Belgian Space Weather Initiatives

The Solar Influences Data Centre (SIDC) & RWC Belgium, World Data Center for the Sunspot Index

Department of Solar Physics, Royal Observatory of Belgium

The Royal Observatory of Belgium forms the Sunspot Index Data center; world data center for the Sunspot Index. Recently, the space weather forecast centre of Paris-Meudon was transferred to SIDC. In addition, a complete archive of the SOHO/EIT (Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) is now available at SIDC. Given all these extensions, the SIDC has become a 'Solar Influences Data analysis Center' with the capacity to analyse solar activity and provide services on three different time scales:

1. Fast warnings and real time monitoring. Short-term predictions (3 days) and alerts are produced on a daily basis. As the Regional Warning center (RWC) for Western Europe of the International Space Environment Service (ISES), the SIDC collects and redistributes solar, geomagnetic, and ionospheric data in Western Europe.
2. Forecasts and middle term analysis. The SIDC takes care of the calculation of a sunspot index, called the International Sunspot Number. As a data analysis service of the FAGS (Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical Data Analysis Services), an ICSU body, daily, monthly, yearly international sunspot numbers, with middle range predictions (up to 12 months) are computed and distributed.
3. Post-event analysis and long term solar cycle analysis. Use of SOHO/EIT data to study the evolution over the solar cycle of objects such as active regions, coronal holes, coronal mass ejections or flares. This is used as an input for a European research network for Space Weather MHD simulations.

   For a complete list of the available data products, see the SIDC website.

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