noaa space weather prediction center: activity report – directions for the future
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NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center: Activity Report – Directions for the Future. Ron Zwickl NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center European Space Weather Week Royal Library of Belgium 5 – 9 November, 2007. Organizational Name Change. NOAA’s Space Environment Center (SEC) is now - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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