Space Weather Future Path Mingles Between Real and Virtual Worlds

The current computational power allows us to run large-scale geospace simulations that include more physical processes and reach smaller spatial and temporal scales than ever before. This has facilitated development of models such as the Vlasiator that includes ion kinetics in the global magnetosphere, or development of embedded and/or coupled models such as the SWMF that treat the kinetic and/or neutral interactions in regions where they are thought to play most crucial role. These models are sufficiently accurate and detailed that they can be used to predict new phenomena and causalities that drive the need of new observations for their verification. Thus, the often-cited chain of events of observations driving understanding driving model development is now made a full circle, where the models are an integral part of making discoveries. As the monitoring requires models for predictions, and as the model development requires data assimilation and implementation of the knowledge gained from new measurements, the division between modelers and observationalists is likely to fade, requiring both communities to learn key concepts of the other. It is crucial that strategic processes such as the COSPAR Space Weather Roadmap activity or the US Decadal Surveys recognize the need to cover both aspects in their planning processes.