It’s easy to know when to wear a jacket or take along an umbrella—just check your local weathercast. But what if you’re one of those increasing number of people who are affected by space weather, such as astronauts, technicians overseeing satellite operations, or pilots flying near the auroras? How can you prepare for rough conditions?

Space weather includes a wide range of phenomena that arise in space near Earth due to the constant outward flow of electrically charged particles from the sun known as the solar wind. High-energy space-weather events can put space shuttles and aircraft at risk, disable satellites, disrupt communications, and even damage Earth-based facilities like power grids and pipeline operations.

Because of our increasing reliance on these technologies, the National Science Foundation has established the new $20-million Center for Integrated Space-Weather Modeling (CISM) with the goal of creating a physics-based computer model that can simulate the complex, closely interconnected variables that give rise to space weather. Rice is one of seven universities participating in CISM, which is based at Boston University. More information is available online at http://www.bu.edu/cism/.

“Research groups at various institutions have been studying space weather for years, but each within its own special area of interest,” says Frank Toffoletto, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, who will coordinate Rice’s CISM research. “Several of these disparate groups have come up with effective models to simulate their part of the process, and with CISM, we hope to bring all of those models together to form a single, comprehensive system.”

Rice’s contribution to CISM is two-fold. First, there’s the Rice Convection Model (RCM), a program originally developed by Professor Emeritus Richard Wolf and co-workers. The RCM describes the physical interaction of particles in the middle magnetosphere, the portion of Earth’s magnetic field that extends to about 40,000 miles above the planet’s surface. A similar but less comprehensive Rice-developed model is currently running at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Environment Center (NOAA’s SEC) in Boulder, Colorado. See http://www.sec.noaa.gov/ for more information.

In addition to contributing to research, Rice will participate in public outreach efforts regarding CISM via the Rice Space Institute. The institute is heavily involved in developing multimedia materials that can be used in school classrooms as well as in museums and planetariums. Patricia Reiff, director of the institute, will oversee Rice’s outreach efforts. For more information about the Rice Space Institute’s public outreach program, see http://earth.rice.edu.

Funded by a five-year grant, the CISM consortium is led by Boston University and includes Rice, Alabama A&M, Dartmouth College, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of Texas at El Paso. Other participants include NOAA’s SEC, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Science Applications International Corporation, the Space Science Institute, and Lockheed Martin Corporation.

—Jade Boyd