Zoom link

Bio: Hongfan Chen is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research interests include data assimilation, uncertainty quantification, and machine learning applications in space weather.

Global Geomagnetic Perturbation Forecasting with Quantified Uncertainty Using Deep Gaussian Process

Abstract: Accurately predicting the horizontal component of the ground magnetic field perturbation (dBH), as a proxy for Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs), is crucial for estimating the impact of geomagnetic storms and remains a topic under active investigation. The current state-of-the-practice Geospace model is computationally expensive for fine-grid global simulations while existing machine learning methods consistently tend to underestimate dBH. Additionally, these models either lack uncertainty quantification (UQ) or provide UQ that lacks calibration. In this work, as part of the NextGen SWMF project funded by NSF, we develop a data-driven, grid-free global model using deep Gaussian process (DGP), a Bayesian non-parametric approach that forecasts the dBH for the full surface of Earth with calibrated uncertainty. The model uses solar wind measurements and the Dst index as input, and it is trained based on ground magnetometer station data provided by SuperMAG over the period 1995-2022. The model’s predictions are evaluated based on the Heidke skill score (HSS) for a total of 22 geomagnetic storms in 2015. We further test the model on the 2024 May 10-12 storm. The results demonstrate that our model outperforms the state-of-the-art model, with predictions exhibiting high accuracy in mid-latitudes and high-latitude regions in the northern hemisphere.