Identification

Title

Understanding space weather to shield society: A global road map for 2015-2025 commissioned by COSPAR and ILWS

Abstract

There is a growing appreciation that the environmental conditions that we call space weather impact the technological infrastructure that powers the coupled economies around the world. With that comes the need to better shield society against space weather by improving forecasts, environmental specifications, and infrastructure design. We recognize that much progress has been made and continues to be made with a powerful suite of research observatories on the ground and in space, forming the basis of a Sun–Earth system observatory. But the domain of space weather is vast - extending from deep within the Sun to far outside the planetary orbits - and the physics complex - including couplings between various types of physical processes that link scales and domains from the microscopic to large parts of the solar system. Consequently, advanced understanding of space weather requires a coordinated international approach to effectively provide awareness of the processes within the Sun–Earth system through observation-driven models. This roadmap prioritizes the scientific focus areas and research infrastructure that are needed to significantly advance our understanding of space weather of all intensities and of its implications for society. Advancement of the existing system observatory through the addition of small to moderate state-of-the-art capabilities designed to fill observational gaps will enable significant advances. Such a strategy requires urgent action: key instrumentation needs to be sustained, and action needs to be taken before core capabilities are lost in the aging ensemble. We recommend advances through priority focus (1) on observation-based modeling throughout the Sun–Earth system, (2) on forecasts more than 12 h ahead of the magnetic structure of incoming coronal mass ejections, (3) on understanding the geospace response to variable solar-wind stresses that lead to intense geomagnetically-induced currents and ionospheric and radiation storms, and (4) on developing a comprehensive specification of space climate, including the characterization of extreme space storms to guide resilient and robust engineering of technological infrastructures. The roadmap clusters its implementation recommendations by formulating three action pathways, and outlines needed instrumentation and research programs and infrastructure for each of these. An executive summary provides an overview of all recommendations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d72r3str

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

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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

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Temporal extent

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Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2015-06-15T00:00:00Z

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Conformity

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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