Our society is becoming increasingly dependent on technologies that "space weather" phenomena can damage, including power grids and satellites. The main culprits are Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs): solar eruptions that launch large plasma clouds into interplanetary space. Associated to such eruptions are highly energetic particles, known as Solar Energetic Particles (SEP). Both SEPS and CMEs propagate through the solar wind, which consists of fast and slow streams. These wind streams are separated by compressed stream interaction regions (SIRs).
Interactions of CMEs and SIRs with Earth’s magnetosphere and SEPs represent two very different space weather events. While CMEs and SIRs arrive to Earth in one to six days, SEPs arrive in tens of minutes. CMEs and SIRs cause disturbances to Earth's magnetic field and to the radiation and current systems in the magnetosphere and ionosphere, with effects reaching all the way to the ground. CMEs are the key drivers of strong and extreme magnetic storms. SIRs drive mainly weak storms but they produce high energy electrons in Earth's radiation belts. The radiation hazards produced by SEPs can damage the electronics on board of satellites and poses a threat to astronauts and passengers in high-flying aircraft.
This project aims at developing the world’s most advanced space weather forecasting tool, combining the solar wind and CME model EUHFORIA with the SEP model PARADISE. EUHFORIA 2.0 addresses the geoeffectiveness, impacts, and mitigation related to CMEs, SIRs, and SEPs, with emphasis on its application to forecasting Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) and radiation in geospace. We apply innovative methods to extend the model EUHFORIA with two integrated key facilities that are crucial for improving its predictive power, namely 1) data-driven flux-rope CME models, and 2) a physics-based SEP acceleration and transport model. In addition, the upgraded EUHFORIA model will be coupled to existing models for GICs and atmospheric radiation transport. This will result in a reliable prediction tool for the radiation hazards from SEPs and the impact of space weather events on power grid infrastructure. Finally, this innovative tool will be integrated in the Virtual Space Weather Modeling Centre of ESA and the space weather forecasting procedures at the ESA SSCC, making it available to the space weather community.
