OSPREI: A Coupled Approach to Modeling CME-Driven Space Weather with Automatically-Generated, User-Friendly Outputs

TL;DR

OSPREI is an integrated modeling tool that predicts CME-driven space weather from Sun to Earth, providing detailed forecasts of CME properties and arrival times with uncertainty quantification, aiding real-time space weather forecasting.

Contribution

This work introduces OSPREI, a coupled model combining three established models to deliver comprehensive, probabilistic CME predictions including trajectory, internal properties, and in situ profiles.

Findings

OSPREI accurately predicted CME arrival times within uncertainties.

The ensemble approach quantifies prediction uncertainties effectively.

Results demonstrate good agreement with observed CME data.

Abstract

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) drive space weather activity at Earth and throughout the solar system. Current CME-related space weather predictions rely on information reconstructed from coronagraphs, sometimes from only a single viewpoint, to drive a simple interplanetary propagation model, which only gives the arrival time or limited additional information. We present the coupling of three established models into OSPREI (Open Solar Physics Rapid Ensemble Information), a new tool that describes Sun-to-Earth CME behavior, including the location, orientation, size, shape, speed, arrival time, and internal thermal and magnetic properties, on the timescale needed for forecasts. First, ForeCAT describes the trajectory that a CME takes through the solar corona. Second, ANTEATR simulates the propagation, including expansion and deformation, of a CME in interplanetary space and determines the evolution of internal properties via conservation laws. Finally, FIDO produces in situ profiles for a CME's interaction with a synthetic spacecraft. OSPREI includes ensemble modeling by varying each input parameter to probe any uncertainty in their values, yielding probabilities for all outputs. Standardized visualizations are automatically generated, providing easily-accessible, essential information for space weather forecasting. We show OSPREI results for CMEs observed in the corona on 2021 April 22 and 2021 May 09. We approach these CME as a forecasting proof-of-concept, using information analogous to what would be available in real time rather than fine-tuning input parameters to achieve a best fit for a detailed scientific study. The OSPREI prediction shows good agreement with the arrival time and in situ properties.