LAUSR

The ability to accurately forecast variations in the solar extreme ultraviolet irradiance is important to many aspects of operational space weather. For example, variations in the Sun's radiative output at these wavelengths drive changes in thermospheric density, which perturbs the trajectories of objects in low Earth orbit. Thus, predicting the conjunction of an operational satellite with orbital debris requires accurate forecasts of solar activity. In this paper we present a simple linear forecasting model for the 10.7 cm radio flux (F10.7), a commonly used proxy for solar activity. Comparisons with simple reference models indicate that this linear model has positive skill for all forecast days that we have considered. We also examine the impact of the F10.7 forecast skill on empirical model predictions of thermospheric density and ionospheric total electron content.