Key Links to Space Weather: Forecasting Solar-Generated Shocks and Proton Acceleration

Forecasting the arrival of solar-generated shocks and accelerated protons anywhere in the heliosphere presents an awesome challenge in the new field of space weather. Currently, observations of solar wind plasmas and interplanetary magnetic fields are made at the sun-Earth libration point, L1, about 0.01 astronomical units (∼245 Earth radii) sunward of our planet. An obvious analogy is the pilot tube that protrudes ahead of a supersonic vehicle. The Advanced Composition Explorer and Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft, currently performing this function, provide about -1 h advance notice of impending arrival of interplanetary disturbances. The signatures of these disturbances may be manifested as interplanetary shock waves and/or coronal mass ejecta. We describe a first-generation procedure, based on first-principles numerical modeling, that provides the key links required to increase the advance notice (or lead time) to days, or even weeks. This procedure, instituted at the start of the present solar cycle 23, involves three separate models, used in real time, to predict the arrival of solar-event-initiated interplanetary shock waves at the L1 location. We present statistical results, using L1 observations as ground truth for 380 events. We also briefly discuss how one of these models (Hakamada-Akasofu-Fry version 2) may be used with a model that predicts the flux and fluence of energetic particles, for energies up to 100 MeV, that are generated by these propagating interplanetary shock waves.