LOFAR for Space Weather

Research Project, 2017 – 2021

The LOFAR for Space Weather (LOFAR4SW) is an EU funded (H2020 INFRADEV) design project. It will deliver the full conceptual and technical design for creating a new leading-edge European research facility for space weather science. It also supports outreach and dialogue with a range of stakeholders in the space weather community, regarding the possible subsequent implementation, potential future use, and governance aspects of a LOFAR4SW data monitoring facility.

Designing a significant upgrade in hardware, algorithms, and software will allow to create, at a fraction of the cost of building a new facility, a large scale cutting-edge research facility providing simultaneous independent access to both the radio astronomy and the space weather research communities. LOFAR4SW will in particular address capabilities to monitor Solar dynamic spectra, interstellar scintillation measurements of densities and velocities in the inner heliosphere, and high-resolution measurements of TEC variations in the Earth’s ionosphere. A strong point of the LOFAR4SW is to uniquely enable provision of the missing link of global measurements of the interplanetary magnetic field – a key parameter in forecasting the severity of geomagnetic storms.