STCE Newsletter

1. PROBA2 Observations (7 Aug 2017 - 13 Aug 2017)
2. Review of solar activity
3. The International Sunspot Number
4. Review of geomagnetic activity
5. Geomagnetic Observations at Dourbes (7 Aug 2017 - 13 Aug 2017)
6. Review of ionospheric activity (7 Aug 2017 - 13 Aug 2017)
7. Future Events

PROBA2 Observations (7 Aug 2017 - 13 Aug 2017)

Solar Activity

Solar flare activity remained very low during the week.
In order to view the activity of this week in more detail, we suggest to go to the following website from which all the daily (normal and difference) movies can be accessed: http://proba2.oma.be/ssa
This page also lists the recorded flaring events.

A weekly overview movie can be found here (SWAP week 385):
http://proba2.oma.be/swap/data/mpg/movies/weekly_movies/weekly_movie_2017_08_07.mp4

Details about some of this week's events, can be found further below.

If any of the linked movies are unavailable they can be found in the P2SC movie repository here:
http://proba2.oma.be/swap/data/mpg/movies/

Monday Aug 07

NOAA active region 2670 was situated in the centre of the disc from the beginning of the week. Although there were no flares observed from this or any other region during the week, SWAP did observe a small eruption from AR2670 on 2017-Aug-07 towards the south-east at 04:19 UT in the image above.
Find a movie of the events here:
http://proba2.oma.be/swap/movies/20170807_swap_movie.mp4 (SWAP movie)
and here:
http://proba2.oma.be/swap/movies/20170807_swap_diff.mp4 (SWAP difference movie)

Sunday Aug 13

By the end of the week on 2017-Aug-13 there were no active regions visible on the solar disk, however, bright loops associated with AR2671 are just beginning to appear on the eastern limb of the Sun at 23:44 UT, shown in the SWAP image above.
Find a movie of the events here:
http://proba2.oma.be/swap/movies/20170813_swap_movie.mp4 (SWAP movie)

Review of solar activity

Over the past week solar activity has been very low. No significant flares have been recorded.

Active Region (AR) 2670 (Mcintosh class:Hsx; Mag. type:Alpha) was the only AR on the solar disk throughout the week - see picture below of the SDO satellite in visible light taken with the HMI instrument, but did not produce any significant activity.

No Earth directed Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) have been detected.
The greater than 10MeV proton flux remained at background levels.

The International Sunspot Number

The daily Estimated International Sunspot Number (EISN, red curve with shaded error) derived by a simplified method from real-time data from the worldwide SILSO network. It extends the official Sunspot Number from the full processing of the preceding month (green line). The plot shows the last 30 days (about one solar rotation). The horizontal blue line shows the current monthly average, while the green dots give the number of stations included in the calculation of the EISN for each day.

Review of geomagnetic activity

The solar wind speed decreased from around 600 km/s at the beginning of the week to around 350 km/s in the middle of the week before slowly increasing again to around 700 km/s at the end of the week.
Check the graph below showing the solar wind speed measured by the spacecraft DSCOVR at the L1 point.

The total magnetic field strength (Bt) fluctuated between 5 and 10 nT. The Bz component fluctuated around 0 nT but was mainly positive.
Check the graph below showing Bt and Bz measured by the spacecraft DSCOVR at the L1 point.

Geomagnetic conditions ranged between Kp index 0-3 (NOAA) and local K index 0-3 (Dourbes).

Geomagnetic Observations at Dourbes (7 Aug 2017 - 13 Aug 2017)

Review of ionospheric activity (7 Aug 2017 - 13 Aug 2017)

The figure shows the time evolution of the Vertical Total Electron Content (VTEC) (in red) during the last week at three locations:
a) in the northern part of Europe(N61°, 5°E)
b) above Brussels(N50.5°, 4.5°E)
c) in the southern part of Europe(N36°, 5°E)
This figure also shows (in grey) the normal ionospheric behaviour expected based on the median VTEC from the 15 previous days.

The VTEC is expressed in TECu (with TECu=10^16 electrons per square meter) and is directly related to the signal propagation delay due to the ionosphere (in figure: delay on GPS L1 frequency).
The Sun's radiation ionizes the Earth's upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, located from about 60km to 1000km above the Earth's surface.The ionization process in the ionosphere produces ions and free electrons. These electrons perturb the propagation of the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals by inducing a so-called ionospheric delay.

See http://stce.be/newsletter/GNSS_final.pdf for some more explanations ; for detailed information, see http://gnss.be/ionosphere_tutorial.php

Future Events

For more details, see http://www.spaceweather.eu/en/event/future

URSI General Assembly in Montreal, Canada

Start : 2017-08-19 - End : 2017-08-26
For the thirty-second time since the inception of URSI, Radio Scientists from across the world will get together for the URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium. This triennial gathering will take place from 19th to 26th of August 2017, in Montreal, Canada. This conference is a unique opportunity to learn about recent advances in all fields of Radio Science, as covered by all ten URSI Commissions.
Among the different sessions, please note:
* 'Radio Science for Space Weather' Conveners: M. Messerotti, V. Pierrard
* 'Remote Sensing and Modeling of the Earth's Plasmasphere and Plasmapause' Conveners: A. M. Jorgensen, V. Pierrard, B. Heilig
The abstract deadline is 30 January 2017
Website: http://www.ursi2017.org

2017 Joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa

Start : 2017-08-27 - End : 2017-09-01
The Joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Assembly, endorsed by the University of Cape Town and the South African Department of Science and Technology, will take place from 27 August to 1 September 2017 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC). Several IAGA and IAMAS sessions are of Space Weather interests as well as the joint session 'Space Weather throughout the Solar System: Bringing Data and Models together'.
Website:
http://iapso-iamas-iaga2017.com/index.php

Workshops on Radiation Monitoring for the International Space Station in Torino, Italy

Start : 2017-09-05 - End : 2017-09-07
The Workshop on Radiation Monitoring for the International Space Station is an annual meeting to discuss the scientific definition of an adequate radiation monitoring package and its use by the scientific community on the ISS. Types of instruments and research topics need to be defined in order to optimise the radiation safety of the ISS crew.
Website: http://wrmiss.org/

International Workshop on Solar, Heliospheric & Magnetospheric Radioastronomy in Meudon, France

Start : 2017-11-06 - End : 2017-11-10
Jean-Louis Steinbeg has been one of the major pioneers in radioastronomy. Co-founder of the Nançay Observatory, he has actively participated to, an inspired a large number of radio instruments on many international space missions. Jean-Louis Steinberg is the founder of the Space Radioastronomy laboratory of the Paris Observatory in 1963. Later on, this laboratory widened its science interests and became the DESPA (1971) and then the current LESIA (2002) which is one of the major space sciences laboratories in France. The aim of this workshop is to cover the science topics which Jean-Louis Steinberg has promoted during his career, focusing on Solar, Heliospheric & Magnetospheric radioastronomy & physics. This will be done by covering both observations from either ground facilities (NDA, RH, LOFAR, Artemis etc ...) or space missions (ISSEE, Ulysses, WIND, CLUSTER, STEREO, CASSINI, JUNO etc ...) and models/theories. A series of invited talks is also foreseen to cover the new developments in the discipline which may come with the future facilities such as Solar Orbiter, Solar Probe Plus, JUICE, JUNO, LOFAR+, SKA etc ....
This workshop will also be the opportunity to remember both the extraordinary personal & professional lifes of Jean-Louis Steinberg especially for new generation of scientists. At the occasion of this workshop it is also expected that the Building 16 (historical Space Sciences building) on the Meudon campus will be renamed "Building Jean-Louis Steinberg".
Website:
https://jlsworkshop.sciencesconf.org/

European Space Weather Week 14

Start : 2017-11-27 - End : 2017-12-01
The ESWW is the main annual event in the European Space Weather calendar. It is the European forum for Space Weather as proven by the high attendance to the past editions. The agenda will be composed of plenary/parallel sessions, working meetings and dedicated events for service end-users. The ESWW will again adopt the central aim of bringing together the diverse groups in Europe working on different aspects of Space Weather.
Website:
http://www.stce.be/esww14/