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NSF Project Demonstrates New Space Weather Prediction Capability

Salvatore Salamone | Date: 09-01-10 | Comments

Several groups are teaming up to create the first system for real-time forecasting of space weather. The project could help predict events like the Aurora Borealis and prevent solar-activity-caused blackouts on Earth.

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NSF Project Demonstrates New Space Weather Prediction Capability
Need to know if a thunder storm is approaching or other severe weather is nearby? Simply type your ZIP code into weather.com, use a smartphone app or tune into any radio station, and you can instantly get detailed information about current conditions and impending storms.

A new research effort takes the first step in bringing a similar level of real-time forecasting to space weather. The work, funded by a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation, is being conducted by scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), with help from The Boeing Company and the satellite communications company Iridium Communications.

Together, the group has successfully demonstrated a space-based system to monitor Earth's space environment. In particular, the system detects the near-Earth consequences of activity on the sun, including solar flares and other coronal ejections that hurl charged particles toward Earth.

A solar flare with an eruptive prominence on the limb of the Sun (source: NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center).

These particles interact with Earth's magnetic field and can produce large currents in the upper atmosphere, as well as other phenomena including the Aurora Borealis and Australis (the Northern and Southern Lights, respectively).

The new system, known as the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE), uses real-time measurements from commercial satellites to derive the currents as part of a new observation network to forecast weather in space.

"This brings us one step closer to accurate space weather forecasts around the Earth," says APL's Dr. Brian J. Anderson, principal investigator and the scientist who heads the program. "The timing for AMPERE is just right because we need this system both to help us understand how solar storms disturb the space environment and to develop reliable monitoring and forecasts of major space weather storms."

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