Space Weather - Space Weather Modeling

Space Weather Modeling

Space weather models are computer simulations of the space weather environment. Like computer models for meteorology, space weather models take a limited set of data values and extrapolate to values which describe the entire space weather environment or a segment of the space weather environment in the model. Each model makes a prediction or a set of predictions about how the environment evolves with time. Computer models use the sets of mathematical equations to describe the physical processes involved. The early space weather models were heuristic; i.e., they relate one phenomenon with another without including any physics in the relationship. Some of these simple models are still used because they take minimal resources and yield results which are good enough for some purposes. Present research and development efforts concentrate on complex sets of equations which account for as many elements of physics as possible. Space weather models differ from meteorological model in that amount of input is vastly smaller and no single space weather model yet can reliably predict the environment from the surface of the Sun to the bottom of the Earth's ionosphere.

A significant portion of space weather model research and development in the past two decades has been done as part of the Geospace Environmental Model (GEM) program of the National Science Foundation. Two major centers for modeling are the Center for Space Environment Modeling (CSEM) and the Center for Integrated Space weather Modeling (CISM). The Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is a facility for coordinating the development and testing of research models, for the improvement of models and for preparing models for transition to space weather prediction and application.

Modeling efforts to simulate the environment from the Sun to the Earth use several method including (a) magnetohydrodynamics in which the environment is treated as a fluid, (b) particle in cell in which non-fluid interactions are handled within a cell and then a series of cells are connected together to describe the environment, (c) first principles in which physical processes are in balance (or equilibrium) with one another, (d) semi-static modeling in which a statistical or empirical relationship is described, or a combination of several of these methods.