1. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels Operational implementation of the SWIF model in DIAS system Tsagouri Ioanna Koutroumbas Konstantinos Belehaki Anna National Observatory of Athens

2. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels DIAS system: Operational since August 2006 (http://dias.space.noa.gr) Developed under the eContent Programme of the European Commission ) To develop and provide ionospheric products and services in real-time, and thus to fully characterise the ionospheric conditions over European middle latitudes.

3. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels IonogramsF-plot: nowcasting foF2F-plot: forecasting foF2SSN daily plot MUF Point to Point foF2 Map Nowcasting M(3000)F2 Map Nowcasting MUF Map Nowcasting Ne Map Nowcasting

4. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels DIAS users: more than 100 registered users Sector Defence Industry Aviation Industry Civil HF broadcast Amateur radio Upper atmosphere researchers DIAS users’ requirements survey reveals strong interest in receiving: Short term forecasts for prediction step more than 1h ahead Alerts and warnings

5. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels DIAS forecasting products TSAR: Time Series AutoRegressive technique for short term prediction of the foF2 (Koutroumbas et al., 2008) GCAM: Geomagnetically Correlated Autoregression Model for short term prediction of foF2 (Muhtarov et al., 2002)

6. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels Further improvements Issuing alerts and warnings for forthcoming ionospheric disturbances over Europe Upgrade of TSAR for storm conditions Athens 15min ahead 1h ahead 3h ahead 6h ahead Pruhonice

7. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels SWIF: Solar Wind driven autoregression model for Ionospheric short term Forecast Ionospheric forecasts up to 24 h ahead as well as alerts and warnings TSAR: Time Series AutoRegressive technique that provides ionospheric forecasts up to 24 h ahead under all possible geophysical conditions (Koutroumbas et al., 2008) foF2 current and recent past values STIM: Empirical Storm Time Ionospheric Model that formulates the ionospheric storm time response in respect to IMF disturbances (Tsagouri and Belehaki, 2008) Reference foF2 values and IMF parameters from ACE

8. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels STIM is triggered by an alert signal for upcoming ionospheric storm-time disturbances obtained by the analysis of IMF observations from ACE. STIM (Tsagouri and Belehaki, JASTP, 2008) The idea: Use as “driver” the solar wind magnetic field at L1 contributing to the forecast of the high latitude Joule heating at least one hour in advance.

9. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels Crucial parameters:  B  dB/dt  IMF-Bz orientation The alert provides the IMF disturbance onset at L1 point some hours in advance. Bmag dB/dt Bz Dst foF2obs/foF2median Determination of alert conditions based on IMF observations

10. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels i) The IMF-B should record either a rapid increase (3.8 nT/h) or absolute values greater than 13 nT. ii) The IMF-Bz component should be southward directed (Bz < - 10 nT for at least three hours) either simultaneously or a few hours later (maximum 5 hours later). iii) Each event ends when Bz is turned northward (Bz > -1 nT).

11. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels TSAR provides successful predictions 1h ahead for prediction steps greater than 1h ahead, STIM’s performance is systematically more successful than TSAR’s Comparative evaluation of TSAR’S and STIM’s predictions

12. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels SWIF model Alert Detection Algorithm (ADA) ACE Real-time data ACE Real-time data No Alert (Quiet Conditions) No Alert (Quiet Conditions) Alert (Forthcoming storm conditions) Alert (Forthcoming storm conditions) Short Term Predictions issued by: TSAR Short Term Predictions issued by: TSAR TSAR algorithm Short Term Predictions issued by: TSAR (1 hour after the ADA) STIM (more than 1 hour after the ADA until 24 hr after the end of storm disturbance) Short Term Predictions issued by: TSAR (1 hour after the ADA) STIM (more than 1 hour after the ADA until 24 hr after the end of storm disturbance) STIM algorithm SWIF Short Term Predictions Historical and real-time data from Ionospheric Station Local Time in the station location

13. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels Evaluation tests Over 10 storm events

14. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels Comparison of SWIF’s – TSAR’s –GCAM’s (Muhtarov et al., 2002) performance

15. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels This along with the additional advantage of SWIF in providing alerts and warnings for forthcoming ionospheric disturbances make SWIF algorithm a powerful tool in the development of a full set of ionospheric forecasting services. Conclusions We believe that the results presented here support SWIF’s potential efficiency in providing reliable ionospheric forecasts during all possible ionospheric conditions for operational applications.

16. 5 th European Space Weather Week, 17-21 November 2008, Brussels Implementation of the SWIF algorithm to the DIAS related products Short term predictions for each station, in time plots and ASCII for 24 hours ahead; European maps of foF2 for the next 24 hours based on SWIF predictions, calculated with the SIRMUP method; Upgraded of the European map of Ionospheric Disturbances currently provided by DIAS with the accurate SWIF predictions; Implementation of the SWIF alert detection algorithm in DIAS system to issue storm alerts for Europe. The upgrade is expected to be accomplished until March, 2009. Acknowledgements: This work is part of the EOARD grant FA 8655-07-M-4008