Alysha Reinard, solar flare prediction

Alysha Reinard is a CIRES Research Associate with the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). She was nominated for CIRES Outstanding Performance Award in Science and Engineering for ground-breaking scientific research that results in a major improvement to predict the time, strength, and location of solar flares. Solar flares are the most energetic explosions in the solar system, releasing abundant radiation, mostly in the form of X-rays and ultraviolet emissions, but also in the form of proton radiation. These powerful blasts of energy affect the Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere, which in return can disturb many technological systems, like GPS navigation or radio communications for instance.  Because of their societal and economic impacts, predicting solar flares is one of the most important scientific problems as well as one of the major challenges for space weather forecasting.  For many years, many scientists have worked on predicting solar flares with inconclusive results.  But thanks to the outstanding contribution of Dr. Reinard, a new technique for predicting solar flares was developed. To achieve her results, she examined solar observations made by the National Science Foundation’s Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) and found a relation between the amount and rate of twist in the magnetic fields beneath the surface of the sun, and the subsequent eruption of a flare. With this technique, it is now possible to issue one to several day warning of when and where a flare will occur and how strong it will be, and this with unprecedented accuracy.