Global Impact of Far-Side Active Regions on Coronal and Solar Wind Model Predictions (Invited Presentation)

The Air Force Data Assimilative Photospheric flux Transport (ADAPT) model generates synchronic (i.e., globally instantaneous) maps by evolving observed solar magnetic flux using relatively well understood transport processes when measurements are not available and then updating the modeled flux with new observations using data assimilation methods that rigorously take into account both model and observational uncertainties. These maps can then be used in the Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA) model to extrapolate the coronal magnetic field and predict solar wind conditions in the inner heliosphere. ADAPT has recently been upgraded to include reverse active region (RAR) modeling, which is a process to introduce active regions that emerged on the far-side of the Sun into the map and smoothly evolve them forward in time. Using newly developed tools for quantitatively comparing coronal and solar wind predictions with observations, we evaluate the impact of including far-side active regions in ADAPT on WSA coronal and solar wind model predictions at Earth and STEREO A & B for multiple Carrington rotations in 2010. In particular, we focus on the June-July 2010 period when the large active region (AR11087) emerged on the far-side of the Sun and investigate in detail the impacts of its inclusion in the ADAPT maps.