A Modular Approach to Building Solar Energetic Particle Event Forecasting Systems

Solar energetic particle (SEP) events, as one of the most dangerous manifestations of solar activity, can generate severe hazardous radiation when accelerated by solar flares or shock waves formed aside coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Unlike common predictions that focus on the occurrence of an event, an All-Clear forecast puts more emphasis on predicting the absence of an event. Such forecasts, while usually not addressed directly, can be crucial in operational environments. We have developed an All-Clear SEP event prediction system utilizing active region-based prediction methods together with active region scenarios (i.e., location and complexity). Within our All-Clear forecast system, signals are generated only when requested as binary predictions of YES or NO indicating “All Clear” or “Not All Clear”, respectively. Such signals referred to the potential possibility of the occurrence of any events in the next prediction window, in our cases, the next 24 hours. Four major space weather event forecasting modules are established corresponding to the flare prediction (FP), eruptive flare prediction (ERP), CME speed prediction, and full-disk aggregation methodology, where all of them are loosely coupled without direct communications between each other. Our system design follows a modular approach for flexibility, maintainability, and extensibility that can be configured to utilize file storage or any data access mechanisms, such as file storage or database systems, outside the confines of our system.