SH43C-02
Modeling AWSoM CMEs with EEGGL: A New Approach for Space Weather Forecasting
Thursday, 17 December 2015: 13:58
2011 (Moscone West)
Meng Jin1,2, Ward Manchester3, Bart van der Holst3, Igor Sokolov3, Gabor Toth3, Angelos Vourlidas4, Curt A de Koning5 and Tamas I Gombosi6, (1)Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, Palo Alto, CA, United States, (2)University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, (3)University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, (4)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Space Department, Laurel, MD, United States, (5)University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (6)Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
Abstract:
The major source of destructive space weather is coronal mass ejections (CMEs). However, our understanding of CMEs and their propagation in the heliosphere is limited by the insufficient observations. Therefore, the development of first-principals numerical models plays a vital role in both theoretical investigation and providing space weather forecasts. Here, we present results of the simulation of CME propagation from the Sun to 1AU by combining the analytical Gibson & Low (GL) flux rope model with the state-of-art solar wind model AWSoM. We also provide an approach for transferring this research model to a space weather forecasting tool by demonstrating how the free parameters of the GL flux rope can be prescribed based on remote observations via the new Eruptive Event Generator by Gibson-Low (EEGGL) toolkit. This capability allows us to predict the long-term evolution of the CME in interplanetary space. We perform proof-of-concept case studies to show the capability of the model to capture physical processes that determine CME evolution while also reproducing many observed features both in the corona and at 1 AU. We discuss the potential and limitations of this model as a future space weather forecasting tool.
