In October, Zagreb hosted European Space Weather Week (ESWW) scientific meeting, the main annual event in the European Space Weather and Space Climate calendar.
This year’s edition of the international scientific meeting European Space Weather Week (ESWW) was held in Zagreb, at the Event Plaza Center, from 24 to 28 October, which was co-organized by the Belgian Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence and the Hvar Observatory. It is an international meeting that is organized every year in Europe in cooperation with prominent scientific associations and it is the main annual event in the European Space Weather and Space Climate calendar.
Nearly 500 experts in space weather and space climatology
The ESWW 2022 gathered more than 465 participants – mostly scientists, engineers, satellite operators, power grid technicians, communications, navigation and aviation experts, space forecasting service providers and STEM practitioners working on various aspects of space weather and space climatology. The meeting was held in a hybrid format, thus 325 participants gathered in person in Zagreb, and 140 participants joined online. The participants came from as many as 47 countries of the world, 369 of them from Europe, 55 from North America, 19 from Asia, 11 from Africa, six from South America and three from Australia.
The ESWW is highly interdisciplinary in nature and actively promotes research into new technologies and approaches. In addition, it also welcomes end users as participants. End users are groups/organizations that use space weather data and services. Areas of interest include but are not limited to, spacecraft operations, spacecraft design, space and terrestrial telecommunications and navigation services, power distribution, pipeline operations, aviation safety, rail operators, insurance companies, civil contingency planning and scientists.
In addition to the scientific meeting, the ESWW is a great place to meet fellow experts, share knowledge and ideas, discuss the latest information on solar activity, how space weather affects the Earth’s environment and our technologies, and how to deal with space weather.
Comprehensive space weather monitoring of major importance
The topic of the ESWW 2022 was “The Importance of Comprehensive Space Weather Monitoring”. Although monitoring space events include various ground-based observatories and spacecraft tracking, the topic is particularly inspired by the historical role of ground-based solar observatories such as the Hvar Observatory, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The important topic of comprehensive space weather monitoring was addressed through four plenary sessions.
A lecture on ground-based space weather monitoring networks was given by Pietro Zucca (ASTRON – Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy), Eoin Carley (Dias – Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) and Monica Laurenza (INAF – Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology Research Area Roma Tor Vergata). Colin Forsyth (UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory), Malcolm Dunlop (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) and Melanie Heil (European Space Agency – ESA) presented multi-spacecraft space weather monitoring. Stephan G. Heinemann (Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Göttingen, Germany), Eleanna Asvestari (University of Helsinki, Finland) and Camilla Scolini (Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, USA) explained the multi-techniques to monitor the Sun and solar wind. The space weather effects on ground-level systems: industrial and other end users were discussed by Ciaran Beggan (British Geological Survey), Juliane Huebert (British Geological Survey), Aziza Bounhir (University of Marrakesh) and Mario Bisi, (UKRI STFC RAL Space ).
Finally, the topic was further specifically addressed in the Observation Forum, a special session devoted to current and emerging observing platforms and instruments for monitoring space weather either from the ground or from space.
Find out more about the event at https://www.stce.be/esww2022/.
 scientific meeting, an important annual event in this field.){kind=link}