Space Weather Models - What They Can and Cannot Do.

Abstract:

For more than 10 years, the CCMC has been hosting and testing almost all of the models currently used for space weather forecasting, and those in the pipeline for future use. This puts us in a unique position to review their capabilities, identify strengths and weaknesses, and project the arrival in the operational forecasting theatre of new, more accurate and more comprehensive forecasting tools. In this talk we will review the current status of forecasting models, focussing on those for the solar corona and inner heliosphere, including their impact on the Earth's magnetosphere.

We will identify their capabilities and weaknesses. We will discuss how these weaknesses may be addressed in the near and mid-term, with new models, model updates and new supporting tools. We will assess the expected use of time dependent assimilative models of photospheric magnetic field and of time dependent high resolution and high cadence vector magnetograms on near term heliophysical model development. We will also discuss a web based semi-automated model validation project which the modeling community has been developing.