A Chapman Conference on Space Weather: Recommendations for the Community

A Chapman Conference was held in February of 2019 in Pasadena, California specifically devoted to scientific aspects of space weather forecasting, including space weather extremes. The meeting included presentations covering the full solar-terrestrial system. In keeping with the recent emphasis by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) that Chapman Conferences be “transformative,” the meeting placed particular emphasis on discussion. Recent years have brought significant new developments in modeling, observations, and scientific understanding to research that pertains to space weather, as well as renewed interest in space weather extremes. Despite the attention and corresponding advances in understanding, forecasting space weather remains a significant challenge. The intentions of the co-conveners and program committee was that the Chapman Conference complement and build upon the research directions expressed in recent community documents such as the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (2013), the COSPAR roadmap (2015), the NASA Living With a Star 10-year Vision (2015), the Space Weather Action Plan and others. Responses by meeting participants to survey questions provided prior to and during the event were used as a basis for moderated discussion periods. The discussion periods were intended to capture a broad range of views from multiple perspectives spanning operations to basic research, across the full set of physical domains encompassing space weather. A number of artifacts of the meeting are being made available online including discussion notes, questions during the talks, and survey results. The main recommendations of community white papers will be presented, along with the rationale behind those recommendations. An important topic addressed in the white papers is: how has the field evolved since the first Chapman Conference on space weather was held in the year 2000. Are there new research paradigms that are needed to advance the field? What are effective ways to implement changes?