Harmonisation of Validation and Verification procedures within the Space Weather Network in the framework of the Space Situation Awareness Programme

Abstract

In the framework of the Space Situation Awareness Programme (SSA), the Space WEather (SWE) segment aims to help end-users in a wide range of SWE affected sectors to mitigate the effects on their systems, reducing costs and improving reliability. In the SWE segment, five Expert Service Centres (ESCs) are providing space weather services to users dependent on space weather conditions. Together with the SSA Space Weather Coordination Centre (SSCC) and the SSA Space Weather Data Centre (SWE-DC), the ESCs form the SSA SWE network. Currently 55 SWE products are provided by numerous Expert Groups (EG) within the SSA SWE network. These will be significantly extended by the end of the currently ongoing development activities in the P2-SWE-I and parallel projects. Each product is delivered to the SSA SWE network with a full package of documentation and user guidance. This includes results of validation and verification procedures helping the end-user to identify the appropriate products for each application. The currently diverse procedures for product validation and verification hamper the comparison and evaluation of different products. Therefore, the SWE network aims to harmonize the validation and verification procedures in the current SSA period. Here, an overview of the ESCs product validation assessment and planning for the current period will be given, including examples of best practice and approaches for common validation and verification procedures.