Scientific Colloquium
December 1, 2006


"Space Weather Modeling: Successes and Challenges"

Space Weather is loosely defined as the impact of the space environment on humans and their assets in locations of human interest. The sources of Space Weather lie in Solar Eruptions, which are direct or indirect sources of threats to human equipment of human health. Space Weather impact include radiation damage to satellite equipment and radiation exposure to astronauts, induced currents in electrical power grids, and communication and navigation outages. Because of the growing impact of Space Weather on human technologies and on human exploration, space research at NASA, NSF, and at other agencies has, as one of its objectives, the establishment of a Space Weather forecasting capability. As a result, progress has been made over the last ten years in the quest to model and forecast Space Storms as reliably as terrestrial weather. This presentation will include an overview of Space Weather sources and impacts. Following this introduction, the focus will be on an analysis of current space environment modeling tools, and of their potential in Space Weather forecasting. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of challenges and of strategies for future progress.



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