BINCASTS

BGS Indices, Nowcasts and Forecasts

Developer

Seismology and Geomagnetism Program of the British Geological Survey

Technical Group

GIC and Ground Effects

SDA objective

Given that there is an increasing demand for near real time proxies for geomagnetic indices, to be used in space weather and other studies, this SDA is designed to make available forecasts of geomagnetic and solar indices for the academic and other communities, and to make use of BGS real time data capabilities to provide higher accuracy, near real-time, estimates of existing indices.

Products

Nowcasts :
Daily Aa_est, 3-hourly aa_est, daily Ap_est, 3-hourly ap_est,

Forecasts :
Daily solar radio flux F_10.7 , geomagnetic Ap_estindex and DRX index (the daily average of hourly range in the north component of the field for the three UK observatories) all for 1-27 days ahead.
Smoothed monthly values of sunspot number (SSN), solar radio flux F_10.7, and aa_est.

Link to Project WebSite

http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/gifs/on_line_gifs.html#UK

SDA description

Data Sources for Near Real-Time Indices and Forecasts:

• Nowcasts of Aa_est and aa_est : estimates of Hartland and Canberra K indices, derived either from Hartland one-minute observatory values and/or the IPS daily solar and geophysical report.
• Nowcasts of Ap_est and ap_est : estimates of various observatory K indices, depending on observatory, derived either from one-minute observatory values (source BGS and INTERMAGNET) or hourly ranges (source BGS and NRCan) or extracted from SIDC ursigrams.
• Forecasts of DRX indices : One-minute values from the three UK observatories.
• Forecasts of F_10.7 : Penticton ( Canada ) F10.7 cm flux values obtained from SEC.
• Forecasts of SSN : SIDC ( Belgium ) International sunspot numbers obtained from SEC.
• Forecasts of Aa_est : Aa_est derived by BGS.

Update Rate of Indices and Forecasts:

There is an hourly update rate at present for the nowcast products. The forecast products are updated daily. All are updated automatically.

Product Accuracy:

Forecasts :
Accuracies quantified in presentations made at previous ESOC meetings. See the Workshops on ESA space weather website and particularly Improved Predictions of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity with Application to ESA/LEO Satellite Operations

Nowcasts :
Ap/ap estimates – the algorithm performance was described in the poster presentation by E. Clarke titles “Real Time Monitoring of Global Magnetic Activity: The Ap_est Index” presented at the ESTEC Space Weather Workshop, Dec 2001 and available in the on-line conference proceedings.

Contact / Manager

Ellen Clarke