Title: Coronal Mass Ejection modelling and prediction with Heliospheric Imagers
Abstract:
Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are large eruptions of magnetised plasma from the Sun's corona that flow out through the solar wind and CMEs that reach Earth are the main cause of severe space weather. Furthermore, CMEs are observed to significantly impact the plasma environments of many other solar system bodies (e.g. Mars, Saturn, Jupiter). The Heliospheric Imager (HI) instruments on the NASA STEREO mission record white light images of CMEs propagating out through the solar wind in the inner heliosphere. A range of different analytical, empirical, and physics-based numerical models have been developed to interpret a CMEs evolution in terms of properties derived from these HI images. This is a tricky problem, and a common theme is large uncertainties due to both challenges in interpreting the HI data, and/or limiting assumptions in the different CME models. I'll discuss the merits of these different approaches for tackling different types of science questions. Our work now focuses on building data assimilation schemes so that HI data can be integrated into a solar wind numerical modelling framework. I'll present some proof-of-concept results from building a particle filter data assimilation scheme around the HUXt solar wind model, demonstrating that such techniques have good potential for improving the modelled CME representation.
Date | Speaker | Title |
02 February 2021 | Luke Barnard (University of Reading) | Coronal Mass Ejection modelling and prediction with Heliospheric Imagers |
02 March 2021 | Emma Woodfield (British Antarctic Survey) | TBA |
13 April 2021 | David Themans (University of Birmingham) | TBA |
Date |
Speaker |
Title (Click for Link to Seminar) |
12 January 2021 |
Gabrielle Provan (University of Leicester) |
Magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling at Saturn and Jupiter in the era of Juno and Cassini |
01 December 2020 |
Mike Lockwood (University of Reading) |
Semi-annual and Universal Time variations in the magnetosphere |
03 November 2020 |
Clare Watt (Northumbria University) |
|
06 October 2020 |
Imogen Gingell (University of Southampton) |
|
01 September 2020 |
Caitriona Jackman (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) |
|
04 August 2020 |
Jim Wild (Lancaster University) |
|
14 July 2020 |
Daniel Verscharen (Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL) |
Kinetic physics, collisions, and turbulence in the solar wind: a multi-scale perspective |