Space Weather activities at the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy

Since the mid-eighties, the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) has been active in Space Weather related projects covering basic science to applications.

One of the current main activities of BIRA-IASB is to increase the Space Weather awareness among the concerned sectors, including industry, policy makers and the general public by providing Space Weather related services. They are built on the scientific and technical expertise of the Institute in the field of the hazardous space environment and its effects. We will focus on the coupling of different tools that we developed, in particular SPENVIS and COMESEP in relation to their use in VSWMC (Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre), PECASUS (Pan-European Consortium for Aviation Space Weather User Services) and R-ESC (Radiation Expert Service Centre) services.

BIRA-IASB is also involved in international projects that deal with studying the solar wind - magnetosphere interaction, radiation belts and plasmasphere modelling and the forecast & analysis of High Energy Solar Particle Events. In particular, we hightlight our research in polarimetry of auroral emission lines. Results about the polarisation of the red (630.0 nm) and blue (427.8 nm) emission lines will be presented and discussed in the frame of potential applications to space weather.

You will also be able to see PLIP (Polar Lights Imaging Polarimeter) designed at BIRA-IASB in collaboration with University of Utrecht, and an AOTF (Acousto-Optical Tunable Filter) that we plan to use for future spectropolarimetric measurements of auroral emission lines.



Contact: Stijn Calders