Abstract.During the solar wind dynamic pressure enhancement, around 0200 UT on January 11, 1997, at the end of the January 6-11 magnetic cloud event, the magnetopause was pushed inside geosynchronous orbit. The LANL 1994-084 and G MS 4 geosynchronous satellites crossed the magnetopause and moved into the magnetosheath. Also, the Geotail satellite was in the magnetosheath while the Interball i satellite observed magnetopause crossings. This event provides an excellent opportunity to test and validate the prediction capabilities and accuracy of existing models of the magnetopause location for producing space weather forecasts. In this paper, we compare predictions of two models: the Petrinec and Russell

[1] We describe a Sun-to-Earth system of coupled models. Our main goal is to create a real-time, three-dimensional (3-D), MHD-based system to aid in the operational forecasting of geomagnetic activity, but we expect the system to have other uses. We give here our initial survey of the system's characteristics. The Hybrid Heliospheric Modeling System (HHMS) is composed of two physics-based models, combined with two simple empirical models. The physics-based models are a source surface (potential field) current sheet model for the corona and a time-dependent 3-D MHD solar wind model. The system is driven by a sequence of photospheric magnetic maps composed from daily magnetograms. An empirical relationship between magnetic flux tube expansion factor and solar wind speed at 0.1 AU is a key element of the system. The solar wind model gives a predicted time series of MHD parameters at the location of Earth in the model grid; this is verified against Omni, Wind, or ACE satellite data, depending on the time period. The predicted solar wind at Earth is used as input to the second, data-based, empirical model to predict the geomagnetic Ap index. We compare test results for simulated 1 day ahead Ap forecasts for the years 1993 through 2002 with forecast skill of the official Ap forecasts that were issued by the NOAA Space Environment Center in that time interval. Results show the HHMS would have been useful to forecasters in some years. Simulations of transient events such as coronal mass ejections and interplanetary shocks with the HHMS will be reported on later.

No abstract

We present results of simulations of a magnetic cloud's evolution during its passage from the solar vicinity (18 solar radii) to approximately 1 AU using a two‐dimensional MHD code. The cloud is a cylinder perpendicular to the ecliptic plane. The external flow is explicitly considered self‐consistently. Our results show that the magnetic cloud retains its basic topology up to 1 AU, although it is distorted due to radially expanding solar wind and magnetic field lines bending. The magnetic cloud expands, faster near the Sun, and faster in the azimuthal direction than in the radial one; its extent is approximately 1.5–2× larger in the azimuthal direction. Magnetic clouds reach approximately the same asymptotic propagation velocity (higher than the background solar wind velocity) despite our assumptions of various initial conditions for their release. Recorded time profiles of the magnetic field magnitude, velocity, and temperature at one point, which would be measured by a hypothetical spacecraft, are qualitatively in agreement with observed profiles. The simulations qualitatively confirm the behavior of magnetic clouds derived from some observations, so they support the interpretations of some magnetic cloud phenomena as magnetically closed regions in the solar wind.

[1] We describe our 3-D, time-dependent, MHD solar wind model that we recently modified to include the physics of pickup protons from interstellar neutral hydrogen. The model has a time-dependent lower boundary condition, at 0.1 AU, that is driven by source surface map files through an empirical interface module. We describe the empirical interface and its parameter tuning to maximize model agreement with background (quiet) solar wind observations at ACE. We then give results of a simulation study of the famous Halloween 2003 series of solar events. We began with shock inputs from the Fearless Forecast real-time shock arrival prediction study, and then we iteratively adjusted input shock speeds to obtain agreement between observed and simulated shock arrival times at ACE. We then extended the model grid to 5.5 AU and compared those simulation results with Ulysses observations at 5.2 AU. Next we undertook the more difficult tuning of shock speeds and locations to get matching shock arrival times at both ACE and Ulysses. Then we ran this last case again with neutral hydrogen density set to zero, to identify the effect of pickup ions. We show that the speed of interplanetary shocks propagating from the Sun to Ulysses is reduced by the effects of pickup protons. We plan to make further improvements to the model as we continue our benchmarking process to 10 AU, comparing our results with Cassini observations, and eventually on to 100 AU, comparing our results with Voyager 1 and 2 observations.