Session - Open session on Space Weather Applications and Engineering Concerns

A. Glover and the ESWW12 PC

This session targets the wide range of application development currently ongoing in Europe and abroad. This includes a broad range of application types including algorithms and applications designed to nowcast and forecast space weather conditions in space or on ground, analysis toolkits and supporting data(base) infrastructure developments.

The session is open to well established applications which are already operating as (prototype/precursor) services, newly developed applications and proof of concept demonstrations. Submissions covering tailored applications are particularly encouraged which include a discussion of how the author has worked with a potential/existing service user in order to address specific engineering concerns. In all cases, authors are strongly encouraged to address validation, describe the approach used to assess (anticipated) application performance and to outline their vision and/or experience of how users might take action in response to the output of their application.

Talks
Friday November 27, 11:00 - 13:00, Permeke

Poster Viewing
Friday November 27, 10:00 - 11:00, Poster area

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Talks : Time schedule

Friday November 27, 11:00 - 13:00, Permeke

11:00	Modeling the Radiation Belt Electron Environment: Fusion of Physics and System Science Approaches	Walker, S et al.	Oral
	S. N. Walker[1], M. A. Balikhin[1], I. Pakhotin[1], Y. Shprits[2]
	[1] ACSE, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K.; [2] UCLA, and MIT, U.S.A.
	The codes forecasting the radiation environment can be divided into two categories: first principle codes and empirical codes. The first approach is to model the individual processes from first principles , eventually combining these sets of models to describe the dynamic evolution of the environment. The second, based on systems science approaches, extracts information about the processes occurring directly from measurements. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. In this study we present a combination of a system science code (NARMAX) predicting the GEO environment with the first principles VERB code. The results of the coupled VERB-NARMAX simulations are compared with observations and discussed.
11:20	Introducing SPENVIS Next Generation	Messios, N et al.	Oral
	Michel Kruglanski[1], Neophytos Messios[1], Stijn Calders[1], Laszlo Hetey[1], Erwin De Donder[1], Ngoc-Diep Ho[2], Noelia Sánchez Ortiz[3], Esther Parilla-Endrino[3], Ignacio Grande[3], Enrique del Pozo[3], Daniel Heynderickx[4], Pablo Beltrami[5], Hugh Evans[6], Eamonn Daly[6], David Rogers[6]
	[1] BIRA-IASB; [2] Space Application Services NV/SA; [3] Deimos Space; [4] DHConsultancy; [5] etamax space GmbH; [6] ESA/ESTEC
	ESA's Space Environment Information System (SPENVIS) is an on-line resource for evaluating the space environment and its effects on spacecraft components and astronauts. SPENVIS has a long and acclaimed history. Since its first development at the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) in 1996, it has been successfully operational for more than fifteen years. As a result, SPENVIS has established a mature user community from all over a globe that is using the system for various purposes including mission analysis and planning, education and scientific research. Recently, a new system known as SPENVIS Next Generation has been developed under the ESA/GSTP-5 programme. The key objective is to upgrade SPENVIS into a new web-based service-oriented distributed framework supporting plug-in of models related to the hazardous space environment, and including both a user-friendly interface for rapid analysis and a machine-to-machine interface for interoperability with other software tools. The purpose of this talk is to give a first glimpse of the newly developed system and its capabilities.
11:40	Space Weather Helioviewer	Nicula, B et al.	Oral
	Bogdan Nicula[1], Freek Verstringe[1], Bram Bourgoignie[1], David Berghmans[1], Christophe Marqué[1], Piers Jiggens[2], Daniel Mueller[2]
	[1] Royal Observatory of Belgium; [2] ESTEC
	The Helioviewer project aims to complement solar virtual observatories and event catalogues by providing visualisation of quicklook, context and model data. Space Weather Helioviewer (SWHV, ESTEC Contract No. 4000107325/12/NL/AK) is an extension of the freely available JHelioviewer server and client application (http://jhelioviewer.org) with space weather relevant capabilities within a streamlined user interface. SWHV presents to space weather forecasters an overview of the current space weather situation by combining the display of 1D data (timelines), 2D data (solar images and spectrograms), 3D data (multi‐spacecraft imaging, magnetic field lines modelling), solar event detections (e.g., HEK), and space weather alerts. The features newly introduced by the Space Weather Helioviewer project will be highlighted and a live demonstration of the new capabilities will be held. SWHV was developed with funding from ESA General Support Technology Programme (GSTP) in order to support activities part of the ESA Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme.
12:00	The Spanish Space Weather Service (SeNMEs)	Cid, C et al.	Oral
	C. Cid[1], J. Palacios[1], E. Saiz[1],  A. Guerrero[1], M. Rodríguez-Bouza[2], Y. Cerrato[1], M. Herraiz[2], I. Rodríguez-Bilbao[2] and G. Rodríguez-Caderot[2]
	[1] Space Research Group – Space Weather, Departamento de Física y Matemáticas, Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Spain; [2] Departamento de Física de la Tierra, Astronomía y Astrofísica I (Geofísica y Meteorología), Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), Spain.
	The Spanish Space Weather Service (SeNMEs, www.senmes.es) is a web portal which arise to meet societal needs of near real-time space weather services. This webpage-portal is divided in different sections to fulfill users needs about space weather effects: radio blackouts, solar energetic particle events, geomagnetic storms and presence of geomagnetically induced currents. In almost one year of activity, this service has released a daily report concerning the solar current status and interplanetary medium, informing about the chances of a solar perturbation to hit the Earth’s environment. There are also two different forecasting tools for geomagnetic storms, and a daily ionospheric map. These tools allow us to nowcast a variety of solar eruptive events and forecast geomagnetic storms and their recovery, including a new local geomagnetic index, LDiñ, along with some specific new scaling. In this communication we describe the SeNMEs products and we show the daily work procedure discussing some events.
12:20	Space Monitoring Data Centre of MSU and Operational Control of Radiation Conditions at Low Earth’s Orbits	Kalegaev, V et al.	Oral
	Vladimir Kalegaev, Wera Barinova, Sergey Bobrovnikov, Sergey Dolenko, Nikolay Kuznetsov, Lucy Mukhametdinova, Irina Myagkova, Minh Duc Nguyen, Natalia Nikolaeva, Julia Shugay
	Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
	Space Monitoring Data Centre was created at SINP MSU to process and collect data from Russian satellites and provide analysis of operational analysis of radiation conditions in space. Information services of SWX.SINP.MSU.RU Web-site provide access to current data describing the level of solar activity, geomagnetic and radiation state of Earth’s magnetosphere and heliosphere in near-real time. For data analysis the models of space environment factors working online have been implemented. Interactive services allow one to retrieve and analyze data at a given time moment. Forecasting applications including solar wind parameters, geomagnetic and radiation condition forecasts have been developed. Radiation dose and SEE rate control are of particular importance in practical satellite operation. Satellites are always under the influence of high-energy particle fluxes during their orbital flight. The three main sources of particle fluxes: the Earth’s radiation belts, the galactic cosmic rays, and the solar energetic particles (SEP), are taken into account to estimate the radiation dose caused by high-energy particles to a satellite at LEO orbits. ISO 15039 and AP8/AE8 physical models are used to estimate effects of galactic cosmic rays and radiation belt particle fluxes. Data of geosynchronous satellites (GOES or Electro-L1) allow to reconstruct the SEP fluxes spectra at a given low Earth orbit taking into account the geomagnetic cut-off depending on geomagnetic activity level.
12:40	Sun L-band brightness temperature measurements from Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. Preliminary results for a potential usage of SMOS data for space weather applications.	Crapolicchio, R et al.	Oral
	R. Crapolicchio [1], N Sanchez Ortiz [2], A Gutierrez [2] T Dudok de Wit [3], Emiliano Capolongo [4], Joe Tenerelli [5], Alberto Bigazzi [6]
	[1] ESA; [2] Deimos; [3] CNRS; [4] Tor Vergata University; [5] Ocean Data Lab; [6] ABSpace
	European Space Agency’s (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission has been launched in November 2009 and has successfully spent almost six years in-orbit so far. SMOS is the second Earth Explorer Opportunity mission within the ESA’s Living Planet Programme and it is the first mission providing global measurements of L-band brightness temperatures from space. ESA and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) are jointly operating the SMOS mission. The payload of SMOS consists of the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) instrument, a passive microwave 2-D interferometric full polarization radiometer, operating at 1.413 GHz (wavelength of 21 cm) within the protected 1400-1427 MHz band. The interferometry technology has been developed for radio-astronomy and provides the opportunity to remove the spatial resolution constraint in the measurements from space, mainly due to the antenna size and the wavelength used to study the Earth’s water cycle. The MIRAS payload comprises a central structure and three deployable arms holding the equally distributed 69 antenna elements. The SMOS mission is based on a sun-synchronous orbit (dusk-dawn 6am/6pm) with a mean altitude of 758 km and an inclination of 98.44°. SMOS has a 149-days repeat cycle with a 18-days sub-cycle and a revisit time of 3 days. Due to the orbit geometry and the size of the MIRAS’s antennae the Sun appears in the antenna field of view close to the unit circle (e.g. about 60-90 degrees away from the antenna boresight) as a source of highly variable contamination for the image retrieved from the interferometric measurements. For this reason the SMOS level 1 data processor includes specific algorithm to estimate the Sun brightness temperature from the data itself and compensate it from the measured interferometric measurements. Such estimation of the Sun brightness temperature at L-band is archived in the level 1B product as well as the Sun position in the antenna unit circle. The estimated Sun brightness temperature is available for each SMOS image (i.e. every 1.2 s.) and for both H and V polarization on the antenna plane. The paper presents preliminary results of a validation study to assess the potentiality of the SMOS data: i) to support the research activities at L-band of the solar scientists community and ii) to develop a space weather products derived from SMOS data. The validation exercise had focused on SMOS data availability, coverage and statistical analysis for the SMOS derived Sun brightness temperature versus the Unites State Air Force (USAF) Radio Solar Telescope Network (RSTN). The RSTN is a collection of data from four solar radio observatories operated by US Air Force located at Sagamore Hill (Hamilton, Massachusetts, USA), Palehua (Hawaii, USA), Learmonth (Australia) and San Vito dei Normanni (Italy). The solar telescope network acquires data at eight frequencies ranging from 245 MHz to 15400 MHz. The acquisition frequency of 1415 MHz is very well suitable for comparison with the SMOS data set. The validation has been done for different Sun condition, both eruptive Sun and quite/active Sun. By analysing several Coral Mass Ejections (CMEs) events we checked the capability of the SMOS data set to track the evolution of the burst flux in the radio band. On the other side the quite Sun three years of data (2010 – 2012) has been analysed to assess the capability of the SMOS data to follow the increase of the mean solar activity during a period of transition from quite to active Sun. In both cases the two data sets (SMOS vs RSTN) have shown a strong statistical correlation. The results encourage to pursue further studies on the SMOS level 1 processing algorithm refinement and on the usage of SMOS data set as an additional source of information for space weather applications. The paper also presents discussion about the main advantages in the usage of SMOS data like: i) the data set availability almost in near real time, ii) the homogeneity of the data set which does not require cross-calibration among different on Earth observatories, iii) an independent source of information for the interpretation of the on-ground observatories measurement that from time to time can be affected by Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). By the way we also present some caveats in the use of SMOS dataset: i) image with strong contrast (i.e. Land-Sea transition) could impact the estimated Sun brightness temperature, ii) RFI flagging should be considered (RFI also impacts SMOS measurements), iii) data availability does not cover full 24h (in the current algorithm version 620 the Sun is estimated only when it is in front of the antenna plane) and depends on the Earth position along its orbit around the Sun (this limitation will be removed in the future version of the SMOS processor which will include the estimation of the Sun brightness temperature also when the Sun is in the back of the antenna plane).

Posters

Friday November 27, 10:00 - 11:00, Poster area

1	Revisiting the Influence of the Mid-Latitude Electron Density Trough as the ionospheric projection of the Plasmapause at about 550 Km altitude on High Frequency communication	Tulunay, Y et al.	e-Poster
	Yurdanur Tulunay[1] , Ibrahim Unal[2], Erdinç Timucin[2], Ersin Tulunay[1]
	[1] ODTÜ/METU , 06800 Ankara Turkiye; [2] Inönü Universitesi, Malatya, Turkey
	Electron density data returned by the ARIEL 3 and ARIEL 4 Satellites have been separated into seasonal , diurnal, longitudinal and latitudinal groups. Thus a worldwide and continues coverage had allowed an extensive examination of the behaviour of the ionosphere at mid-latitudes. One of the important results revealed that the mid-latitude electron density (ED) Trough is the main gross feature of the ionosphere between 40 and 60 invariant magnetic latitude (Λ). In short, its appearance is affected by the relative position of the sub-solar point with respect to magnetic equator. The trough , in terms of this longitudinal dependence, is always observed both day and night in the magnetic winter hemisphere. Otherwise it is usually observed at night . The trough is not observed at all during magnetic equinox or in summer. Its appearance seems to be correlated with the reduction in altitude of (O+ – H+) transition level (e.g.Tulunay,1973). Since 1990’s Tulunay,Y and her group have been involved on the temporal and spatial forecasting of the ionospheric critical frequency f0F2 values up to 24 hours in advance by the data driven modelling techniques (e.g.Tulunay et al.,2000 ). From the point of view of practical implications the influence of the mid – latitude ED Trough on High Frequency (HF) communication has been discussed by Tulunay et al. (e.g.Tulunay et al. 2000 and 2001). During the ESWW12 Workshop, the most recent results of the probable signature of the ED Trough on the European VI f0F2 data in terms of magnetic season , invariant latitude will be presented.
2	New tool forecasting sporadic E layer appearance on the basis on magnetic eta index	Dziak-jankowska, B et al.	e-Poster
	Beata Dziak-Jankowska[1], Tomasz Ernst[2], Iwona Stanislawska[1], Łukasz Tomasik[1],  Michal Szwabowski[1]
	[1] Space Research Centre PAS, Warsaw, Poland; [2] Institute of Geophysics PAS, Warsaw, Poland
	We present new tool developed in SRC PAS used for forecasting sporadic E layer appearance. In the previous work we had shown the correlation between the ionospheric characteristics and magnetic eta index proposed by Ernst & Jankowski (2005). Our previous results show the increase of eta value emerges 1-2 hours before the sporadic E layer appearance. The outcome of this conclusion is the possibility of forecasting of sporadic E layer appearance on the basis on real-time magnetic data, especially nontransparent sporadic E layer. The values of eta typical ranged between 0 and 0.1 sometimes exceed 1 or even higher values which means that the changes of the vertical component of magnetic field is larger than the changes of the horizontal magnetic field components. Large gradients of eta give the information about ionospheric drifts. Data presented in the tool shows the changes of the eta index between three days. The asterisk indicate the significant increase of eta value and the possibility of sporadic E layer appearance. After the largest enhancement of eta index within two hours the non-transparent sporadic E layer appears.
3	SAFE ESA-funded Project: space weather fundamental for pre-earthquake signals confutation	De santis, A et al.	p-Poster
	SAFE TEAM: Angelo De Santis[1], Lucilla Alfonsi[1], Claudio Cesaroni[1],  Gianfranco Cianchini[1], Giorgiana De Franceschi[1], Rita Di Giovambattista[1], F. Javier Pavon Carrasco[1], Loredana Perrone[1], Luca Spogli[1], Cristoforo Abbattista[2], Leonardo Amoruso[2], Marianna Carbone[2], Daniela Drimaco[2]
	[1] Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Roma, Italy; [2] Planetek Italia, Bari, Italy
	From data collected from satellites and ground-based instruments, the project SAFE (Swarm for earthquake study) deals with the study of what happens during the phase prior to major earthquakes, to possibly identify any preceding pre-earthquake anomalous signal from space and ground. SAFE started on May 2015, and will last the next 16 months; it is coordinated by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, and the SME Planetek Italia is involved for the technical aspects. The project aims at studying the preparatory phase of large earthquakes through the analysis of electromagnetic and particle data from sensors onboard the three satellites of ESA Swarm constellation in order to better understand the involved physical mechanisms. The most important objective is to capture the information exchanged between the two layers (lithosphere and upper atmosphere) through the integration of the data acquired by the Swarm satellites with those collected by other satellites and measured by ground-based (seismic, GPS, magnetic, etc.) stations. Selection of the magneto-ionospheric data is critically based on the space weather condition of ionosphere and magnetosphere. In this presentation, the working break down structure of the project and some preliminary results are shown. These latter are mainly related to the two recent earthquakes in Italy, i.e. the 2009 M6.2 L’Aquila and the 2012 M5.9 Emilia, and the 2014 M8.2 Chile earthquake, with analyses based on seismic, magnetic, particle and thermal data from satellite and ground-based observations.
4	Systems based forecasts of electron fluxes in the radiation belts	Walker, S et al.	p-Poster
	R. J. Boynton, S. A. Billings, S. N. Walker, M. A. Balikhin
	ACSE, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K.
	Accurate forecasts of the electron environment in the radiation belts are vital in order to model the health and status of satellites whose orbits pass through this region. Currently, the best forecasts for GEO are obtained using systems science models e.g. NARMAX. This presentation discusses the application of the NARMAX methodology to the estimation and forecasts of radiation belt electron fluxes for energies in the range ~30keV to >2MeV, and provides a comparison of the forecasts with measurements GOES 13 and 15.