There are carried out a comparison of IRI model with groundbased and satellite measurements.
We used the data of provided by the Incoherent Scatter Radar located near Kharkiv, Ukraine (geographic coordinates: 49.6oN, 36.3oE). This data correspond to quiet geomagnetic conditions, it was a favorable circumstance for comparative analysis. There is of principle convergence on character of the altitude and temporal variations with model and experimental results, obtained on Kharkiv IS radar during quiet geomagnetic conditions and low solar activity. However absolute values of measured and simulated electron density and plasma temperatures profiles are different.
For selected dates we used the electron density profiles recorded by European ionosonde stations. The analysis results showed good agreement between ionosonde profiles and model profiles in F2 maximum and below. However it was reviled that usually electron density values in topside part of IRI profiles are larger than an ionosonde's one. It is not correctly to use ionosonde profiles upper part to validate any model as these data are obtained by fitting a model. Due to this especially actuality for model validation is presented by use of ISR and RO technique provided full measured electron density profiles.
Also it was done the comparison of TEC (total electron content of the ionosphere) variations calculated at IRI model with GPS measurements provided by European IGS network.
Obtained results are important for accounting features of midlatitude ionosphere of Eastern hemisphere in IRI ionosphere model.
We acknowledge the Taiwan's National Space Organization (NSPO) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) for providing the COSMIC Data. We are grateful to European Digital Upper Atmosphere Server (DIAS) for providing the ionosondes? products.

A CubeSat-class nanosatellite, named AtmoCube, has been developing at the University of Trieste (Italy) by a team of students under the supervision of physics and engineering professors in a collaborative effort with external research institutions and industries. It has been selected by ESA to be launched in 2010 as one of the educational payloads on the Maiden Flight of the Vega launcher.

Despite that AtmoCube has been conceived as a technology demonstration, it has been provided with a scientific payload composed of a GPS module, a vector magnetometer and a drift-chamber particle detector. In fact, AtmoCube is intended to probe the Earth's atmosphere, the geomagnetic field and the radiation environment at the altitudes relevant to its orbital path.

These measurements are of great interest to space weather applications. Hence a successful mapping of the derived physical parameters will prove the effectiveness of this small-size, low-cost bus for monitoring purposes, and will allow to define its potentialities and its limitations in this context.

In this work, we provide a status report of the development and we elaborate on expected results relevant to space weather science and applications.

One of the challenges with EUV imagers like EIT/STEREO and AIA/SDO is to retrieve pertinent physical information from the simultaneous observations of multiple wavelengths. As the number of wavelengths steadily increases with new instruments, so do the difficulties encountered in visualising multispectral images. The classical approach is to model the differential emission measure and infer from it the temperature distribution for each image pixel. This approach involves numerous strong assumptions and is computationally costly, making it inappropriate for near real-time analysis of solar images.

A completely different and empirical approach involves blind source separation, where we assume that the for each wavelength, the pixel intensity is a linear combination of contributions (source images) with specific emission spectra. The objective then is to recover both the sources and their mixing coefficients without any a priori information. This is a blind source sepraration problem, which has recently received considerable attention in various areas such as the processing of hyperspectral images from planets, in acoustics, in airborne surveying, etc.

Here we use a recent statistical technique called Bayesian Positive Source Separation [Amblard et al., A&A 487, L13-L16 (2008)] to extract sources from SOHO/EIT images in 4 wavelengths and from SOHO/CDS images in 14 wavelengths. In both cases we find that 3 source images are enough to capture the salient features of the original data. Interestingly, their associated spectra isolate specfic temperature bands that respectively correspond to the chromosphere, to the lower corona and to the upper corona. We show how these source images can be used to reconstruct solar three-temperature maps in near real time.

In the context of Space Weather forecasting, the automated detection of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) becomes more and more important in handling efficiently the large data flow which is expected from recently launched and future missions. In this project we study the detection software package "CACTus", developed by colleagues from the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), by applying the program on synthetic data from mathematical CME simulations, instead of on observational data. Main strength of this study is that we know in advance what should be detected. We describe the sensitivities and strengths of automated detection, more specific for the CACTus program, resulting in a better understanding of detection on one hand and suggesting possible improvements of the software on the other hand.

NeuroSpace is a small company located in southern Sweden that specializes in research, education/consulting and software products related to space weather and space physics. In this presentation, both current and future projects are described.

Basic research include solar magnetic activity and studies of various effects, e.g. GIC, from space weather.

NeuroSpace also offer education and consulting. Education is aimed towards e.g. high-schools and universities whereas consulting is aimed towards companies.

NeuroSpace develops both commercial and custom-built applications. Web- and desktop applications are based on open standards, such as XHTML, CSS and Javascript. These will run on all operating systems. Applications for OS X are based on Objective-C and Cocoa. The goal is also to bring space weather nowcasts and forecasts to mobile phones. NeuroSpace will also evaluate scientific space weather models that can be made operational.

NeuroSpace is open for any collaboration within the space weather community, both within fundamental science and within space weather application projects.

URL: www.neurospace.se

The electronic Space Weather upper atmosphere (eSWua) system is capable of supporting the acquisition, elaboration, evaluation, sharing and archiving of multi-instruments observations of the ionized atmosphere. The INGV manages different kind of observations of the upper atmosphere and since several decades it has been collecting digital data from middle and high latitudes. This big amount of information is now organized in a proper database, able to contribute to scientific and technological improvements at national as well as at international level in the field of telecommunications and space weather.The dynamic web site www.eSWua.ingv.it gives real-time access to ionosonde, riometer, GPS TEC and scintillation data, also providing some useful tools for the visualization of the ionospheric conditions over the polar regions of both the hemispheres, over the Mediterranean area and over Argentina.
The eSWua is the outcome of a big effort of manpower, time and funds motivated by the awareness that geoscience has to rely on structured digital data and on appropriate scientific procedures developed ad hoc by experts opened and shared among the international community. In this paper new tools are shown as well as some examples regarding the monitoring and investigation of the ionospheric scintillations.

In this work we develop a technique for the forecasting of the peak values of solar cycle 24 based on the characteristics of the descending phase of the previous cycle. The physical idea is that successive solar cycles are not independent, and that the descending phase of a cycle already contains information about the next cycle. In particular, a descending phase that is characterised by a small gradient or high variability is regarded as the forebode of a strong following cycle.
We demonstrate a clear relation between the maximum amplitude of sunspot cycle and features of this integral activity in declining phase of previous cycle. Two relevant indicators related to the speed of decrease of the cycle and the variability of the descending phase were constructed from these features.
Our technique will predict the maximum when the minimum of the previous cycle is observed. While the exact time of the minimum occurrence has not defined yet we estimate an upper bound of the sunspot maximum 24. We predict that the maximum of cycle 24 will be weaker than previous one and peak value will not exceed 72.

Since 2007 the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) started a task force to develop and operate a space weather program. The main purpose of the program is to monitor the space climate and weather from sun, interplanetary space, magnetosphere and ionosphere-atmosphere, and to provide useful information to space related communities, technological, industrial and academic areas. Several physical parameters of the sun-earth environment are already being monitored through a large ground base network of scientific sensors and under collaboration with other space weather centers. Most of these physical parameters are daily published on the space weather program web site (http://www.inpe.br/climaespacial/). A comprehensive data bank and an interface layer are under development to allow an easy and direct access to the useful information. In this work, the present status of the program will be presented.

The Space Weather Application Center Ionosphere (SWACI) is a joint project of the Institute of Communications and Navigation (IKN) and the German Remote Data Center (DFD) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The SWACI space weather service is focused primarily on ionospheric issues. The project is essentially supported by the German State Government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern until the end of 2010.
The project shall provide nowcasts, forecasts, and alerts on the ionospheric state as well as related space weather issues.
SWACI operates a powerful data processing system working both in real-time and post-processing modes in order to provide actual information to the customers (http://swaciweb.dlr.de). Typical data products include European maps of the Total Electron Content (TEC) and corresponding derivatives such as latitudinal and longitudinal gradients and rate of change, updated every 5 minutes. The spatial resolution of ionospheric data products could essentially be improved by including 1s sampled data obtained from the Satellite Positioning Service (SAPOS) of Germany and the International GNSS Service (IGS) networks in the near-real-time streaming mode.
Space based retrievals include radio occultation data as well as a 3D reconstruction of the topside ionosphere between CHAMP orbit and GPS satellite orbit height.
In order to better understand vertical electron density profile changes during ionospheric storms, the equivalent slab thickness over the ionosonde station Juliusruh/Germany is offered as an operational product updated every 15 minutes. In addition to the processing of GNSS data, also beacon measurements from various satellites such as NIMS (former NNSS) satellites and COSMIC are received and analysed. Furthermore, we have started to incorporate actual scintillation measurements from Kiruna, Neustrelitz and La Laguna/Tenerife into the operational service.
The Web-presentation has changed considerably. Whereas the capabilities of the former version were rather restricted, e.g. when considering the availability of historical data, the new portal uses professional solutions of data management including modern forms of data provision. Although the SWACI service will be fully operational by the end of 2010, SWACI is already available for interested users at a service level reached so far.
SWACI is connected to SWENET as data provider as well as user of space weather information to forecast the ionospheric state. In favour of further improving the service, in particular for supporting Galileo applications, enhanced data exchange with SWENET is foreseen.

Available tools linking Space Weather (SW) conditions and direct effects on the spacecraft sensitive components are quite limited and poorly validated. This is due to the fact that satellite geometries and material properties are not adequately reflected in these tools, radiation effects models are commonly based on very simple transport codes and the validation of the predicted effects with real on board data is not implemented in space programmes as a standard philosophy.

The solution proposed to cover the previous uncertainties is merging the capabilities of realistic particle transport codes with real-time SW information in order to develop a complete radiation model of the mission. The objective is to design a tool capable of retrieving real-time SW information from a selected data provider, in this case SEISOP (Space Environment Information System for Operations), and perform a radiation transport analysis, propagating the retrieved SW data through a realistic model of a spacecraft.

The resulting G4MRES - Geant4 for Mission Radiation Effects Simulation ? is a near-real time tool with the final aim of supplying mission operation teams with useful information regarding the effects of SW and providing additional support in the understanding of possible anomalies due to the interaction with the space radiation.

G4MRES core is based on Geant4 particle transport code, as it covers all the required capabilities in terms of radiation propagation and effects analysis, allowing the transport of particles through any 3D geometry and the estimation of a wide variety of common radiation effects such as Total Ionising Dose (TID), Displacement Damage Dose (DDD), Linear Energy Transfer (LET), etc.

G4MRES is being developed by INTA as a part of the SEISOP project as an additional tool that makes use of SEISOP?s standard interfaces for retrieving data and ingesting it back into the system. G4MRES constitutes an example of how external modules can plug into the SEISOP system due to its extensible architecture.

The G4MRES tool is based on G4SESS, a previous prototype developed in the framework of the SESS (Space Environment Support System) project.

The MEO radiation hazard is becoming an increasingly important consideration with an ever rising number of satellites missions spending most of their time in this environment. This region lies in the heart of the highly dynamic electron radiation belt, where very large radiation doses can be encountered unless proper shielding to critical systems and components is applied. Significant internal charging hazards also arise in the MEO regime.
For electron environment specification at Galileo altitude, new models have been developed and implented: long term effects model for dose evaluation, statistical model for internal charging analysis and latitudinal model for ELDRS analysis. Models outputs, tools and validations with observations (Giove-A data) and existing models (such as FLUMIC) will be presented.
(*Energetic Electron Environment Models for MEO:Co 21403/08/NL/JD)

The large solar flare and coronal mass ejection events have profound effects on the polar ionosphere. These effects provide the earliest warning at ground level of the real magnitude of the disturbances to be expected to arrive for various systems such as satellites, communication lines and power grids. One example of space weather monitoring is the observation of ionospheric irregularities by GPS in order to forecast possible communication and navigation problems in the Polar Regions. Another example is riometer observations of ionospheric absorption of radio waves during solar proton events. The riometer responds almost immediately (in approx. 15 min following a solar flare) to fluxes of solar high-energy (10-200 MeV) protons propagating at velocities approaching half the speed of light. A further example is the monitoring of the transpolar convection into the magnetospheric tail region of plasma and embedded magnetic fields as expressed in the Polar Cap (PC) index. The PC index can be considered an index for the power input from the solar wind to the magnetosphere. Part of this power is subsequently dissipated in substorm events, which cause the large magnetic disturbances at auroral and subauroral latitudes that may endanger power grids. On-line space weather monitoring from Thule in the central polar cap is an affordable enterprise, which is proposed to be included in space weather projects as an important supplement to space-based monitoring.

The EISCAT Scientific Association operates three incoherent scatter radars in Tromso (Norway) and on Svalbard as well as additional receiver sites in Kiruna (Sweden) and Sodankyla (Finland). Currently the EISCAT Associates comprise Finland, China, Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, as well as supporting partners France and Russia.

In the future, EISCAT will build the next generation incoherent scatter radar, which will provide comprehensive 3D monitoring of the atmosphere and ionosphere above Northern Fenno-Scandinavia. The EISCAT_3D radar system will consist of multiple phased arrays, using the latest digital signal processing to achieve ten times higher temporal and spatial resolution than the present radars.

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) selected EISCAT_3D for the Roadmap 2008 for Large-Scale European Research Infrastructures for the next 20-30 years. The facility will be constructed as a modular system by 2015.

EISCAT_3D will be a volumetric radar capable of imaging an extended spatial area with simultaneous full-vector drift velocities, having continuous operation modes, short baseline interferometry capability for imaging sub-beamwidth scales, real-time data access for applications and extensive data archiving facilities.

Here we will give an overview of this ambitious project, and invite interested parties to contribute to the planning of EISCAT_3D.

For nearly 50 years, measurements of the solar flux at 610 MHz have been performed daily by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in its radioastronomy station in Humain. These measurements have been recently digitized and will be put online.

New developments are currently ongoing to ultimately restart these measurements at 610 MHz, and to extend them to the microwave range between 1 and 10 GHz. One of the goal is to provide a local measurement of the F10.7 cm index for the operational space weather forecast activities of the SIDC. A collaboration, lead by our canadian partners from the DRAO and NRCan institutes has been set up to develop a new generation of solar flux monitors that will ensure high quality and calibrated measurements.

We present in this poster the status of the ongoing developments.

The Open Data Interface (ODI) is a database system for storing space environment data using MySQL. In addition to storing the actual data it is equally important to handle the metadata. The ODI systems stores the metadata and their association with the data. The system is compliant with the CDF/ISTP and COSPAR/PRBEM Guidelines. Currently there are about 50 datasets in the database such as IMP8/GME, SREM, XMM/ERMD, GOES particle and radiation data, and indices such as Dst, Kp, and SSN. Adding new datasets is straightforward and includes the editing of a CDF-style skeleton file to describe the metadata. If the raw data to be ingested are CDF files these are automatically converted before the data are stored into ODI. For non-CDF files, like plain text files, a few lines of code need to be edited to correctly parse the raw data files. As ODI is based on MySQL it is accessible to a large range of different software platforms. As part of the development, interfaces to IDL, PHP and Java have been developed, but the ODBC interface also can provide direct access from Excel, Matlab and many other programs. Interfaces to existing platforms can therefore be set up and the system has been integrated into three on-line systems: SAAPS, SEDAT, and SPENVIS.

We present AMDA (Automated Multi-Dataset Analysis), the data analysis service of the French Plasma Physics Data Center (CDPP). AMDA is developed according to the Virtual Observatory paradigm : it is a web-based facility for on-line analyses of space physics. Data may come from its own local database as well as remote ones. This tool allows the user to perform classical manipulations such as data visualization, parameter computation and data extraction. AMDA also offers innovative functionalities such as event searches on the content of the data in either visual or automated ways, generation, use and management of time-tables (event lists). The general functionalities of AMDA are presented in the context of Space Weather with example scientific use cases.

The Space Environment Information System to support Operations (SEISOP) is a data and knowledge system being developed by DEIMOS and partners for the European Space Agency.

The objective of the SEISOP project is to provide to the mission operators, project teams, spacecraft development engineers and space weather scientists a system capable to supply, in a structured manner, information and extracted knowledge related to the Space Environment and its effects on the spacecraft.

SEISOP imports data from a variety of data sources and providers. This data includes ESA's missions telemetry and auxiliary data, space weather data available from various on ground and in orbit sources, e.g. NOAA, SIDC, SWENET, as well as data produced by relevant physical and/or numerical models.

The services and products offered by SEISOP include short-term forecasting based on space environment models, data archiving and retrieval, real-time alarming inference and distribution based on user configurable rules, real-time and offline data monitoring and analysis, and generation and distribution of reports, such as multi spacecraft anomaly reports.

One of the main features of SEISOP is the usage of pluggable data mining and forecast modules which can be distributed across different locations. Each module connects and interacts with the system through well-defined standard interfaces for retrieving data and ingesting it back into the system. The data that is provided back to the system is then available to any SEISOP user.

An example of this plug-in mechanism is the G4MRES ? Geant4 for Mission Radiation Effects Simulation - tool that interacts with SEISOP for supplying useful information regarding the effects of Space Weather.

State-of-the-art technologies have been used to ensure modularity, as well as to enable the future evolution of the system to become an appropriate framework to unify Space Environment data that might be needed by different European and national Space Missions.

This paper will present the services offered by SEISOP to support S/C operators and S/C designers, its pluggable architecture and the benefits that the system brings to the user community, as well as its potential as an early precursor system for the European Space Situation Awareness Program (SSA).

Electron density profiles retrieved from the Formosat-3/COSMIC radio occultation (RO) measurements were compared to ground-based ionosphere (GNSS and ionosonde networks) and satellite (DEMETER) measurements. Ionospheric data recorded by European ionosonde stations (Rome, Ebro, Arenosillo, Athens, Pruhonice and Juliusruh) during years of 2007-2008 were compared to COSMIC-derived RO ionospheric profiles. It was revealed that, in general, the shape of the COSMIC profiles of the bottom side of the ionosphere is in a good agreement with ionosonde profiles. The heights of the peak density values are also very similar. It is necessary to note, however, that the COSMIC-retrieved electron density profiles should not be interpreted as actual vertical profiles. The geographical location of the ray path tangent points at the top and the bottom of a profile may differ by several hundred kilometers. The coincidence of COSMIC and ionosonde profiles is better when the bottom side part of the ray path tangent points is situated close to the ionosonde location, i.e., it is close to the sounding path from the ground up to the height of F2 layer maximum.

Special attention was focused on the question of the topside part of the electron density profiles. Practically for all the analyzed cases, the ionosonde profiles for the topside shows lower densities than RO profiles. Since the topside ionosonde profiles are obtained by fitting a model to the peak electron density value, the COSMIC radio occultation measurements can make an important contribution to the studies of the topside part of the ionosphere. In addition, total electron content (TEC) values calculated for the nearest GPS stations located in European region were analyzed. RO and ionosonde?s profiles were integrated in order to compare them to GPS TEC. In general, the bottom side parts of the COSMIC and ionosonde data are in a rather good agreement, while the topsides often shows considerable differences. GPS TEC reveals higher electron concentration than COSMIC and ionosonde-derived TEC. This is because the latter contains IEC and PEC. This procedure can be useful for analysis of the influence of IEC and PEC on TEC estimation. The electron density profiles retrieved from RO measurements and IRI-2007 model are also in good agreament. Results of the presented studies may be important to validate the reliability of the COSMIC ionosphere probing using the RO technique.

We present a detailed scientific analysis of a Solar Particle Event (SPE), which occurred on January 20, 2005. This event was recorded by the ESA Standard Radiation Environment Monitor (SREM) onboard INTEGRAL, PROBA and ROSETTA satellites. We use a synthesis of several other space and ground based observations from multiple instruments in several wavelengths (from X-rays to radio) in order to obtain a coherent picture concerning the fundamental characteristics of this event from its onset on the solar surface to its arrival in geospace. In particular we provide a detailed study of: a) the temporal dynamics and physical characteristics of the generating solar flare b) the characteristics of the associated Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) and the propagation of solar energetic particles (SEP) in interplanetary space c) the correlation of (a) and (b) with the derived SEP fluxes from SREM observations and other space instruments and d) the physical characteristics of the associated Ground Level Enhancement (GLE), which was observed by ground-based Neutron Monitor (NM) detectors. This coherent description shows that SREM is a valuable new asset for the study of SPEs and a useful alert instrument for geoeffective solar events.

The SDO satellite, due to start producing data early in 2010, will provide images of the Sun with unprecedented details. For example, the SDO-AIA telescope will produce a 4k x 4k image every five seconds for each of it four telescopes (10 spectral bands). This mission will increase the information flow available for solar observation and forecasting by several orders of magnitude , and it represents an extraordinary new resource for both research and solar weather forecasting. However, it involves a massive flow of data: over 1TB/day without pause for the duration of the mission, which is at least 5 years, and most probably 10 years.

The SDO data will be handled by a backbone network of data centres, and the Royal Observatory of Belgium will be the primary centre for European distribution of data. Users - forecasters and researchers - will have Internet access to both real-time data and archived data in a choice of resolution and cadence. While any data centre can act as an access point, requests will be transparently routed to the closest centre with data immediately available.

The ROB has installed a dedicated computing system as its SDO data centre. We present here the architecture of the system and an overview of its capabilities. As well as the basic functions of data transfer and storage plus computing facilities for research, the ROB data centre will provide real-time web access to the basic images in variable resolution, plus high speed computing to generate composite and transformed images in real-time.

In this study a three dimensional Visual Solar Feature catalogue which is a composition of 3D models and 3D representations of solar features is presented. Until now algorithms for creating 3D representation of active regions and sunspots that are detected from SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) / MDI (Michelson Doppler Imager) magnetogram and continuum images and 3D models for magnetic field lines that are modeled using magnetic footprint data extracted from magnetogram images are concluded.
By using this catalogue, 3D models of magnetic field lines, 3D representation of sunspots and active regions and 3D representation of data available in text based catalogues that are created by observatories around the world can be visualized and browsed at the same time. Because of the difficulty of providing a full description of data in text based catalogues, this environment can be more accurate and effective for scientist to search 3D solar feature models and descriptions at the same time in such a visual solar catalogue. This catalogue would improve interpretation of solar images by providing a complete "picture" of Sun, since it would allow us to extract data embedded in various solar images and text based feature catalogues and visualize all at the same time. The overall system is compose of two tools; One (Solar Modeler) for extracting 3D data from solar images and text based catalogues and creating 3D Visual Solar Feature catalogue and the other one (3DSolarView) for visualizing this catalogue in 3D. This is the first step for creating a 3D solar feature catalogue where automatically detected solar features will be presented visually together with their properties.

Reconstruction of the F2-layer critical frequency at magnetically conjugate points, CP, of the ionosphere is produced using daily-hourly ionosonde observations of foF2 for source stations, SS. Data pre-processing starts from filling gaps of foF2 SS observations so that the complete data sets are produced. The relevant relation of the noon F2 layer critical frequency is applied for the magnetic conjugate locations at the ends of the magnetic line of force assuming that daytime temperature of the neutral gas is proportional to the cosine of the Sun?s zenith angle at local noon (Rotwell, 1962). The 27-days running median and the ionospheric weather W index (Gulyaeva et al., 2008), characterizing the degree of disturbance at SS location are used for reconstruction of the median of CP foF2. Local SS ionospheric W index of opposite sign is applied to reconstructed median at CP to produce daily-hourly foF2 values. Analysis is applied to proxy fnF2 for the critical frequency foF2 reduced by the solar zenith angle (Gulyaeva, 2009) which shows improved correlation coefficient between data of north and south hemispheres despite opposite seasons therein during winter and summer. Results are daily updated at web page of IZMIRAN for 30 source ionospheric stations worldwide (http://www.izmiran.ru/services/iweather/). This procedure enlarges database of the ionospheric critical frequency covering locations on the globe with sparse or none ionosonde observations.

The Dst index is one of the most used geomagnetic indices that is constructed to monitor the most dramatic events in the near-Earth space, the geomagnetic storms. The Dst index in calculated as an average of disturbances observed at four low-latitude stations, roughly equally distributed in longitude. However, in addition to the ring current, other current systems like the tail current, magnetopause current and partial ring current contribute to the Dst index, leading to the fact that the local disturbances at the four stations are very often quite different. Moreover, because of the problematic Dst recipe, the different Dst stations contribute to the Dst index with systematically different weights. We have calculated a revised version of the Dst index, the so called Dcx index, where the different stations contribute with equal weights.
So far, the Dst/Dcx indices have been based only on four stations. Such a coarse longitudinal accuracy does not allow for a detailed study of the local time structure of storm time disturbances due to asymmetric current systems like the partial ring current and the tail current. Therefore, we have increased the number of stations used to calculate the Dcx index to 16 stations. This longitudinally enhanced index is called Dcx16. Within the FP7 SOTERIA project both the Dcx and Dcx16 indices, together with all the 16 local Dcx indices observed at each contributing station will be made available. This offers an ample range of new possibilities for detailed studies of storm time disturbances and currents.

Fast development of space instrumentation and telemetry technology caused and urgent need of specially tailored pattern recognition tools. Interesting and practically important task is automatic tracking of Coronal Mass Ejections(CMEs) as introduced and developed by Berghmans, (1999); Robbrecht & Berghmans, (2004). EUV Imager (EIT) of solar corona onboard of SOHO spacecraft has uncovered a new generation of various eruptive events, often identified as on-disk CME precursors (Biesecker & Thompson 2002; Zhukov,2004). NEMO code (Novel EIT wave Machine Observing) autonomously detects in real time solar eruptions in image sequences from EIT. NEMO technique is based on the general statistical properties and underlying physics of eruptive on-disk events (Podladchikova & Berghmans, 2005).

In this paper we present a number of NEMO algorithm updates, that allow us to raise the recognition efficiency of solar eruptions, more specifically of eruptive dimmings linked to CMEs, namely:

We have applied chemistry-climate model SOCOL to simulate the response of the middle atmosphere to the short-term variability of the solar irradiance. We have carried out an ensemble simulation of the atmosphere driven by the daily mean solar irradiance for the years 2002-2005. The model results shows statistically significant response of some atmospheric species in the stratosphere and mesosphere. The simulated response is compared to the available satellite data. We also compare the sensitivity of the temperature and several species obtained with a traditional linear regression analysis with the results obtained using non-linear statistical approaches.