Cosmic rays and Space Weather
Maria Abunina, IZMIRAN
When we speak on Space Weather we are commonly meaning the radiation and electro magnetic conditions in the near Earth space. Cosmic ray variations define directly a radiation situation. And they are also related to the variations of electromagnetic conditions in the interplanetary space and Earth’s magnetosphere. This makes cosmic ray variation one of the important recourses for validating the space weather state and forecasting its changes. Cosmic ray observations till now are not sufficiently used in the space weather tasks. The main reason of such inefficiency is inaccessibility of different cosmic ray data for an operative analysis. Fortunately, this situation is now changing fast to the better. In particularly, data from 26 ground level cosmic ray stations now are available in real time. It gives a hope that in the nearest years we shall see more wide and effective use of the cosmic ray characteristics for space weather forecasting.
Tutorial