The LAGO Space Weather Program

ASOREY, H.; DASSO, S.; THE LAGO COLLABORATION

Moscow

Congreso; 40th COSPAR Scientific Assembly; 2014

COSPAR

The LAGO project is a non-centralized and distributed collaborative network composed by more than 30 institutions from nine ​Latin American countries. It is an extended cosmic ray​ observatory ​formed by water Cherenkov detectors (WCDs), that measure​ with extreme detail​ the temporal evolution of the radiation flux at ground level. It is mainly oriented to make basic research on three branches: extreme universe, space weather, and atmospheric radiation at ground level. The LAGO WCDs network spans over different sites located at significantly different latitudes (from equatorial latitudes up to the antartic region) and different altitudes (from sea level up to more than 5000 meters over sea level), covering a huge range of geomagnetic rigidity cut-offs and atmospheric absorption/reaction levels. Thus, using observations from the LAGO network, it is possible to study the solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays from combining different ground sites, in particular it is possible to study the long-term modulation as well as transient events. This presentation will introduce the LAGO ​Space Weather Program. In particular, real data of the Forbush decrease event of March 2012 will be presented to show how the LAGO network of WCDs can complement present measurements of space weather related phenomena from ground level. This study will be combined with numerical simulations of the expected flux​ at each site​ and with the analysis of the interplanetary conditions from 'in situ' observations recorded by spacecraft in the solar wind.