Space Weather R2O Maintenance - University of Aberystwyth

'Space Weather Implementation, Measurement, Modelling and Risk' (SWIMMR), was a £19.9m UKRI SPF funded programme led by STFC from 2019, and which largely concluded in 2023. Several of the projects were targeted at space weather scientific modelling gaps, with the aim of bringing them into operation for forecast capabilities in the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC).

The project 'S3' stood up systems and enabled collaboration between academic partners and the Met Office space weather programme, bringing a platform 'sandbox environment' and portal for monitoring outputs into use at the Met Office (MO) where our scientists worked with several academic partners to bring their models into use. Whilst the original SWIMMR programme made this collaboration possible, there is much work remaining to bring the models into working operational use by the target date of September 2026, the Research to Operations to Research (R2O2R) project is the next stage in this Programme.

The Space Weather CSA with the Department for Science and Technology (DSIT) sets out a required output for the Met Office to Support the validation, integration and exploitation of new capabilities and data delivered through the SPF SWIMMR Programme. Met Office Space Weather (MOSW) has agreed with funding partner DSIT to deliver several targets for the next phase of work: Evidence of user need and user requirement to shape model use and output (MOSWOC being the primary user, with several end-users being the recipients of forecasting products).

Technical and scientific requirements within MOSW for fully onboarding, working with and supporting the models and/or their outputs in operational settings. (Whilst the 'S3' platform and portal were helpful for the early stages of model collaboration, they are not able to support long term model and output development and operation).

In terms of the projects to achieve modelling capability, we have agreed a number of these and their priority levels with the academic institutions who own the models. The partner, University of Aberystwyth, played a key role in the S4 projects within the SWIMMR Programme (2019-2025), where they developed critical components of the operational space weather capability.

This included the CORTOM solar wind boundary model, which underpins the solar wind ensemble used to quantify uncertainties in CME arrival times associated with geomagnetic storm risk to multiple sectors (e.g. power grids). The University of Aberystwyth also developed the ACME automated CME detection tool as part of this system. For the R2O Maintenance follow-on contract, the University of Aberystwyth is uniquely positioned to provide continuity of support, maintenance, and incremental improvement of these established capabilities, ensuring their reliability, performance, and ongoing alignment with operational requirements.