ESC Heliospheric Weather

Heliospheric Weather Expert Service Centre (H-ESC)

Mission Statement

The mission of the Heliospheric Weather Expert Service Centre (H-ESC) is to provide and develop the functionalities, capabilities and expertise in the domain of Heliospheric Weather that are needed within the ESA SWE network to achieve as a collaborative enterprise its mission of demonstrating and assessing the influences of Space Weather and informing and supporting end users through the provision of accurate, reliable and timely products and (pre-)operational services, tailored to their requirements. The specific goal of the Heliospheric Expert Service Centre (H-ESC) is to fully exploit heliophysics assets and expertise from Europe, and further afield, to provide, improve and support the provision of alerts, forecasts and post event analysis of space weather conditions both near to the Earth and at other locations within the heliosphere. This will be accomplished through the use of remote-sensing and in-situ monitoring to identify and track key transient features (including coronal mass ejections, high-speed solar wind streams and solar energetic particles), combined with the use of advanced modelling and analysis techniques to predict their arrival at various points of interest in the heliosphere.


Illustration of a coronal mass ejections reaching out in the direction of earth (© ESA/NASA - SOHO/LASCO/EIT)

Heliospheric Weather encompasses the effects of the solar wind, including the transient structures therein, as they propagate out from the Sun's corona through the heliosphere. This includes heliospheric effects that directly influence the Earth and also other locations within the heliosphere that may be relevant to interplanetary exploration missions.

The fundamental structure of the heliosphere is governed by the Sun's magnetic structure and solar wind outflows. The solar wind can be simplistically described as comprising a radially-expanding, quasi-static background through which propagate immense plasma/magnetic field transients, termed Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) that have been ejected from the Sun. The origin of the background solar wind leads to its delineation into regions of high- and slow-speed solar wind, along the interfaces of which can form extensive swathes of compressed plasma/magnetic field known as Stream Interaction Regions and Co-rotating Interaction Regions (CIR) that endure for multiple solar rotations. Alongside, but associated with, these bulk plasma phenomena are high-energy particle populations known as Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events that originate either through energisation processes occurring at the site of solar flares or at interplanetary shocks.


Example of CME propagation modelling within the heliospheric domain using the 3D MHD WSA/Enlil models.

While CMEs are considered to be the quintessential driver of space weather effects being associated, for example, with the vast majority of intense magnetic storms, the potentially deleterious effects of CIRs and SEPs are also well known. The ability to characterise, monitor and forecast all of these features is of critical importance in understanding, mitigating and responding to the impacts of space weather events.

For heliospheric weather the conditions of the ambient solar wind, and solar wind transients, which are of particular relevance are:

  • Plasma density of CMEs and the background solar wind;
  • Velocity of CMEs and the background solar wind;
  • IMF (of CMEs and the background solar wind), particularly in terms of north-south polarity;
  • The flux, spectrum and composition of solar energetic particles (SEPs);

The micro-particle distributions are also relevant to this domain, particularly at certain heliospheric locations, however this has not been the main focus of the current development activities.

Direct and timely in-situ solar wind monitoring within the heliosphere is currently only available from a small number of locations (near-Earth and STEREO-A, both at ~1AU from the Sun). The H-ESC therefore makes use of a variety of models to help assess and forecast the anticipated conditions at locations throughout the heliosphere. The key inputs for these models come from the Solar Weather Domain (see S-ESC) and include:

  • Magnetograms for characterising the background solar wind emission from the Sun;
  • EUV imagery of coronal holes, again to assess background solar wind and temporal changes;
  • Coronagraph imagery for analysis of initial, near-Sun, CME characteristics;
  • Active region and other solar surface feature identification and assessment to aid probabilistic assessment of changes in heliospheric weather conditions;
  • X-ray flare warnings, alerts and observations as indicators of transient solar surface events and potential locations of Solar Energetic Particle (SEPs);

The outputs from the H-ESC serve both the direct end-users involved in solar system missions design, planning and operation, as well as critical inputs to downstream processing of the radiation, geomagnetic and ionospheric ESCs and external product providers. These H-ESC outputs include:

  • Forecasts of background solar wind characteristics at Earth and other heliospheric locations;
  • Alerts relating to large scale heliospheric features in the background solar wind such as High Speed Streams (HSSs) and Co-rotating Interaction Regions (CIRs);
  • Characterisation and propagation of transient solar wind features, most notably CMEs;
  • Warnings and alerts relating to the transient features such as the anticipated arrival time of a CME;
  • Near real time in-situ measurements of the solar wind plasma characteristics. These provide a ground-truth against which to assess the model predictions and also as drivers of downstream models;
  • Near real time in-situ measurements of the energetic particle environment which may be a danger to astronauts or temporarily or permanently damage space-based electronic systems;

The H-ESC also provides a variety of user driven models and access to historical heliospheric mission data in support of post-event analysis and development of spacecraft engineering design limits.


Examples of some current H-ESC forecast, near real time and post event analysis products.

Current products provided by the H-ESC and available in SWE services:

Centre de Données de la Physique des Plasmas (CDPP)
  • H.114a Automated Multi Dataset Analysis (AMDA)
  • H.107b Solar wind propagation (Heliopropa)
  • H.103c Heliospheric propagation tool
  • H.109b Shock tool
DTU Space (DTU)
  • H.106b Automated WARnings of Earth arrivals (AWARE)
  • H.110b Automated WARnings of STEREO_A arrivals (AWARE_A)
  • H.101f AWARE_NEXT Enhanced 24 hour solar wind forecast
Infor'marty (Infor'marty)
  • H.109a Magnetic Connectivity Tool
  • H.101i Solar Wind Flux Tube (SWiFT) forecast
Institute of Physics (UNIGRAZ/IGAM)
  • H.108b CME arrival time predictions (Drag Based Ensemble Model Tool)
  • H.101b Forecast of solar wind high-speed streams (ESWF)
  • H.101h Forecast of solar wind high-speed streams ESWF24
  • H.101e Forecast of solar wind high-speed streams (STEREO+CH)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
  • H.103d Magnetic Effectiveness Tool
STFC, RAL Space (STFC/RAL Space)
  • H.113a H-ESC archive product browser
  • H.112a H-ESC product assessment Report
  • H.115a H-ESC statistical products
  • H.121a STEREO-A HI Background Subtracted Movie (Science Mode)
  • H.121b STEREO-A HI Background Subtracted Difference Movie (Science Mode)
  • H.120a STEREO-A HI Beacon Mode Background Subtracted Difference Movie
  • H.121c STEREO-A HI Time Elongation J-Map (Science Mode)
  • H.121d STEREO-A HI J-Map Annotated (Science Mode)
  • H.120c STEREO-A HI Time Elongation Annotated J-Maps (Beacon Mode)
  • H.120b STEREO-A HI Time Elongation J-Maps (Beacon Mode)
  • H.101z Solar Wind Forecast Speed Comparison
UK Met Office (UKMO)
  • H.106a Near-Earth space weather notifications
  • H.101a Near-Earth solar wind forecasts (Enlil Ensemble)
  • H.101c Solar Wind Near-Earth Forecasts (Enlil Ensemble)
  • H.103a Near-Earth CME arrival time predictions (Enlil Ensemble)
  • H.107a_Mars Heliospheric solar wind forecasts for Mars based on 3D-MHD modelling using Enlil
  • H.108a_Mars CME Tailored Heliospheric arrival predictions
  • H.110a_Mars Tailored Heliospheric Space Weather Alerts
  • H.107a_Mercury Heliospheric solar wind forecasts for Mercury based on 3D-MHD modelling using Enlil
  • H.108a_Mercury CME Tailored Heliospheric arrival predictions
  • H.110a_Mercury Tailored Heliospheric Space Weather Alerts
  • H.107a_Venus Heliospheric solar wind forecasts for Venus based on 3D-MHD modelling using Enlil
  • H.108a_Venus CME Tailored Heliospheric arrival predictions
  • H.110a_Venus Tailored Heliospheric Space Weather Alerts
  • H.105a Near-Earth NRT energetic particles
  • H.102a Near-Earth NRT solar wind

The H-ESC concept is to demonstrate state of the art products proposed for future integration in the ESA space weather services and assess their capabilities and functionally and user satisfaction. Therefore, H-ESC demonstrates products, which are currently in a prototype level. Each demonstration product is presented by the corresponding contributor on federated websites.

Centre for mathematical Plasma-Astrophysics (KUL/CmPA)
  • H.200a Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
  • H.103e CME propagation prediction tool
STFC, RAL Space (STFC/RAL Space)
  • H.101g Near-Earth solar wind forecasts (EUHFORIA)
  • H.107c_Mars Mars solar wind forecasts (EUHFORIA)
  • H.107c_Mercury Mercury solar wind forecasts (EUHFORIA)
  • H.107c_Venus Venus solar wind forecasts (EUHFORIA)

ESC Coordinator

Chris Perry (STFC)

Expert Groups

Centre de Données de la Physique des Plasmas (CDPP)
France
Centre for mathematical Plasma-Astrophysics (CmPA)
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL)
Belgium
DTU Space (DTU)
DTU, Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Denmark
Infor'marty (Infor'marty)
France
Institute of Physics (IGAM)
University of Graz (UNIGRAZ)
Austria
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
Italy
STFC, RAL Space (RAL Space)
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
United Kingdom
UK Met Office (UKMO)
United Kingdom