Matthew J West On behalf of Space Pole STAC EUMETNET, Apr, 2013 Space Weather Services at Space Pole.

Matthew J WestOn behalf of Space Pole

STAC EUMETNET, Apr, 2013

Space Weather Services at Space Pole

Royal Observatory of Belgium

Royal Meteorological Institute

Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy

Space Pole has three research institutes and collaborates with other Belgian and European institutes to provide space weather products

Space Pole

Space Pole Space Weather Tools & Products Space Pole have several groups researching, reporting and developing tools to study the Sun and space weather.

I will focus on the tools we have that may be of interest to you. These Include:

PROBA2 Science Center – Operates the PROBA2 solar satellite.

STAFF – Solar Timelines viewer (for AFFECTS).

AFFECTS - Advanced Forecast For Ensuring communications Through Space - European FP7 project

Humain – Radio-astronomy station

CME Speed Calculator

International Sunspot Number – Record and MaintainUSET – Ground based Solar Telescope

Regional SDO Data Archive

SoFAST - Automated Flare Detection

Cactus – CME Tracking System

Solar Demon – Dimming and EUV wave Monitor (for AFFECTS).

CME arrival alert (for AFFECTS).

Space Weather Forecasting

Interactive Flare Tool Interactive Solar map

Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre

COMESEP – Forecasting Storms

K-LOGIC - Local Geomagnetic Activity Nowcast

Solar Weather Browser

jhelioviewer

SAA Coordination Centre

PROBA2

• Microsatellite in sun-synchronous orbit• Launched on November 2, 2009 • 725 km altitude ☀ Period: ≈100 min• Commanding and data processing at P2SC (ROB, Brussels).

Instruments – LYRA - SWAP

SWAP

LYRA

LYRA (Lyman Alpha Radiometer) – X and UV photometer (4 passbands)Multi-wavelength analysis of flaresShort time-scale events, especially quasi-period pulsationsVariability of long term solar spectral irradiance

SWAP (Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System Detector and Image Processing)– An EUV imager

Observes the Suns lower atmosphere (≈1 MK)

SWAP – showing the Suns Variability

Solar Activity as observed by SWAP and LYRA

13th Jun 2012, at 11:29 UT, an M1.2 flare occurred in AR11504

Source Region seen by SWAP Power recorded by LYRA

Tools Used With PROBA2 (& Future Missions)

Interactive Flare Tool

PROBA2 data is used in our Interactive Flare Tool.A product produced to help forecasters locating the origin on Flares or other activity.The user clicks on the light curve and the source and details are highlighted.

Interactive Solar Map

http://sidc.oma.be/html/Solarmap.html

Provides flaring stats and probabilities per AR

SoFAST: Automated Flare Detection Tool

-Uses SWAP EUV imager (with a view to be used with future missions).

-It will monitor, record and warn of EUV flares detected. (http://www.sidc.be/sofast)

Typical one day output

AFFECTS

AFFECTS

No. Country Institution Scientific Contact

1 Germany Georg-August-University Göttingen Dr. Volker Bothmer, project coordinator

2 Belgium Royal Observatory of Belgium Dr. Ronald Van der Linden, Dr. Cis Verbeeck

3 Ukraine Space Research Institute Dr. Aleksei Parnowski

4 Germany Fraunhofer IPM Dr. Raimund Brunner

5 Norway University of Tromsø Prof. Chris Hall

6 Germany German Aeropace Center Dr. Norbert Jakowski, Dr. Jens Berdermann

7 Germany Astrium GmbH Wilfried Pfeffer

8 U.S.A. Space Weather Prediction Center of NOAA Dr. Rodney Viereck

9 Germany Planetarium Hamburg Thomas W. Kraupe

•A space research project under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union.•AFFECTS will provide early space weather warnings to protect communication systems.

•The following institutions are involved in AFFECTS:

STAFF - Solar Timelines viewer

STAFF - Solar Timelines viewer

http://www.staff.oma.be/

Solar Demon - Dimming & EUV wave Monitor for SDO-AIA

What? - Solar Demon is a tool to automatically detect and characterize EUV waves and dimmings

Why? - Aid space weather applications by providing extra information on a front side CME, and gain better understanding of underlying physical mechanisms.

How? - Automatically analyzing SDO/AIA 211Å quick-look images

When? - Solar Demon will run in near real-time at the fall of 2013 (http://solardemon.oma.be)

October 23, 2012. Dimming mask created from base difference image

Solar Demon -example events

Left: off-disc event detected on October 28, 2012. Center: event detected on March 9, 2012. Right: small event detected on October 23, 2012

Complex dimming event. 07/03/12.

Solar Demon interface EUV Wave Characteristics.

09/03/12

Machine readable CME arrival alert

CME heading towards Earth: E-mail containing XML file is sentCurrently in test phaseProvides input for AFFECTS Early Warning Message for GNSS users (http://swaciwebdevelop.dlr.de/early-warning-gnss/)Contains: Measured: CME departure time, principle angle, coronagraphEstimated: CME arrival time, probability of arrival at Earth, max K value

Solar & Space Weather Tools

CACTus - Computer Aided CME Tracking

Productshttp://www.sidc.be/cactus

CACTus – CME catalogs• 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.

http://www.sidc.be/cactus

CME Speed Calculator

Solar Weather Browser

http://www.sidc.be/swb

jhelioviewer•We develop the jhelioviewer program. – Visualization program for Solar image data.•Creates compressed solar images, allowing them to be quickly and easily viewed.•Used to create movies and combine (overlay solar images).

Instruments and Data We Host at Space

Pole

Data is available via website: www.sidc.be/uset/

Data will be available via the SODA (SOTERIA VSO)

Info: [email protected]

USET Solar Telescope

Uccle Solar Equatorial Table (USET) has three telescopes to look at the solar surface and lower atmosphere:

•White-light •H-alpha•Ca II K-images

USET in collaboration with other stations world wide helps produce:•Provisional SSN.•Definitive SSN.•Daily sunspot index.•SSN predictions.

The Sunspot Number provides one of the longest running data series and is used for looking at long-term trends in solar activity.

The International Sunspot Number (ISSN)

International Sunspot Number

Info: [email protected]

Medium-term forecast of smoothed ISN

Humain Radioastronomy Station

•Project started in 2008, in the framework of the Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence.

•Provides near real-time monitoring of solar activity using 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)

•Provides radio data for the SIDC forecasts.

•Website: http://sidc.be/humain •Info: [email protected]

Type II burst

SDO data archive at ROB

• Download images from ROB: use same routines but specify site=‘rob’

IDL> list=vso_search('1-aug-2010 00:00','1-aug-2010 00:02', inst='hmi’, site=‘rob’)IDL> a=vso_get(list[6:7])

• http://wissdom.oma.be• latest movies: www.sidc.be• Info: [email protected]

Space Weather Forecasting & Nowcasting

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K-LOGIC - Local Geomagnetic Activity Nowcast

K index value

Quality Flag

Registration

Service Selection

Alert (web based)

http://swans.meteo.be/geomagnetism

Service Output:• K index value - data files (ASCII), plots• Quality Flag (QF) – data acquisition and processing quality assessment• Alerts – web (verbose & colour code), email

Service Type:• Nowcast: update – every 60 min • Nowcast: latency less than 3 min

COMESEP Project

ROB is in charge of WP 6: SPACE WEATHER ALERT SYSTEM •Establish an operational European Space Weather Alert system to forecast SEP radiation storms and magnetic storms. •Go beyond individual detection tools and models, by integrating their outputs into an automated start-to-end-service system. •Disseminate the alerts and forecasts to the space weather vulnerable industries and other users using existing media on European level.

The COMESEP Project: Forecasting Geomagnetic Storms and Solar Energetic Particle Events

Input: Interchangeable Solar models.Output: Forecasts and alerts.

http://www.comesep.eu/

The ESA Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre (VSWMC)

• COMESEP project (under development)

• To develop an open end-to-end (from Sun to Earth) space weather modelling system (“Virtual SW Modelling Centre”).

• Combine ("couple") various

space weather models in an integrated tool,

Space Situational Awareness (SSA) coordination Centre

•We are part of the ESA SSA Program •Host expert service centers for ESA

Solar Physics input from ROBRadiation input from BIRA

•We host the SSA Coordination Centre

• Flares:

o Large and sudden release of energy in the solar atmosphere

o Several classes of flares: C, M and X-flares

o Estimate probability: <50% C, >50% C, >50% M, >50% X-flares

• K-index:

o Overall geomagnetic activity

o Forecast over 3 days in intervals of 3 hours

o Ranges from 0 to 9

o Daily A-index value is distributed to the wider communitee

• Proton events

• F10.7:

o Solar radio flux at 10.7cm

o Forecast over 3 days

What do we forecast?

Daily Space Weather Bulletin

Products

Fast & automated alerts

Products

*since 2011

Also for geomagnetism, all quiet, …

www.sidc.be

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.

Worldwide RWC Data Products

http://sidc.be/products

Space Pole Space Weather Tools & Products

PROBA2 Science Center – Operates the PROBA2 solar satellite.

STAFF – Solar Timelines viewer (for AFFECTS).

AFFECTS - Advanced Forecast For Ensuring communications Through Space - European FP7 project

Humain – Radio-astronomy station

CME Speed Calculator

International Sunspot Number – Record and MaintainUSET – Ground based Solar Telescope

Regional SDO Data Archive

SoFAST - Automated Flare Detection

Cactus – CME Tracking System

Solar Demon – Dimming and EUV wave Monitor (for AFFECTS).

CME arrival alert (for AFFECTS).

Space Weather Forecasting

Interactive Flare Tool Interactive Solar map

Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre

COMESEP – Forecasting Storms

K-LOGIC - Local Geomagnetic Activity Nowcast

Solar Weather Browser

jhelioviewer

SAA Coordination Centre