Long-term support is needed for crucial ground-based sensor networks    

Abstract

Recently, many in the space weather community have taken up the cause to advocate for an orphan among our own. It's an important fight -for ground-based sensor networks. Although ground-based sensors are used across all disciplines of space weather, in terms of long-term support, they have no single clear home in any United States agency or department. This has resulted in an ongoing struggle throughout the community to maintain important space weather sensors and networks.The Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act of 2020 (Public Law 116-181) attempts to clarify Federal roles and responsibilities, stating that ". . . ground-based observations provide crucial data necessary to understand, forecast, and prepare for space weather phenomena", which it defines as "radars, lidars, magnetometers, neutron monitors, radio receivers, aurora and airglow imagers, spectrometers, interferometers, and solar observatories.