SWACI

Developer

German Aerospace Center (DLR) in the Helmholtz-Association

Technical Group

Ionospheric Effects & Activity Forecast

Service objective

• Provision of ionospheric information and data products to the public, research institutes and governmental offices: Warnings, Forecast, Nowcast, Historical data for post analysis and modelling.
• Provision of specific information on ionospheric state to subscribed customers.
• Support the SWENET activities by exchanging relevant information on a regular basis.

Products

• Total Electron Content (TEC) derived from ground based GNSS measurements - nowcast, forecast
• Total Electron Content spatial gradients and TEC rate of change - nowcast
• Vertical electron density profiles derived from space based GPS radio occultation measurements - nowcast
• 3D electron density reconstruction from space based GPS measurements - nowcast
• Equivalent slab thickness of the ionosphere - nowcast
• Scintillation indices (S₄ and σ_φ) - nowcast
• Relative TEC from radio beacon measurements - nowcast
• Warning messages of hazardous space weather conditions - (planned)

All products are planned to be archived and shall be made available as historical data.

Link to Project WebSite

Interested users are welcome to visit the SWACI project website.

Upon registration, each user will obtain access to envisaged SWACI services according to the user group status - Consortium, Research or Public.

Service description

Radio signals, transmitted by modern communication and navigation systems may be heavily disturbed by space weather hazards. Thus, severe temporal and spatial changes of the electron density in the ionosphere and plasmasphere may significantly degrade the signal quality of various radio systems which even may lead to a complete loss of the signal. By providing specific space weather information, in particular now- and forecast of the ionospheric state, the accuracy and reliability of impacted communication and navigation systems shall be improved.

The Space Weather Application Center - Ionosphere (SWACI) is a joint project of the DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation (IKN) and the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD). The research project is focused on establishing a space weather center being focused on ionospheric issues. The project is supported by the German state government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

The future Ionospheric Monitoring and Prediction Center (IMPC) Neustrelitz shall serve users in the European region by providing warnings, nowcast and forecast information as well as historical data of the ionospheric state and related space weather issues. The data collected in near real-time include ionospheric observations and related solar-terrestrial data.

Project Partners

Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam ( AIP ), Potsdam, Germany

AXIO-NET GmbH ( AXIO-NET ), Hannover, Germany

Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie ( BKG ), Frankfurt, Germany

Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität ( EMAU ), Greifswald, Germany

ESA ( SWENET )

Finnish Meteorological Institute ( FMI ), Helsinki, Finland

Forschungsgesellschaft für Angewandte Naturwissenschaften e.V. ( FKIE ), Wachtberg, Germany

GeoForschungsZentrum ( GFZ ), Potsdam, Germany

Hochschule Neubrandenburg - University of Applied Sciences ( HSNB ), Neubrandenburg, Germany

Institut für Astrophysik, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen ( Georg-August-Universität ), Göttingen, Germany

Institut für Atmosphärenphysik ( IAP ), Kühlungsborn, Germany

Institut für Meteorologie, Universität Leipzig ( Uni-Leipzig ), Leipzig, Germany

NOAA Space weather Prediction Center ( SWPC ), Boulder, USA

Zentralstelle SAPOS ( SAPOS )

Contact / Manager

Dr. Norbert Jakowski