EGU21-14187
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14187
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Comparative study of halo CME arrival predictions

Emiliya Yordanova1, Mateja Dumbovic2, Manuela Temmer3, Camilla Scolini4,5, Jasmina Magdalenic6,7, William J. Thompson8, Luca Sorriso-Valvo1, Andrew P. Dimmock1, and Lisa Rosenqvist9
Emiliya Yordanova et al.
  • 1Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala, Sweden (eya@irfu.se)
  • 2Hvar Observatory, Faculty of Geodesy, University of Zagreb, Croatia
  • 3Institute of Physics, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
  • 4University of New Hampshire, NH, USA
  • 5University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
  • 6Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence—SIDC, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Belgium
  • 7Center for mathematical Plasma Astrophysics, Department of Mathematics, KU Leuven, Belgium
  • 8Uppsala University, Sweden
  • 9Swedish Defense Research Agency, Sweden

Halo coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are one of the most effective drivers of intense geomagnetic storms. Despite the recent advances in space weather forecasting, the accurate arrival prediction of halo CMEs remains a challenge.  This is because in general CMEs interact with the background solar wind during their propagation in the interplanetary space. In addition, in the case of halo CMEs, the accurate estimation of their kinematics is difficult due to projection effects in the plane-of-sky.

In this study, we are revisiting the arrival of twelve geoeffective Earth-directed fast halo CMEs using an empirical and a numerical approaches. For this purpose we refine the input to the Drag-based Model (DBM) and to the EUropean Heliospheric Forecasting Information Asset (EUHFORIA), which are recently available for users from the ESA Space Situational Awareness Portal (http://swe.ssa.esa.int).

The DBM model has been tested using different values for the input drag parameter.  On average, the predicted arrival times are confined in the range of ± 10 h. The closest arrival to the observed one has been achieved with a drag value higher than the recommended for fast CMEs. Setting a higher drag also helped to obtain a closer to the observed CME arrival speed prediction. These results suggest that the exerted solar wind drag was higher than expected. Further, we are searching for clues about the CME propagation by performing EUHFORIA runs using the same CME kinematics. Preliminary results show that both models perform poorly for CMEs that have possibly undergone CME-CME interaction, underlying again the importance of taking into account the state of the interplanetary space in the CME forecast.

How to cite: Yordanova, E., Dumbovic, M., Temmer, M., Scolini, C., Magdalenic, J., J. Thompson, W., Sorriso-Valvo, L., P. Dimmock, A., and Rosenqvist, L.: Comparative study of halo CME arrival predictions, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-14187, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14187, 2021.

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