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In order to assess the performance of space environment models that are relevant to various impacts on (aero)space assets, the ISWAT Near-Earth Radiation and Plasma Environment community has been actively involved in engaging different communities together with the goal of addressing the issue from a systematic perspective. Information will be provided in first defining the essential space environment quantities (ESEQ) that are most relevant to the impacts (also directly measurable) and the corresponding essential effect quantities that are more easily understandable/useful for end-users. Metrics for measuring the model performance for different impacts/applications, uncertainties of models and observations, and methods of carrying out and archiving such model validation efforts/results for long-term performance assessment and tracking will be the focus of the presentation.

The international forum on space weather capabilities assessment aims to quantify scientificprogress in the area of space weather. More specifically it aims to deliver a framework for the application of metrics in order to measure performance/progress of space weather modelling and to construct a library of metric and validation techniques which may be used thereby harmonizing comparisons and validations which are made. One of the working groups acting under this umbrella focusses on space plasma and radiation environments and effects. In this domain there are clearly established standards for defining an environment which spacecraft must survive. Each major agency has its own standards which drive requirements. This is less mature in the domain of commercial aviation. The aim of the working group is to connect the space weather modelling community with experts on environment specification in order to define environmental quantities (scientific predictands) which are representative of the environment driving an effect thus addressing user needs. The effects covered by the working group include surface charging, internal charging, total (ionizing and non-ionizing) dose, single event effects and effects on aircraft. In addition to the scientific (or environmental) predictand an associated effect quantity (and associated timescale) is defined for which tools are readily available to transform quantities from the environment to the effect. Finally, a set of statistical metrics are defined to evaluated the accuracy of model outputs. The acceptance of quantities will simplify to task of space weather modelers in validating their model and provide an objective comparison between models to show which are more reliable for a given effect over a given timescale. This talk presents the progress of the working group thus far to define concrete quantities which shall constitute space weather metrics in this domain.

In order to make space weather environment models more useful to engineers and the user community throughout different phases of a satellite lifecycle (mission concept/planning/design/build, launch, operation and anomaly resolution) or assessing radiation effects at aviation altitudes, it is important to track their performance over time with well-defined, user-focused metrics and to maintain active, ongoing communication channels in order to understand each other’s needs. To this end, working with experts in both science and engineering areas and the community in general, CCMC has launched the International Forum for Space Weather Modeling Capabilities Assessment (https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/assessment/). In this presentation, we will report the progress made from our Space Radiation and Plasma Effects Working Team. Two sets of metrics/physical quantities have been chosen with one set that are outputs of space environment models (constituting critical physical parameters/inputs directly relevant to effects quantification) and the other relevant to engineering models of effects. The initial results and follow-on activities will be discussed.

To track space weather models’ progress and performance over time, the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), together with NASA’s Living with a Star program, has initiated an extensive model validation and assessment efforts involving a community of space environment experts, model and application developers, data providers, forecasters and end-users of space weather products and services (https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/assessment/). The Radiation and Plasma Effects Working Team deals with five different subtopics: Surface Charging from 10s eV to 40 keV electrons, Internal Charging due to energetic electrons from hundreds keV to several MeVs. Single Event Effects from solar energetic particles (SEPs) and galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) (several MeV to TeVs), Total Dose due to accumulation of doses from electrons and protons in a broad energy range, and Radiation Effects from SEPs and GCRs at aviation altitudes.