Assessment of space weather modeling capabilities and transition to operations

Space environment models are imperative tools for space weather research and operational forecasting. Two major targets in the space weather enterprise are to advance predictive modeling capabilities and to promptly transition new models to space weather operations. Model assessments are essential to build credibility for potential users, while the approach to model validation depends on user priorities. Precise, transparent and up-to-date evaluations of strengths and limitations of space weather models provide vital guidance toward the progress in understanding of space environment phenomena. It also demonstrates potential of new models to improve state-of-the-art operational space weather forecasting. Therefore, a space weather capabilities assessment is one of the Overarching Activities of the COSPAR International Space Weather Action Teams (ISWAT) initiative. ISWAT Action Teams associated with ISWAT domain-focused (S – Space weather origins at the Sun, H − Heliosphere variability, G − coupled Geospace System, plus the newly established cross-domain Sun-to-Geospace − S2G) Clusters, provide pivotal progress in Assessment Overarching Activity. The ISWAT community-wide validation projects include both Modeling Challenges for historic time periods and pre-event real-time ensemble predictions. At the same time, operational space weather forecasting centers perform pre-operational and operational real-time continuous model validations and provide feedback to developers. This Roadmap paper presents a comprehensive overview of successes and lessons learned from validation projects and the transition to operations activities since the previous Space Weather Roadmap (Schrijver et al., 2015) and outlines recommendations for moving forward.