Improving the Electron Radiation Belt Nowcast and Forecast Using the SafeSpace Data Assimilation Modeling Pipeline

Abstract

The H2020 SafeSpace project aims at the implementation of a space weather safety prototype, in particular to predict the deep charging hazard. The proposed service is built on a Sun‐to‐Earth chain of physical codes that propagates physical information and uncertainties in order to model the outer radiation belt dynamics. In this paper, we present the inner magnetosphere section of the SafeSpace pipeline that relies on solar wind driven and hourly updated models that describe the trapped electron environment (VLF waves, cold plasma and seed population densities), as well as the physical processes to which the trapped electrons are subjected to, such as radial diffusion and wave particle interactions. Then, this physical configuration is poured into the Salammbô‐EnKF model, a data assimilation radiation belt model which provides a global forecast of the densities across the radiation belts. We have compared the forecasting performance of this new modeling pipeline to a reference model during the St. Patrick's Day storm in 2015. We show that the new SafeSpace implementation shows closer results to the observations in addition to a better forecast within the prediction horizon.