Keynote lectures

Find out the key issues during these plenary lectures.
Room: Delvaux

ESA perspectives for space weather			Nicolas Bobrinsky	Mon 14, 13:10
The use of Space Weather forecasts for emergency planning and crisis management: a Belgian perspective			Frédéric De Fays	Mon 14, 13:35
Quantifying the daily economic impact of extreme space weather due to failure in electricity transmission infrastructure			Edward Oughton	Mon 14, 14:00
	Extreme space weather due to Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) has the potential to cause considerable disruption to the global economy by destroying the Extra High Voltage (EHV) transformers required to operate electricity transmission infrastructure. This could lead to large numbers of firms and consumers being left without electricity. Moreover, cascading failure can render other critical interdependent infrastructure systems inoperable affecting transport, digital communications, waste and water services. Yet, the direct and indirect economic costs posed by this threat remain under-researched. This is surprising given that insight into this subject is important for supporting the optimal allocation of limited resources across government and industry, especially for emergency response and mitigation planning. Moreover, these estimates can prove useful tools for stress testing the portfolio exposure of insurance companies under catastrophic scenarios as they bear the financial risk associated with business and supply chain interruption costs. In this paper a set of scenarios are developed to explore the uncertainty associated with EHV transformer damage levels in the USA. Using the World Input Output Database, the direct and indirect economic costs are estimated to provide insight into how an extreme event may affect other nations, via supply chain linkages, outside of the geographic footprint of the storm. The paper contributes to our understanding of the economic impact of extreme space weather, as well as making a number of key methodological contributions relevant for future work. The results provide evidence to support the cost-benefit analysis of further investment into space weather forecasting.
CME properties and dynamic evolution in the inner heliosphere			Temmer Manuela	Tue 15, 09:00
	The Sun is an active star and its most violent activity phenomena are flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). CMEs abruptly disrupt the continuous outflow of solar wind by expelling huge clouds of magnetized plasma into interplanetary (IP) space with velocities of a few hundred to a few thousand km/s. Earth-directed CMEs may reach Earth after transit times of about one to five days, in detail depending on their initial velocity, size, and mass. It is found that „preconditioning" due to other CMEs or solar wind high speed streams may strongly affect the propagation behavior of CMEs in IP space. Unknown plasma and magnetic field characteristics of IP space, are a huge challenge for Space Weather forecasting. Structures in the solar wind may change the CME direction, arrival time and impact speed causing less or more severe geomagnetic storms. This talk is dedicated to present the current understanding of the physical processes of CME evolution from Sun to Earth. Special focus is put on the flare-CME feedback relation as well as the interaction between CMEs and their ambient environment in IP space.
Contemporary observations of interplanetary disturbances at the Earth and in the Lagrange Point L1 with Lisa Pathfinder			Catia Grimani	Tue 15, 09:30
	The LISA Pathfinder spacecraft was launched on December 3rd 2015 and since January 20th 2016 is orbiting about the L1 Lagrangian point at 1.5 10^6 km from Earth. The interplanetary medium went through a long period of quasi-quiet time after the mission launch during which no major solar energetic particle events were observed aboard LISA Pathfinder. This occurrence allowed us to study galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) short-term variations on the basis of the LISA Pathfinder radiation monitor observed count rate as a function of time. These data are compared to those of several neutron monitors on Earth. We find that polar neutron monitors are the most proper for comparison due to the low-energy threshold of the LISA-PF particle measurements. In order to correlate the LISA-PF observations with Earth neutron monitor measurements, the position of the satellite with respect to the ecliptic was taken into account. Effects of corotating and transient solar wind structures possibly inducing GCR short-term variations are illustrated.
Radiation Hardness Assurance in Satellite Development			Renaud Mangeret	Wed 16, 09:00
	Airbus Defence and Space is a major producer of satellites and systems on the global market. As part of its engineering processes, radiation hardness assurance (RHA) s used to ensure correct functioning in the anticipated environment. An overview is given of the aspects to consider in the RHA and the relationships with standards, component selection and testing.
Modelling and Data Analysis in Preparation for Solar Orbiter			Alexis Rouillard	Wed 16, 09:30
	An important challenge in heliophysics is to understand the influence of physical processes occurring near the Sun (typically observed through remote-sensing observations) on physical processes in the interplanetary medium (typically measured in situ). The comprehensive set of instruments onboard the upcoming Solar Orbiter and Solar Probe+ missions will address this challenge directly. In this presentation, we will review ongoing activities within the ESA Modelling and Data Analysis Working Group (MADAWG) to develop novel techniques and models in preparation for the science phase of the Solar Orbiter mission. These include synchronous maps of coronal properties inferred from several vantage points, numerical modelling of the dynamic coronal field and plasma properties. Another role of MADAWG is to define space-weather tools that will be useful for Solar Orbiter operations such as deciding several hours to days in advance the location of solar features (coronal holes, active regions) that will be targeted by remote-sensing instruments during the recording campaigns.
The Van Allen Radiation Belts: What I’d Like Machines Learning to Learn			Geoffrey Reeves	Thu 17, 09:00
	Since the advent of routine observations of the Earth’s radiation belts from satellites such as GOES, LANL-GEO and others, there have been numerous efforts to predict the fluxes of MeV electrons at geosynchronous orbit. The target is attractive because data have been collected continuously since the 1970s, usually from multiple satellites simultaneously, and considerable effort has been put into making the data uniform, reliable, and available. Some, but fewer, studies have aimed to predict a broader range of the radiation belt spectrum and/or a broader range of radiation belt L-shells. I will consider some of the successes and limitations of these predictive studies. However, talk will focus on observations of radiation belt dynamics and statistics that we do not yet understand. Machine learning could focus simply on prediction fluxes, fluence, or dose but the true potential of machine learning lies in the possibility of identifying, or even understanding, processes that are not apparent from the observations and numerical models by themselves. I will identify some of the outstanding puzzles in radiation belt physics that could be important targets for machine learning techniques as well as why solving those puzzles is critical for progress in the field.
Applications of complex systems-based methods for Space Weather forecasting			Georgios Balasis	Thu 17, 09:30
	We review recent applications in space physics of advanced statistical mechanics and information theory methods - such as nonlinear time series analysis, recurrence networks, and measures of statistical interdependence and causality. We furthermore identify, evaluate and inter-compare the applicability and effectiveness of various complementary nonlinear analysis methods on the dynamics of the near-Earth electromagnetic environment across various temporal and spatial scales. We focus, in particular, on the interrelationship between geomagnetic field fluctuations and solar and interplanetary drivers, in an effort to achieve an accurate detection and characterization of the dissimilarity between normal and abnormal states of the magnetosphere (i.e., pre-storm state versus geomagnetic storms). Statistical mechanics and information theory tools have the potential to identify previously unrecognized precursory structures and, thus, contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of magnetic field fluctuations into geomagnetic storms. This approach can provide a novel way to anticipating and predicting incipient transitions in the dynamical regime of geomagnetic field variations in time and space and may vastly improve space weather diagnosis.
Comparing Different Solar Flare Prediction Methods: Where Are We, and How Far Can We Go?			Manolis K. Georgoulis	Fri 18, 09:00
	A reliable forecasting of solar X-ray flares represents humanity's first attempt to predict the variable space weather. A field active for nearly two decades, solar flare prediction has seen literally dozens of proposed methods and schemes, exploiting various physical or statistical properties of solar active regions and their magnetic structure. Only a small part of these techniques has ever managed to show some skill and even fewer have eventually involved into operational -- or pre-operational -- products and services. We attempt a hands-on, comparative description of the skills and capabilities of these methods, focusing more on their overall reliability and less on their specifics. Both dichotomous (i.e., binary) and probabilistic skill scores are being reviewed in a discussion including both fully automated and operator-dependent facilities. In addition, we examine the reliability and possible benefit of relatively recent trends in flare prediction, such as multi-variate forecasting and ensemble modeling. With a number of important efforts still ongoing and results pending, we assert that there is still significant distance to be covered in order to claim success on this problem. More importantly, it is not yet clear whether much needed developments are tenable within present observational and technical capabilities.
NASA Heliophysics and the Science of Space Weather			Steven W. Clarke	Fri 18, 09:30
	NASA formulates and implements a national research program for understanding the Sun and its interactions with the Earth and the solar system and how these phenomena impact life and society. This research provides theory, data, and modeling development services to national and international space weather efforts utilizing a coordinated and complementary fleet of spacecraft, called the Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO), to understand the Sun and its interactions with Earth and the solar system, including space weather. NASA’s space-­‐based observational data and modeling efforts have provided significant contributions to the science of space weather. Current and future space weather research will provide key information to improve the ability of the United States and its international partners to prepare, avoid, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the potentially devastating impacts of space­‐weather events.