Speaker
Description
Space weather predictions of the solar wind impacting Earth (including its transients) are usually first based on remote-sensing observations of the solar disc and corona, and eventually validated and/or refined with in-situ measurements taken at the Sun–Earth Lagrange L1 point, where real-time monitoring probes are located. However, this pipeline provides, on average, only a few tens of minutes of lead time, which decreases to ∼30 minutes or less for solar wind speeds of ∼800 km/s and above.
During Solar Cycle 25, the growing fleet of spacecraft operating in the inner heliosphere has spurred a wave of CME and, more generally, solar wind studies focussed on the use of inner probes as upstream monitors to improve prediction accuracy at 1 au. The central question driving these investigations is whether space weather forecasts are significantly improved by in-situ solar wind measurements taken upstream of L1. Additionally, if upstream measurements do enhance forecast accuracy, a key challenge becomes determining the ideal number and spatial distribution of probes required to provide sufficient and timely coverage.
In this presentation, we reflect upon the advantages of measuring the solar wind in situ upstream of L1, leading to improvements in both fundamental research of interplanetary physics and space weather predictions of the near-Earth environment. We present some examples characterised by fortuitous alignments of inner probes with 1 au assets (Earth and/or STEREO-A) and use these cases to evaluate the effectiveness of current models in assimilating upstream data to forecast solar wind conditions and CME impacts at 1 au.
| Do you plan to attend in-person or online? | In-person |
|---|
