forecast numerical models and algorithms; (c) post-processing and dissemination of the forecast outputs; and (d) forecast system control and monitoring are discussed.
12:20	Space Weather Operations in CMA	Jianguang, G et al.	Invited Oral
	Xiaoxin Zhang, Jianguang Guo
	National Observatory for Space Weather, China Meteorological Administration
	This presentation discusses the space weather activities in CMA in associated with the space weather observation, forecast and services. The activities of space weather operation is conducted by the National Center for space weather (NCSW) acting as a national level agency authorized by the national Council, to carry out the space weather operation and provide monitoring, warning, forecasting and services products for the different space weather users. The talk first introduces the current status of space weather activities in CMA that focuses on establishing the abilities in space weather observations, forecast and services. The observing facilities of space weather in CMA are then discussed including the spaced-based payloads onboard FENGYUN meteorological satellites, the ground-based instruments for monitoring the solar upper atmospheric and ionospheric activities, as well as the GPS/MET network. This talk also briefly introduce the Meteorological Monitoring and Forecasting Project and the Meridian Circle Program that design to build the observation networks over China to monitor the space weather disasters for research and operation. The WMO related space weather activities will be finally discussed in associated with defining the basic observing requirements for space weather with the goal of integrating the space weather observations into the WMO Information System.
12:35	The Significance of Operational Space Weather Practices in the South African region	Mckinnell, L et al.	Invited Oral
	Lee-Anne McKinnell, Mpho Tshisaphungo
	South African National Space Agency (SANSA)
	The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) operates the Regional Warning Center (RWC) for Space Weather in Africa. The RWC is operated from within the Space Science Directorate of SANSA in Hermanus, South Africa. The centre depends on ground based geophysical data from distributed networks across Southern Africa and the South Atlantic which complement available satellite based data to achieve an operational capability. Over the past 5 years SANSA has developed a regional capability to monitor and forecast space weather as well as prioritising research projects that enhance the modelling ability of the centre. SANSA has also partnered in a number of international space weather projects each of which has contributed towards enhancing the knowledge and expertise needed to provide these services. This paper will discuss the significance of the current operational space weather practices of the SANSA RWC, and highlight some differences and similariries between SANSA and other centres. The importance and benefit of knowledge exchange between institutions, and the benefit of global international space weather projects to developing centres will also be highlighted.
12:50	Utilisation and Further Development of Space Science Tools towards pre-Operational Services in the ESA SSA Programme Space Weather Service Network	Glover, A et al.	Oral
	Alexi Glover[1,2], Juha-Pekka Luntama[1], Ralf Keil[1,2]
	[1]ESA SSA Programme Office, ESA/ESOC, Germany; [2]RHEA System, Belgium
	The ESA SSA Programme is approaching the end of its second period. Service development activities within the current period aim at advancing the SSA SWE Service Network from the initial utilisation of existing European assets toward development of these and new assets together with the associated coordination infrastructure necessary to provide consistently reliable pre-operational services. The SSA SWE Service Network is based on a federated architecture where service provision is carried out by Expert Service Centres in the Programme Member States with overall coordination and helpdesk functions provided by a central node and coordination centre located at the Space Pole in Brussels, Belgium. The SSA SWE Service Network builds on the wealth of space weather expertise available within the Member States, and consequently, as the network continues to develop, emphasis will continue to be placed on building services based on demonstrated space science advances in key areas such as those highlighted by the COSPAR-ILWS Space Weather Roadmap, published in 2015. Activities supported by programmes including the ESA technology programmes, EC FP7 and H2020 have all demonstrated promising results, and the SSA SWE Network is actively investigating their potential application to SSA SWE Customer Requirements, and in many cases already adopting these as part of the suite of products provided via the Network to its registered users. This presentation will provide an overview of recent advances in the SSA SWE Service Network, emphasising the utilisation of scientific tools within a pre-operational context. The presentation will show the layout of the federated Expert Service Centres, highlighting ongoing and upcoming service developments and provide a perspective on the service development plans for the next phase of the programme.

Posters

Wednesday November 16, 11:00 - 11:00, Poster Area

1	The ESA / SSA SWE A-EFFort Service: Results and Outlook	Georgoulis, M et al.	e-Poster
	Manolis K. Georgoulis and the A-EFFort Team
	RCAAM of the Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece
	On the occasion of its uninterrupted operation for 1.5 years, we present selected results and a snapshot validation of the pre-operational ESA / SSA A-EFFort service, physically seated in the premises of the Academy of Athens and designed to provide 24-hour probabilities of major solar flares. The project that culminated to the service establishment originated from the calculation of a purely scientific parameter designed to quantify the photospheric magnetic complexity of solar active regions. Realizing that this parameter’s values could lead to a considerable separation between flaring and non-flaring active-region populations, the challenges for the project to be transitioned into a near-realtime forecasting service were the uninterrupted, 24-hour operation, the translation of probabilistic statistics from a previous data sample to the current observational and technical capabilities and the service validation. We briefly discuss the course of action in each of these. Finally, we provide some meaningful future avenues for improving the service, utilizing the existing technical infrastructure and streamlined validation processes for prototyping and benchmarking.
2	Application of PC indices in forecasts of severe space weather conditions.	Stauning, P et al.	e-Poster
	Peter Stauning
	Danish Meteorological Institute
	The Polar Cap (PC) indices, PCN based on Thule geomagnetic data and PCS based on Vostok data, could be considered to represent the input of power from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere. The PC indices have been used to analyze interplanetary electric fields, effects of solar wind pressure pulses, cross polar cap voltages and polar cap diameter, ionospheric Joule heating, and other issues of polar cap dynamics. The PC indices have also been used to predict auroral electrojet intensities and global auroral power as well as ring current intensities. For specific space weather purposes the PC indices could be used to forecast substorm development and predict associated power line disturbances in the subauroral regions. The presentation shall outline the general background for applying the PC indices in forecasts of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions and provide illustrative examples of the potential use of the Polar Cap indices to forecasts severe space weather conditions. PCN index values derived from further observatories in Greenland and Canada have been analyzed in order to settle, whether reliable back-up index values could be derived on-line from other than the standard observatories, which would be of particular interest during strongly disturbed conditions.
3	CME initiation with Slurm, fluid particle-in-pell solver for space weather	Olshevsky, V et al.	p-Poster
	Vyacheslav Olshevsky, Fabio Bacchini, Stefaan Poedts, Giovanni Lapenta
	Center for Plasma Astrophysics, KU Leuven
	A new Lagrangian magnetohydrodynamic Particle-in-Cell solver, Slurm, is being developed at KU Leuven. Slurm is the first ever particle-based MHD code specially designed to study CME and shock propagation in the heliosphere. Extensive testing on classical two-dimensional problems have proven feasibility of the new approach and efficiency of the new algorithm. The code has been enhanced with various types of initial and boundary conditions necessary for studying CME propagation. We will describe the most important details of the new algorithm, the structure of the code, and the first results of space weather-related testing.
4	Modelling plasma structures in the high-latitude ionosphere	Wood, A et al.	p-Poster
	Alan Wood, Golnaz Shahtahmassebi, Amy Ronksley, Benjamin Halls, Martin Campbell and Shaun Atherton
	School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham, UK.
	The ionosphere is a highly complex plasma containing electron density structures with a wide range of spatial scale sizes. Large-scale structures with horizontal extents of tens to hundreds of km exhibit variation with time of day, season, solar cycle, geomagnetic activity, solar wind conditions and location. The large-scale structures can also cause smaller-scale irregularities that arise due to instability processes such as the gradient drift instability (GDI) and turbulence. These smaller scale structures can disrupt trans-ionospheric radio signals, including those used by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Whilst the processes driving these structures are well understood, the relative importance of these driving processes is a fundamental, unanswered question. Generalised Linear Modelling (GLM) has been applied in numerous fields including clinical trials, to predict the outcome of sporting events and road accidents[1,2,3]. In essence, this is a form of multiple regression analysis where the non-Gaussian dependent variable is related to a range of explanatory variables. An appropriate parameter estimate is made for each of the explanatory variables to relate it to the dependent variable and the statistical significance of each explanatory variable is determined. In this study, the effect of a range of geophysical variables on observations of both the amount of large-scale plasma structuring and phase scintillation was assessed. The dominant variable was found to be the seasonal variation. The magnitude of this variation varied with location and time of day. Secondary variables included variations with the solar cycle and geomagnetic activity. As data for the geophysical variables are available in real time, these models have the potential to make real time predictions of the amount of plasma structuring in the ionosphere for GNSS applications. The developments required to deliver such a model are discussed. References: [1] Wood, A. G. et al., Updating outdated predictive accident models, Accid. Anal. Prev., doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2013.02.028, 2013. [2] Connors, R. et al, Methodology for fitting and updating predictive accident models with trend, Accid. Anal. Prev., 10.1016/j.aap.2013.03.009, 2013. [3] Wood, A. G. et al., Updating Predictive Accident Models of Modern Rural Single Carriageway A-roads, Transportation Planning and Technology, GTPT-2012-0024, doi: 10.1080/03081060.2012.745760, 2013.
5	Transitioning CME auto-detection and interplanetary propagation tools into operational services	Luo, B et al.	p-Poster
	Bingxian Luo, Jingjing Wang, Wengeng Huang, Siqing Liu
	National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
	Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are major triggers of geospace environment disturbances such as geomagnetic storms, relativistic electron flux enhancements in the outer radiation belt, ionospheric storms, thermospheric density enhancements, etc. Thus, the detection of CMEs and the forecast of their propagations in the interplanetary space are of great importance for space weather forecast centers. In research community several tools for CME auto-detection have been developed. These tools play an important role in statistically studying the occurrence frequency of CMEs and their characteristics. There also exist various tools for studying CMEs’ interplanetary propagations such as interactions between CMEs, between CME and background solar wind, or between CME and coronal hole high speed stream, either using MHD or kinematic methods. At Space Environment Prediction Center (SEPC) in National Space Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NSSC/CAS), efforts are being made to transition these tools into operational services, in order to set up an automatic or semiautomatic model with features of CME auto-detection, background solar wind prediction and CME propagation simulation. It is hoped that with the assistance of the models, the prediction of CME arrival times, magnitude of potential influences, as well as the warning timeliness could be improved. Here, we will introduce the experiences in the transitioning of research tools to operational services, the difficulties encountered and lessons learned.
6	Three-Fluid collisional and reactive magnetic reconnection with radiative effects in chromospheric conditions	Alvarez laguna, A et al.	p-Poster
	Alejandro Alvarez Laguna, Yana Maneva, Nataly Ozak, Andrea Lani and Stefaan Poedts
	Centre for Mathematical Plasma-Astrophysics, KU-Leuven, Belgium.
	The partially ionized chomosphere hosts the interplay of complex physical phenomena, i.e., collisional processes, non-chemical equilibrium conditions and non-LTE radiation effects, etc. We study the magnetic reconnection in different ionization levels under chromospheric conditions for a multi-fluid, compressible, collisional and reactive model. We will extend previous work that considers two-fluid models (plasma + neutrals), to a three-fluid model accounting for electron dynamics. The model includes chemical reactions of ionization, recombination and charge exchange collisions. The transport fluxes consider the anisotropy introduced by the magnetic field in the charged species. The radiative losses, that are known to play an important role in the chromosphere, are modeled with an effectively thin radiation loss function, fitting a three-level Hydrogen atom. In a set of 2-D computational simulations, we study different ionization levels from 0.5% to 50%, with fixed Lundquist number, analyzing the radiation effects on the tearing mode instability.