By Suzy Bingham & Iulia Chifu
The introduction of plenaries showcasing parallel sessions will highlight selected contributions from the parallel programme, with each session featuring two distinguished talks nominated by the conveners. This initiative provides an opportunity for outstanding presentations and their originating sessions to gain broader visibility and recognition, while fostering cross-disciplinary engagement across the ESWW community. Presenting authors will be formally recognised by the Programme Committee and awarded a certificate of distinction.
On Tuesday morning, Elena Marshalko (FMI, Finland), in her nominated talk from parallel session OPS, “Carrington revisited: Modelling geoelectric fields in Fennoscandia using first-principles simulations”, will explore the geoelectric risks posed by a Carrington-level geomagnetic storm. Using advanced modelling incorporating a high-resolution model of the Earth’s subsurface electrical conductivity, simulations were generated to reveal how the ground responds to Carrington-level geomagnetic disturbances. The potential impact of such an event was compared to modelled geoelectric fields from the 2003 Halloween storm—revealing that peak geoelectric fields in Fennoscandia could be up to ten times stronger for a Carrington-level storm. These findings underscore the vulnerability of high-latitude infrastructure to extreme geomagnetic activity.
The second nominated presenter for Tuesday morning, Frederic Schuller (Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Germany). will talk about the “Solar Orbiter's Comprehensive Solar Energetic Electron event Catalogue (CoSEE-Cat): a new resource for studying particle acceleration and transport in the heliosphere” (originating from the SWR1 parallel session). The SEE event catalogue is derived from instruments on Solar Orbiter - data from the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD), the Spectrometer/Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX), the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), the coronagraph (Metis), the heliospheric imager (SoloHI), and the Radio and Plasma Waves instrument (RPW). The catalogue links eruptive solar events to in-situ energetic electron detections. The talk will outline the methodology behind the catalogue and share key statistical insights from its first release—offering a valuable resource for understanding solar particle events.
The plenary showcasing parallel on Thursday morning will spotlight Nandita Srivastava and Erik Schmölter. In her work, “Sun to Earth propagation of 21 April 2023 CME and its space weather impact” (originating from SWR2), Nandita Srivastava will present an analysis of the 21 April 2023 CME, which triggered the first severe geomagnetic storm of Solar Cycle 25. By combining advanced modelling techniques with multi-point observations, the CME’s propagation from the Sun to Earth was reconstructed, yielding forecasts that closely matched observed geomagnetic profiles. The study highlights the value of heliospheric imaging and multi-vantage data in improving the accuracy of CME arrival and impact predictions.
The talk from Erik Schmolter, “Space Weather & Aviation: Key Findings from the DLR Impact Assessment Survey” (originating from session CD4) presents results from a recent DLR IMPC survey. This revealed that, while awareness of space weather exists within the industry, understanding of its specific impacts is limited, and communication gaps between aviation stakeholders and space weather agencies persist. These findings highlight the need for more application-oriented services tailored to aviation. Aviation operations remain vulnerable to space weather due to their reliance on sensitive navigation and communication systems.