Predicting Arrival Times of the CCMC CME/Shock Events Based on the SPM3 Model

Abstract

Coronal mass ejection (CME) is a powerful solar phenomenon that can lead to severe space weather events. Forecasting whether and when the corresponding interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) will reach the Earth is very important in space weather study and forecast. At present, many different kinds of models use the near-Sun CME observations as model inputs to predict its propagation with similar prediction accuracies for large sample events. Among a series of physics-based models, the best-performing version of the shock propagation model (SPM) for large sample events, i.e., SPM3, had achieved a good forecast effect for the 23rd Solar Cycle events (1997.02–2006.12). To further evaluate SPM3, we collected CME events from 2013 January to 2023 July from the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) CME scoreboard as a new data set. SPM3 achieved a total prediction success rate of 57% for these new events with a mean absolute error of 8.93 hr and a rms error of 10.86 hr for the shock's arrival time. Interestingly, SPM3 provided better predictions for the CME/shock events during high solar activity years than low solar activity years. We also analyzed the influence of input parameters on CME propagation and found that the larger the angular width of the CME event, the higher the probability of the corresponding IP shock's reaching the Earth. Source latitude had little effect on the arrival probability of the corresponding shock, while source longitude did. The CMEs originating from around W15° had the largest probability of hitting the Earth.