Research Article

Verification of real-time WSA−ENLIL+Cone simulations of CME arrival-time at the CCMC from 2010 to 2016

¹ American University, Physics Department, Washington, DC, USA
² University of Colorado Boulder, Aerospace Engineering Sciences, Boulder, CO, USA
³ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
⁴ Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA
⁵ University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, USA
⁶ George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

^* Corresponding author: amtwold@gmail.com

Received: 3 June 2017
Accepted: 15 January 2018

Abstract

The Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA)−ENLIL+Cone model is used extensively in space weather operations world-wide to model coronal mass ejection (CME) propagation. As such, it is important to assess its performance. We present validation results of the WSA−ENLIL+Cone model installed at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) and executed in real-time by the CCMC space weather team. CCMC uses the WSA−ENLIL+Cone model to predict CME arrivals at NASA missions throughout the inner heliosphere. In this work we compare model predicted CME arrival-times to in situ interplanetary coronal mass ejection leading edge measurements at Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory-Ahead (STEREO-A), Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory-Behind (STEREO-B), and Earth (Wind and ACE) for simulations completed between March 2010 and December 2016 (over 1,800 CMEs). We report hit, miss, false alarm, and correct rejection statistics for all three locations. For all predicted CME arrivals, the hit rate is 0.5, and the false alarm rate is 0.1. For the 273 events where the CME was predicted to arrive at Earth, STEREO-A, or STEREO-B, and was actually observed (hit event), the mean absolute arrival-time prediction error was 10.4 ± 0.9 h, with a tendency to early prediction error of −4.0 h. We show the dependence of the arrival-time error on CME input parameters. We also explore the impact of the multi-spacecraft observations used to initialize the model CME inputs by comparing model verification results before and after the STEREO-B communication loss (since September 2014) and STEREO-A sidelobe operations (August 2014–December 2015). There is an increase of 1.7 h in the CME arrival time error during single, or limited two-viewpoint periods, compared to the three-spacecraft viewpoint period. This trend would apply to a future space weather mission at L5 or L4 as another coronagraph viewpoint to reduce CME arrival time errors compared to a single L1 viewpoint.