Validation of the DSCOVR Spacecraft Mission Space Weather Solar Wind Products
Journal Article
Overview
abstract
; In this paper, we present a statistical validation of the DSCOVR solar; wind data in the operational space weather archive. The DSCOVR; observations of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), solar wind; velocity, density, and temperature were hourly averaged and compared to; measurements from NASA’s ACE and; Wind; spacecraft. Hourly; averages, in general, show good correlations between the satellites for; the IMF, solar wind velocity GSE; ; v; x; ; -component,; and density. During the period covered by this study (spanning from late; July 2016, when DSCOVR went operational, to the end of 2020), the DSCOVR; products show no clear evidence of permanent degradation. However, for; plasma parameters there were periods of disagreement with ACE and; Wind; . The correlation coefficients (Pearson’s; r; ); calculated over the entire study period were similar or the same between; DSCOVR versus; Wind; and DSCOVR versus ACE. For comparisons between; DSCOVR and; Wind; , the IMF; ; B; x; ; and; ; B; y; ; GSE; r; were 0.94 and 0.96, respectively,; while; r; for the IMF GSE; Bz; -component was 0.88. For solar; wind velocity,; r; was found to be 0.96 for the GSE; ; v; x; ; -component, compared with 0.30 for; ; v; y; ; and 0.33 for; ; v; z; ; . For; density,; r; was found to be 0.84. DSCOVR density observations tend; to overestimate compared to; Wind; values when the solar wind; densities are low (below ∼5 /cc), while agreement between the two; spacecraft on IMF measurements tend to increase with decreasing spatial; separation.;
