The Space Weather Reanalysis

Background

Figure 1

[4] The term "space-weather'' refers to conditions on the sun, in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere, thermosphere, and mesosphere, that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems and can endanger human life or health [Kamide and Chian, 2007]. The magnetosphere is depicted in Figure 1. This is the region of space surrounding the Earth in which communication, weather, and observation satellites are stationed. Adverse conditions in this space environment can cause disruption of communications, navigation, electric power distribution grids, and satellite operations, leading to a broad effects on key operational missions.

[5] Near Earth space environmental events have a significant impact on technology and human activity both in space and on the ground. The space environment, though void of a significant number of particles, is highly charged electrically with ions and electrons flowing along the Earth's magnetic field lines and being directed by the ambient electric fields. Space Weather events, i.e. those naturally occurring events in the electrically coupled solar, interplanetary, magnetosphere and ionosphere system that impact technology and human activity, disrupt communications, create errors in navigation systems, halt electric power distribution, and cause anomalies in satellite operations.

[6] This project will attempt to do for space weather what the NCEP "Reanalysis '' [Kalney, 1996] did for terrestrial weather when NCAR and NCEP produced a 50-year record of global analyzes of atmospheric fields in support of the needs of the research and climate monitoring communities. That effort involved the recovery of land, ship, rawindsonde, balloon, aircraft, satellite and other data, quality controlling and assimilating those data with a data analysis technique. The reanalysis is an invaluable resource for any modeler concerned with terrestrial weather effects on both the long and short-term basis. The "Reanalysis'' database is used extensively by the Environmental Scenario Generator for advanced data mining, and as an initialization point for physics based model runs.