Including Solar and Heliospheric Models at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC)

Nasa/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal will incorporate solar and heliospheric models into the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. The CCMC will then provide the research community access to these models via tailored online interfaces, and transfer validated versions of the solar and heliospheric models to U.S. space weather operational agencies after suitable testing and evaluation have been completed. For this purpose, CCMC intends to hire a new staff member to be supported by the present proposal. CCMC staff will work with developers of solar and heliospheric models and will adapt these models to CCMC computing resources. These resources range from in-house Beowulf-type parallel computers to U.S. Air Force (USAF)-provided computational assets at the Department of Defense (DoD) high-performance computing centers. CCMC staff will develop easy-to-use interfaces that will allow users to request solar/heliospheric simulations and analyze the results of completed runs in a flexible manner. CCMC will evaluate the performance of the solar/heliospheric models and, together with model owners, work to increase model performance where desirable and possible. This activity may include coupling models of adjacent domains or physical scales. After models have been evaluated for scientific validity and numerical stability, and their performance assessed through metrics-based studies, they will be considered for transfer to operational agencies in the federal government. CCMC has established a new path for this process. Thus, the use of solar and heliospheric models by U.S. operational agencies will be greatly enhanced by the proposed program.