Operational Space Weather Modelling in the Bergen-Imperial Global Geospace (BIGG) Project

In order to better safeguard society and infrastructure from space weather hazards, improved forecasting capabilities are required. To maximise the efficiency of mitigation strategies, forecasting products must not only be accurate, but also timely and tailored to end-user needs. For understanding and predicting the behaviour of the near-Earth space environment in changing solar wind conditions, physics-based modelling is extremely powerful, though often comes at considerable computational expense. The Bergen-Imperial Global Geospace (BIGG) project is an ongoing collaborative effort to provide new space weather forecasting capabilities to the ESA space weather service network via the use of two 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) magnetosphere models, GorgonOps and the Space Weather Modelling Framework (SWMF). Solar wind observations as measured in situ at L1 will be continuously and automatically ingested as simulation inputs, with minimal human intervention. Both models have been optimised such that they are able to run in faster than real time, using only modest computational resources, delivering bespoke forecasting products to the end-user community via a web portal and API in a timely fashion. This multi-model approach will provide forecast diversity and redundancy to ensure continuous and reliable service provision to Europe and beyond.