{"id":498,"date":"2018-11-26T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/?p=498"},"modified":"2018-12-03T17:29:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T17:29:29","slug":"nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Nudging solar wind forecasts back towards reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In order to forecast space weather, it is necessary to accurately model the solar wind, the continually expanding solar atmosphere which fills the solar system. At present, telescopic observations of the Sun&#8217;s surface are used to provide the starting conditions for computer simulations of the solar wind, which then propagate conditions all the way from the Sun to Earth. But spacecraft also make direct measurements of the solar wind, which provide useful additional information that is not presently used. In this study we use a simple solar wind model to develop a method to routinely &#8220;assimilate&#8221; spacecraft observations into the model and thus improve space\u2010weather forecasts. This data assimilation (DA) approach closely follows that of terrestrial weather prediction, where DA has led to increasingly accurate forecasts. We use artificial and real spacecraft observations to test the new solar wind DA method and show that the error in predicting the near\u2010Earth solar wind can be reduced by around a fifth using available observations.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-501\" src=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/11\/DA_summary-300x200.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/11\/DA_summary-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/11\/DA_summary-272x182.png 272w, https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/11\/DA_summary.png 663w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Model near-Earth solar wind speed before (blue) and after (green) assimilation of STEREO\u00a0in situ\u00a0observations. The DA enables the model to capture a previously missed fast stream, corrects a false alarm and improves the timing of a third stream.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Paper:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1029\/2018SW001857\">A variational approach to Data Assimilation in the Solar Wind<\/a><br \/>\nLang,\u00a0M.S., and\u00a0<strong>M.J Owens<\/strong>. (<span class=\"pubYear\">2018<\/span>),\u00a0<span class=\"articleTitle\">A variational approach to Data Assimilation in the SolarWind<\/span>,\u00a0<i>Space Weather<\/i>,\u00a0<span class=\"vol\">16<\/span>.\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2018SW001857<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In order to forecast space weather, it is necessary to accurately model the solar wind, the continually expanding solar atmosphere which fills the solar system. At present, telescopic observations of the Sun&#8217;s surface are used to provide the starting conditions for computer simulations of the solar wind, which then propagate conditions all the way from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[23,19],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highlights","category-publication","tag-data-assimilation","tag-solar-wind"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nudging solar wind forecasts back towards reality - SPATE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nudging solar wind forecasts back towards reality - SPATE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In order to forecast space weather, it is necessary to accurately model the solar wind, the continually expanding solar atmosphere which fills the solar system. At present, telescopic observations of the Sun&#039;s surface are used to provide the starting conditions for computer simulations of the solar wind, which then propagate conditions all the way from\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SPATE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-26T12:00:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-12-03T17:29:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/11\/DA_summary-300x200.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Teo Bloch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Teo Bloch\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/\",\"name\":\"Nudging solar wind forecasts back towards reality - SPATE\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-26T12:00:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-12-03T17:29:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/#\/schema\/person\/6bcf1a30fa8bdcafb4cf25869e874cc6\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Nudging solar wind forecasts back towards reality\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/\",\"name\":\"SPATE\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/#\/schema\/person\/6bcf1a30fa8bdcafb4cf25869e874cc6\",\"name\":\"Teo Bloch\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0cf990e31dff269b68c8377c98de7de630415549851e36dcd34e27d2dd1b4b83?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0cf990e31dff269b68c8377c98de7de630415549851e36dcd34e27d2dd1b4b83?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Teo Bloch\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/author\/hf832176live-reading-ac-uk\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Nudging solar wind forecasts back towards reality - SPATE","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/met-spate\/nudging-solar-wind-forecasts-back-towards-reality\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Nudging solar wind forecasts back towards reality - SPATE","og_description":"In order to forecast space weather, it is necessary to accurately model the solar wind, the continually expanding solar atmosphere which fills the solar system. 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