Thread by @TaNaishaJ

1/9 Exciting work from Simona Nitti and colleagues... good news for #space #weather forecasting/predictions and correlated #disaster #preparedness, #bioterrorism, #pandemic preparedness, #power #outages, #cybersecurity, etc.

academic.oup.com/mnras/article-…

#heliobiology

2/9 "#Coronal #holes (#CHs) are the source of #high-#speed #streams (#HSSs) in the #solar #wind, whose interaction with the slow solar wind creates #corotating #interaction #regions (#CIRs) in the #heliosphere."

3/9 "Whenever the CIRs hit the #Earth, they can cause #geomagnetic #storms. We develop a method to predict the strength of CIR/HSS-driven geomagnetic storms directly from #solar #observations using the CH areas and associated #magnetic #field #polarity."

4/9 "First, we build a data set comprising the properties of CHs on the Sun, the associated HSSs, CIRs, and orientation of the #interplanetary #magnetic #field (#IMF) at L1, and the strength of the associated geomagnetic storms by the #geomagnetic #indices Dst and Kp."

5/9 "Then, we predict the Dst and Kp indices using a #Gaussian process model, which accounts for the #annual #variation of the orientation of #Earth’s #magnetic #field #axis."

6/9 "Testing our model over the period 2010–2020, we obtained a #correlation #coefficient between the predicted and observed Dst index of R = 0.63/0.73, and Kp index of R = 0.65/0.67, for HSSs having a polarity towards/away from the #Sun."

7/9 "We demonstrate that the polarity of the #IMF at L1 associated with #CIRs is preserved in around 83 per cent of cases when compared to the #polarity of their #CH sources."

8/9 "These findings demonstrate the possibility of predicting #CIR/#HSS-driven #geomagnetic storms directly from #solar observations and extending the forecasting lead time up to several days, which is relevant for enhancing #space #weather #predictions."

9/9 #Sun #corona #magnetic #fields #solar #wind solar-#terrestrial #relations #magnetic #reconnection #geomagnetic #field