Identification

Title

Predicting interplanetary shock occurrence for solar cycle 25: Opportunities and challenges in space weather research

Abstract

Interplanetary (IP) shocks are perturbations observed in the solar wind. IP shocks correlate well with solar activity, being more numerous during times of high sunspot numbers. Earth-bound IP shocks cause many space weather effects that are promptly observed in geospace and on the ground. Such effects can pose considerable threats to human assets in space and on the ground, including satellites in the upper atmosphere and power infrastructure. Thus, it is of great interest to the space weather community to (a) keep an accurate catalog of shocks observed near Earth, and (b) be able to forecast shock occurrence as a function of the solar cycle (SC). In this work, we use a supervised machine learning regression model to predict the number of shocks expected in SC25 using three previously published sunspot predictions for the same cycle. We predict shock counts to be around 275 +/- 10, which is similar to 47% higher than the shock occurrence in SC24 (187 +/- 8), but still smaller than the shock occurrence in SC23 (343 +/- 12). With the perspective of having more IP shocks on the horizon for SC25, we briefly discuss many opportunities in space weather research for the remainder years of SC25. The next decade or so will bring unprecedented opportunities for research and forecasting effects in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere, and on the ground. As a result, we predict SC25 will offer excellent opportunities for shock occurrences and data availability for conducting space weather research and forecasting.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7js9vq6

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2024-08-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact