The CAESAR Project for the ASI Space Weather Infrastructure

Abstract

This paper presents the project Comprehensive spAce wEather Studies for the ASPIS prototype Realization (CAESAR), which aims to tackle the relevant aspects of Space Weather (SWE) science and develop a prototype of the scientific data centre for Space Weather of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) called ASPIS (ASI SPace Weather InfraStructure). To this end, CAESAR involves the majority of the SWE Italian community, bringing together 10 Italian institutions as partners, and a total of 92 researchers. The CAESAR approach encompasses the whole chain of phenomena from the Sun to Earth up to planetary environments in a multidisciplinary, comprehensive, and unprecedented way. Detailed and integrated studies are being performed on a number of well-observed “target SWE events”, which exhibit noticeable SWE characteristics from several SWE perspectives. CAESAR investigations synergistically exploit a great variety of different products (datasets, codes, models), both long-standing and novel, that will be made available in the ASPIS prototype: this will consist of a relational database (DB), an interface, and a wiki-like documentation structure. The DB will be accessed through both a Web graphical interface and the ASPIS.py module, i.e., a library of functions in Python, which will be available for download and installation. The ASPIS prototype will unify multiple SWE resources through a flexible and adaptable architecture, and will integrate currently available international SWE assets to foster scientific studies and advance forecasting capabilities.

Upgrades of the ESPERTA forecast tool for solar proton events

“…Our study aimed at advancing the SPE forecasting capabilities (Laurenza et al, 2023) based on the well-proven concept of the ESPERTA model (Laurenza et al, 2009(Laurenza et al, , 2018 and implement a real-time tool. Our findings can be summarised as follows.…”

Mid- and High-Latitude Electron Temperature Dependence on Solar Activity in the Topside Ionosphere through the Swarm B Satellite Observations and the International Reference Ionosphere Model

“…Acknowledgments: This research has been carried out in the framework of the CAESAR (Comprehensive spAce wEather Studies for the ASPIS prototype Realization) project, supported by the Italian Space Agency and the National Institute of Astrophysics through the ASI-INAF n. 2020-35-HH.0 agreement for the development of the ASPIS (ASI Space weather InfraStructure) prototype of scientific data center for Space Weather. The CAESAR project is described in Laurenza et al [76].…”

A comprehensive study of solar energetic particle propagation during the first ground-level enhancement of the solar cycle 24

“…GLEs represent one of the major hazard for human activities and health. Thus, understanding the physics of particle acceleration causing such extreme events as well as their propagation and forecasting are among the primary objectives of Space Weather studies [1]. Such extreme events are associated with both solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) at the source.…”