Next Step Space Weather Benchmarks

In June 2018, the Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) released the Space Weather Phase 1 Benchmarks. The benchmarks specify the nature and intensity of extreme space-weather events and provide a point of reference from which to improve understanding of their effects. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) asked the IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) to lead the Next Step Space Weather Benchmarks effort to engage the expertise of the U.S. and international space weather scientific community to identify gaps and make recommendations to improve the benchmarks. To produce this report, STPI helped to assemble a panel of 32 space weather experts, draft and release a request for white papers from the international space weather community on space weather benchmarks, organize a workshop that convened the panel and members of the space weather community to identify tentative gaps and recommendations, and organize a Town Hall to share the panel’s conclusions. This report contains the final analysis and recommendations of the expert panel.