Probabilistic Solar Proxy Forecasting With Neural Network Ensembles

Abstract Space weather indices are used commonly to drive forecasts of thermosphere density, which affects objects in low‐Earth orbit (LEO) through atmospheric drag. One commonly used space weather proxy, F10.7cm, correlates well with solar extreme ultra‐violet (EUV) energy deposition into the therm...

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Main Authors: Joshua D. Daniell, Piyush M. Mehta
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2023-09-01
Series:Space Weather
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1029/2023SW003675
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author Joshua D. Daniell
Piyush M. Mehta
author_facet Joshua D. Daniell
Piyush M. Mehta
author_sort Joshua D. Daniell
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Space weather indices are used commonly to drive forecasts of thermosphere density, which affects objects in low‐Earth orbit (LEO) through atmospheric drag. One commonly used space weather proxy, F10.7cm, correlates well with solar extreme ultra‐violet (EUV) energy deposition into the thermosphere. Currently, the USAF contracts Space Environment Technologies (SET), which uses a linear algorithm to forecast F10.7cm. In this work, we introduce methods using neural network ensembles with multi‐layer perceptrons (MLPs) and long‐short term memory (LSTMs) to improve on the SET predictions. We make predictions only from historical F10.7cm values. We investigate data manipulation methods (backwards averaging and lookback) as well as multi step and dynamic forecasting. This work shows an improvement over the popular persistence and the operational SET model when using ensemble methods. The best models found in this work are ensemble approaches using multi step or a combination of multi step and dynamic predictions. Nearly all approaches offer an improvement, with the best models improving between 48% and 59% on relative MSE with respect to persistence. Other relative error metrics were shown to improve greatly when ensembles methods were used. We were also able to leverage the ensemble approach to provide a distribution of predicted values; allowing an investigation into forecast uncertainty. Our work found models that produced less biased predictions at elevated and high solar activity levels. Uncertainty was also investigated through the use of a calibration error score metric (CES), our best ensemble reached similar CES as other work.
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spelling doaj-art-943a1ebd604e4ef5a9df0f9fdc4ffbfa2025-01-14T16:31:22ZengWileySpace Weather1542-73902023-09-01219n/an/a10.1029/2023SW003675Probabilistic Solar Proxy Forecasting With Neural Network EnsemblesJoshua D. Daniell0Piyush M. Mehta1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering West Virginia University Morgantown Morgantown WV USADepartment of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering West Virginia University Morgantown Morgantown WV USAAbstract Space weather indices are used commonly to drive forecasts of thermosphere density, which affects objects in low‐Earth orbit (LEO) through atmospheric drag. One commonly used space weather proxy, F10.7cm, correlates well with solar extreme ultra‐violet (EUV) energy deposition into the thermosphere. Currently, the USAF contracts Space Environment Technologies (SET), which uses a linear algorithm to forecast F10.7cm. In this work, we introduce methods using neural network ensembles with multi‐layer perceptrons (MLPs) and long‐short term memory (LSTMs) to improve on the SET predictions. We make predictions only from historical F10.7cm values. We investigate data manipulation methods (backwards averaging and lookback) as well as multi step and dynamic forecasting. This work shows an improvement over the popular persistence and the operational SET model when using ensemble methods. The best models found in this work are ensemble approaches using multi step or a combination of multi step and dynamic predictions. Nearly all approaches offer an improvement, with the best models improving between 48% and 59% on relative MSE with respect to persistence. Other relative error metrics were shown to improve greatly when ensembles methods were used. We were also able to leverage the ensemble approach to provide a distribution of predicted values; allowing an investigation into forecast uncertainty. Our work found models that produced less biased predictions at elevated and high solar activity levels. Uncertainty was also investigated through the use of a calibration error score metric (CES), our best ensemble reached similar CES as other work.https://doi.org/10.1029/2023SW003675machine learningneural networksforecastingspace weathersolar proxyuncertainty estimation
spellingShingle Joshua D. Daniell
Piyush M. Mehta
Probabilistic Solar Proxy Forecasting With Neural Network Ensembles
Space Weather
machine learning
neural networks
forecasting
space weather
solar proxy
uncertainty estimation
title Probabilistic Solar Proxy Forecasting With Neural Network Ensembles
title_full Probabilistic Solar Proxy Forecasting With Neural Network Ensembles
title_fullStr Probabilistic Solar Proxy Forecasting With Neural Network Ensembles
title_full_unstemmed Probabilistic Solar Proxy Forecasting With Neural Network Ensembles
title_short Probabilistic Solar Proxy Forecasting With Neural Network Ensembles
title_sort probabilistic solar proxy forecasting with neural network ensembles
topic machine learning
neural networks
forecasting
space weather
solar proxy
uncertainty estimation
url https://doi.org/10.1029/2023SW003675
work_keys_str_mv AT joshuaddaniell probabilisticsolarproxyforecastingwithneuralnetworkensembles
AT piyushmmehta probabilisticsolarproxyforecastingwithneuralnetworkensembles