Multiple coronal and heliospheric models have been recently upgraded at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), including the Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA)-Enlil model, MHD-Around-a-Sphere (MAS)-Enlil model, Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF), and heliospheric tomography using interplanetary scintillation data. To investigate the effects of photospheric magnetograms from different sources, different coronal models, and different model versions on the model performance, we run these models in 10 combinations. Choosing seven Carrington rotations in 2007 as the time window, we compare the modeling results with the Operating Mission as Nodes on the Internet data for near-Earth space environment during the late declining phase of solar cycle 23. Visual comparison is proved to be a necessary addition to the quantitative assessment of the models' capabilities in reproducing the time series and statistics of solar wind parameters. The MAS-Enlil model captures the time patterns of solar wind parameters better, while the WSA-Enlil model matches with the time series of normalized solar wind parameters better. Models generally overestimate slow wind temperature and underestimate fast wind temperature and magnetic field. Using improved algorithms, we have identified magnetic field sector boundaries (SBs) and slow-to-fast stream interaction regions (SIRs) as focused structures. The success rate of capturing them and the time offset vary largely with models. For this quiet period, the new version of MAS-Enlil model works best for SBs, while heliospheric tomography works best for SIRs. The new version of SWMF with more physics added needs more development. General strengths and weaknesses for each model are diagnosed to provide an unbiased reference to model developers and users. MotivationWe are motivated to validate the coronal and heliospheric models for the quasi-steady solar wind from the following three respects. First, a stream interaction region (SIR) forms when fast wind overtakes and interacts with the proceeding slow wind. It is in nature the same as the commonly known corotating interaction region [e.g., Smith and Wolfe, 1976;Gosling and Pizzo, 1999]. However, we use SIRs to emphasize that when the solar background changes within one Carrington rotation (CR), the resultant SIRs are short lived and do not corotate with the Sun to recur. In fact, Jian et al. [2006, 2011a] find 51% of SIRs near solar maximum and 10% at solar minimum do not recur at Earth. Large-amplitude Alfvén waves [Belcher and Davis, 1971] in SIRs and the following fast wind can drive a series of particle injections and affect the evolution of outer radiation belt (centered at about 4 R E ), as demonstrated in Miyoshi and Kataoka [2005]. Additionally, in geomagnetic storms, a large amount of energy is transferred from the solar wind into the magnetosphere and eventually dissipated in the thermosphere (about 90-600 km aboveground) and ionosphere (about 60-1000 km aboveground) by Joule heating and auroral precipitation [e.g., Gonzal...

We perform a validation study of the latest version of the Alfvén Wave Solar atmosphere Model (AW-SoM) within the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF). To do so, we compare the simulation results of the model with a comprehensive suite of observations for Carrington rotations representative of the solar minimum conditions extending from the solar corona to the heliosphere up to the Earth. In the low corona (r < 1.25 R ), we compare with EUV images from both STEREO-A/EUVI and SDO/AIA and to three-dimensional (3-D) tomographic reconstructions of the electron temperature and density based on these same data. We also compare the model to tomographic reconstructions of the electron density from SOHO/LASCO observations (2.55 < r < 6.0R ). In the heliosphere, we compare model predictions of solar wind speed with velocity reconstructions from InterPlanetary Scintillation (IPS) observations. For comparison with observations near the Earth, we use OMNI data. Our results show that the improved AWSoM model performs well in quantitative agreement with the observations between the inner corona and 1 AU. The model now reproduces the fast solar wind speed in the polar regions. Near the Earth, our model shows good agreement with observations of solar wind velocity, proton temperature and density. AWSoM offers an extensive application to study the solar corona and larger heliosphere in concert with current and future solar missions as well as being well suited for space weather predictions.

The University of California, San Diego interplanetary scintillation (IPS) time-dependent kinematic 3-D reconstruction technique has been used and expanded upon for over a decade to provide predictions of heliospheric solar wind parameters. These parameters include global reconstructions of velocity, density, and (through potential field modeling and extrapolation upward from the solar surface) radial and tangential interplanetary magnetic fields. Time-dependent results can be extracted at any solar distance within the reconstructed volume and are now being exploited as inner boundary values to drive the ENLIL 3-D MHD model in near real time. The advantage of this coupled system is that it uses the more complete physics of 3-D MHD modeling to provide an automatic prediction of coronal mass ejections and solar wind stream structures several days prior to their arrival at Earth without employing coronagraph observations. Here we explore, with several examples, the current differences between the IPS real-time kinematic analyses and those from the ENLIL 3-D MHD modeling using IPS-derived real-time boundaries. Future possibilities for this system include incorporating many different worldwide IPS stations as input to the remote sensing analysis using ENLIL as a kernel in the iterative 3-D reconstructions.

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The prediction of the background global solar wind is a necessary part of space weather forecasting. Several coronal and heliospheric models have been installed and/or recently upgraded at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), including the Wang‐Sheely‐Arge (WSA)‐Enlil model, MHD‐Around‐a‐Sphere (MAS)‐Enlil model, Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF), and heliospheric tomography using interplanetary scintillation data. Ulysses recorded the last fast latitudinal scan from southern to northern poles in 2007. By comparing the modeling results with Ulysses observations over seven Carrington rotations, we have extended our third‐party validation from the previous near‐Earth solar wind to middle to high latitudes, in the same late declining phase of solar cycle 23. Besides visual comparison, we have quantitatively assessed the models' capabilities in reproducing the time series, statistics, and latitudinal variations of solar wind parameters for a specific range of model parameter settings, inputs, and grid configurations available at CCMC. The WSA‐Enlil model results vary with three different magnetogram inputs. The MAS‐Enlil model captures the solar wind parameters well, despite its underestimation of the speed at middle to high latitudes. The new version of SWMF misses many solar wind variations probably because it uses lower grid resolution than other models. The interplanetary scintillation‐tomography cannot capture the latitudinal variations of solar wind well yet. Because the model performance varies with parameter settings which are optimized for different epochs or flow states, the performance metric study provided here can serve as a template that researchers can use to validate the models for the time periods and conditions of interest to them.

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Observations of interplanetary scintillation (IPS) provide a set of data that is used in estimating the solar wind parameters with reasonably good accuracy. Various tomography techniques have been developed to deconvolve the line-of-sight integration effects ingrained in observations of IPS to improve the accuracy of solar wind reconstructions. Among those, the time-dependent tomography developed at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is well known for its remarkable accuracy in reproducing the solar wind speed and density at Earth by iteratively fitting a kinematic solar wind model to observations of IPS and near-Earth spacecraft measurements. However, the kinematic model gradually breaks down as the distance from the Sun increases beyond the orbit of Earth. Therefore, it would be appropriate to use a more sophisticated model, such as a magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model, to extend the kinematic solar wind reconstruction beyond the Earth's orbit and to the outer heliosphere. To test the suitability of this approach, we use boundary conditions provided by the UCSD time-dependent tomography to propagate the solar wind outward in a MHD model and compare the simulation results with in situ measurements and also with the corresponding kinematic solution. Interestingly, we find notable differences in proton radial velocity and number density at Earth and various locations in the inner heliosphere between the MHD results and both the in situ data and the kinematic solution. For example, at 1 AU, the MHD velocities are generally larger than the spacecraft data by up to 150 km s −1 , and the amplitude of density fluctuations is also markedly larger in the MHD solution. We show that the MHD model can deliver more reasonable results at Earth with an ad hoc adjustment of the inner boundary values. However, we conclude that the MHD model using the inner boundary conditions derived from kinematic simulations has little chance to match IPS and in situ data as well as the kinematic model does unless it too is iteratively fit to the observational data and measurements.

This article investigates the use of two different types of National Solar Observatory magnetograms and two different coronal field modeling techniques over 10 years. Both the “open‐field” Current Sheet Source Surface (CSSS) and a “closed‐field” technique using CSSS modeling are compared. The University of California, San Diego, tomographic modeling, using interplanetary scintillation data from Japan, provides the global velocities to extrapolate these fields outward, which are then compared with fields measured in situ near Earth. Although the open‐field technique generally gives a better result for radial and tangential fields, we find that a portion of the closed extrapolated fields measured in situ near Earth comes from the direct outward mapping of these fields in the low solar corona. All three closed‐field components are nonzero at 1 AU and are compared with the appropriate magnetometer values. A significant positive correlation exists between these closed‐field components and the in situ measurements over the last 10 years. We determine that a small fraction of the static low‐coronal component flux, which includes the Bn (north‐south) component, regularly escapes from closed‐field regions. The closed‐field flux fraction varies by about a factor of 3 from a mean value during this period, relative to the magnitude of the field components measured in situ near Earth, and maximizes in 2014. This implies that a relatively more efficient process for closed‐flux escape occurs near solar maximum. We also compare and find that the popular Potential Field Source Surface and CSSS model closed fields are nearly identical in sign and strength.