Ground-Based Solar/Heliospheric Instrumentation and Space Weather

Ground-based solar/heliospheric instruments have been critical resources for space-weather research and operations for decades, from sunspot classifications, which diagnose magnetic complexity and likelihood of eruption, to multiwavelength observations of the solar atmosphere, which provide early warning and diagnostics of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), to radio scintillation measurements, which yield measurements of the CMEs as they propagate through the heliosphere. Space-weather operational models also rely on ground-based measurements of the magnetic fields at the solar surface, which can be updated/improved in response to observations in the corona and heliosphere. In this presentation, we will assess the current state of existing ground based solar and heliospheric instruments as well as prospects for their future development and support. We will pay particular attention to the particular benefits of ground-based observations, which often have unique fields of view/sensitivities, as well as extremely high cadence/latency. In addition, we will discuss the advantages gained by global networks and large telescopes for space weather research and operations.