Operational space weather forecasting at the UK Met Office
Abstract
The Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC) has been monitoring solar transients and resulting impacts on geospace and at Earth, 24/7, since its official opening in 2014. MOSWOC produces twice daily space weather forecasts, and issues real-time alerts and warnings. Forecasts issued include CME arrival times at Earth, and 4 day probabilistic predictions of solar flares, geomagnetic storms, high energy electron events and high energy proton events. It is essential for forecasters to have access to reliable data from models which are well-supported and implemented on a robust infrastructure. To provide this, the Met Office space weather research group transitions research models to operations. Collaboration with national and international partners is key to the Met Office identifying and implementing suitable models, tools and prediction techniques to forecast solar transient impacts. Enlil, the solar wind prediction model, is one of several models implemented operationally at the Met Office. The SWPC CME analysis tool is employed to estimate CME parameters such as origin and speed, which are used as input into Enlil. It is crucial for forecasters to understand the strengths and limitations of such models and tools in order to optimise accuracy and to communicate confidence to users. For example, using a CME analysis tool is subjective and introduces errors into predictions of CME arrival time at Earth; error in CME arrival time is +/-9 hours. Initial verification of space weather forecasts has been undertaken. This provides an understanding of forecaster added value and of forecast performance compared with climatology and persistence models.This presentation will examine the operational space weather prediction techniques and models used at the Met Office. Also discussed will be accuracy of these techniques, strengths and limitations, and verification results.
- Publication:
-
42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018cosp...42E.347B