85th AMS Annual Meeting

Tuesday, 11 January 2005: 9:15 AM
Space Weather Services at NOAA/SEC: Update
Ernest Hildner, NOAA/OAR, Boulder, CO
This talk will summarize the improvements to services accomplished in 2004 and those expected in 2005 at NOAA's Space Environment Center (SEC). Notable is the introduction, in late 2004, of a map and tables specifying the total electron content (TEC) of the ionosphere over the United States, a parameter of great interest to radio communicators and those interested in GPS accuracy. The product will be calculated and issued every 15 minutes, a cadence made necessary because space weather develops so much more rapidly than does meteorological weather. The ionospheric specification derives from a model based on a Kalman filter; it is driven by a variety of ionospheric data, the primary data coming from the NOAA National Geodetic Survey's Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS). Also, the status of efforts to replace NASA's aging realtime monitor (ACE) in the solar wind ahead of Earth, an "upstream data buoy", will be described. Finally, the greatest change in SEC's status occurred when it joined the National Weather Service and became a full fledged Center of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, once again showing that space weather often follows the precedents set in meteorology. The effects of this change in SEC's parentage will be mentioned.

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