Global Simulation of the Solar Wind: A Comparison With Parker Solar Probe Observations During 2018-2022

TL;DR

This study validates the G3DMHD solar wind model against Parker Solar Probe data from 2018-2022, revealing strengths and limitations in predicting magnetic and plasma parameters at various heliocentric distances.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive validation of the G3DMHD model using recent PSP measurements, highlighting areas for improvement in boundary conditions and magnetic field predictions.

Findings

Model performs well for magnetic intensity and density.

Model underestimates solar wind speed and temperature.

Assuming uniform magnetic field distribution improves accuracy.

Abstract

Global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models play an important role in the infrastructure of space weather forecasting. Validating such models commonly utilizes in situ solar wind measurements made near the orbit of the Earth. The purpose of this study is to test the performance of G3DMHD (a data driven, time-dependent, 3-D MHD model of the solar wind) with Parker Solar Probe (PSP) measurements. Since its launch in August 2018, PSP has traversed the inner heliosphere at different radial distances sunward of the Earth (the closest approach ~13.3 solar radii), thus providing a good opportunity to study evolution of the solar wind and to validate heliospheric models of the solar wind. The G3DMHD model simulation is driven by a sequence of maps of photospheric field extrapolated to the assumed source surface (2.5 Rs) using the potential field model from 2018 to 2022, which covers the first 15 PSP orbits. The Pearson correlation coefficient (cc) and the mean absolute squared error (MASE) are used as the metrics to evaluate the model performance. It is found that the model performs better for both magnetic intensity (cc = 0.75; MASE = 0.60) and the solar wind density (cc = 0.73; MASE = 0.50) than for the solar wind speed (cc = 0.15; MASE = 1.29) and temperature (cc = 0.28; MASE = 1.14). This is due primarily to lack of accurate boundary conditions. The well-known underestimate of the magnetic field in solar minimum years is also present. Assuming that the radial magnetic field becomes uniformly distributed with latitude at or below 18 Rs (the inner boundary of the computation do-main), the agreement in the magnetic intensity significantly improves (cc = 0.83; MASE = 0.49).