Space Weather and the next Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey (2013-2022)

The Space Studies Board of the National Academies has established a Survey Committee to develop a comprehensive science and implementation strategy for solar and space physics research that updates and extends the Board's prior solar and space physics decadal survey, The Sun to the Earth—and Beyond: A Decadal Research Strategy in Solar and Space Physics (2003). The new Decadal Survey will broadly canvas the field of research in solar and space physics to determine the current state of knowledge, identify the most important open scientific questions, and propose the measurements and means to obtain them so as to advance the state of knowledge during the interval 2013-2022. The study implements a 2008 Congressional directive to NASA for the fields of solar and space physics, but also will address research in other federal agencies. Research in this field seeks to understand: • the dynamical behavior of the Sun and its heliosphere; • the dynamical behavior of the space environments of the Earth and other solar system bodies; • the multiscale interaction between solar system plasmas and the interstellar medium; and • energy transport throughout the solar system and its impact on the Earth and other solar system bodies. Research in solar and space plasma processes also provides insights into analogous processes in more distant objects of astronomical interest. The field has opened the doorway to the fascinating physics of interacting radiation, gas, energetic particles, and magnetic fields on many scale lengths. In addition, great strides in research equipment and data systems, theory, and numerical models offer the prospect of understanding this interconnected system well enough to develop a predictive capability for operational support of civil and military needs and systems. This latter understanding provides the underpinning for our rapidly developing field of space weather, which will be addressed in this presentation.