The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitors the geospace and solar environments using a variety of space weather sensors aboard its fleet of operational satellites.

Solid state detectors with pulse height discrimination measure proton, alpha-particle, and electron fluxes. E1 and I1 channels are responding primarily to trapped outer-zone particles. The I2 channel may occasionally respond to trapped particles during magnetically disturbed conditions. The remaining proton integrals measure fluxes originating outside the magnetosphere from the Sun or the heart of the Galaxy.Users of GOES particle data should be aware that significant secondary responses may exist in the particle data, i.e. responses from other particles and energies and from directions outside the nominal detector entrance aperture. The integrated protons displayed in these plots have been partially corrected for these effects. The electron detector responds significantly to protons above 32 MeV. Electron plots from GOES-8 to GOES-12 use data that have been corrected for this, earlier plots use uncorrected data. All electron data become unreliable during ion storms.

The ionosphere is that part of the Earth's atmosphere that results mainly from the photo ionization of the upper atmosphere. Traditionally, the following ionospheric regions and their approximate height ranges have been designated: D region (60-90 km); E region (90-150 km); F1 region (150-250 km); and F2 region (above 250 km). Ionosondes utilize the radio wave-reflecting properties of the ionosphere. The product of the speed of light in a vacuum and half the elapsed time between vertical transmission of a single frequency electromagnetic wave and reception of the reflected wave at the transmitting location is defined as the virtual height of that frequency. A sweep-frequency ionogram is a plot of virtual height versus frequency and is recorded as instantaneously as possible. These ionospheric data consist mainly of hourly values for at least one of the following characteristics: foF2, M(3000)F2, hF2, foF1, M(3000)F1, hF, foE, hE, foE2, hE2, foEs, fbEs, hEs, fmI, and fxI. The values are five byte (character) fields. The first three bytes of the field are reserved for a numeric value; the last two bytes are reserved for the qualifying and descriptive letter, if present. There are no decimals encoded in these data. Documentation is included. There are two CD-ROM's worth of data. One contains 1957 - 1975 data; the other contains 1976-1990 data. ASCII data files and a DOS-compatible application is included.

Solar x-ray flux data.

Scientists monitor the structure of the solar corona, the outer most regions of the Sun's atmosphere, using radio waves (100’s of MHz to 10’s of GHz). Variations in the radiowave spectrum reveal characteristics of the corona and upper chromosphere in terms of altitude profile for the local plasma temperature, density and magnetic field. Typically, the lower the frequency then the higher the height of origin. The frequency, like the solar electron density, decreases uniformly outwards with 245 MHz originating high in the corona whereas 15,400 MHz originates in the low corona. Radio bursts are associated with solar flares. The delay at Earth of the different radio frequencies during burst events is due to the outward movement of the source. Bursts can have temperatures of 10xE12 degrees Kelvin. Large bursts last 10 to 20 minutes on average. Longer radio noise storms of persistent and variable high levels of radiation originate in sunspot groups, areas of large, intense magnetic fields. These storms are strongly circularly polarized due to the intense magnetic fields. The microwave wavelength 2800 MHz daily radio flux correlates highly with the daily sunspot number and the two databases are used interchangeably. The 2800 MHz, or 10.7 cm, responds to the same conditions that produce changes in the visible and X-ray wavelengths. Schmahl and Kundu (1995) find that the solar radio fluxes in the spectral range 1000-9400 MHz correlate well with the total solar irradiance. The intermediate frequencies (at 2800 and 3750 MHz) are produced mainly by free-free gyroresonance emission from sunspot structures, while 1000 and 9400 MHz flux are produced mainly by free-free processes from structures associated with plages. They can distinguish plage-associated emission from spot-associated emission in the time series of microwave flux, both contributing opposing effects on the total solar irradiance.

Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA)-Enlil is a large-scale, physics-based prediction model of the heliosphere, used by the Space Weather Forecast Office to provide 1-4 day advance warning of solar wind structures and Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that cause geomagnetic storms. Solar disturbances have long been known to disrupt communications, wreak havoc with geomagnetic systems, and to pose dangers for satellite operations.

The Ground-Based Global Positioning System (GPS) Meteorology Integrated Precipitable Water Vapor (IPW) data set measures atmospheric water vapor using ground-based GPS receivers. The data contain observations from several hundred locations around the globe every 30 minutes from 2002-05-01 to 2016-11-28. However, most locations lie within the continental United States. The data set was formed in response to the need for improved moisture observations to support weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and research. The data set contains total precipitable water estimates, GPS total signal delay, GPS hydrostatic signal delay, GPS wet signal delay, surface temperature, surface pressure, mean-weighted surface temperature, and the wet delay mapping function. The GPS-IPW network processes data from both NOAA and other agency CORS (Continuously Operating Reference Sites) sites. All sites are equipped with a GPS receiver and many are equipped with a surface meteorological instrumentation package. GPS satellite observation are combined with GPS satellite orbit and earth orientation parameters to estimate GPS signal delay (Zenith Total Delay -- ZTD). Signal delays are then combined with surface meteorological information are used to estimate total precipitable water. For sites without surface meteorology sensors, data from nearby ASOS (Automated Surface Observing System) systems were used. Data set variables and their resolution: total precipitable water; 0.001 m, GPS total signal delay; 0.001m, GPS hydrostatic signal delay; 0.001m, GPS wet signal delay; 0.001m, surface temperature; 0.1 K, surface pressure; 0.1 hpa, mean-weighted surface temperature; 0.1 K, wet delay mapping function; 0.1 (dimensionless). Late updated in November 2016 with no plans for updating at this time due to funding.

The TIROS/NOAA satellite series, also known as POES, is designed to meet the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's need for operational, remote sensing products for numerical weather and space environment forecasts. The TIROS designation represents the experimental classification of a new instrument configuration while NOAA represents the operational classification. For January 1979 through present, the National Centers for Environmental Information (formerly National Geophysical Data Center) archive data from the POES Space Environment Monitor instrument. Subcomponents of the SEM include: HEPAD (High Energy Proton and Alpha Detector), MEPAD (Medium Energy) and TED (Total Energy) data from TIROS and NOAA satellites. The satellites are in sun-synchronous orbits at 850 kilometers altitude, an orbital period of 102 minutes and an inclination of 99 degrees. The orbital plane is tilted toward the sun in the Northern Hemisphere. Usually, two satellites are operational at all times.NOAA's Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES) (formerly known as TIROS for Television and InfraRed Observation Satellite) carry a suite of instruments that detect and monitor the influx of energetic ions and electrons into the atmosphere and the particle radiation environment at the altitude of the satellite. Both phenomena vary as a result of solar and geomagnetic activity. Beginning with the NOAA-15 satellite, an upgraded version of the Space Environment Monitor (SEM-2) is being flown. A number of SEM-2 instruments have been procured and it is anticipated that the SEM-2 instruments will be included on the NOAA/POES satellites until superceded by the NPOESS satellite program sometime after 2010.Because the SEM-2 instruments differ significantly from the earlier SEM-1, there has been a complete revision to the data processing and archiving process. A number of improvements have also been included. Among these are incorporating up-to-date satellite orbit information and magnetic field models in the calculation of various magnetic coordinates, and improved data quality control. The Total Energy Detector (TED) is designed to measure the energy flux carried by auroral particles, both positively charged ions (assumed here to be protons) and electrons, into the polar atmosphere. The magnitude and spatial extent of this energy flux are good measures of both the level of auroral activity and the atmospheric response to that energy input. The Medium Energy Proton and Electron Detector (MEPED) includes a set of solid-state energetic particle detectors that monitor the intensities of protons and electrons over a range extending from 30 keV to more than 200 MeV. Particles having those energies include the radiation belt (Van Allen belt) populations, the particles in energetic solar particle events (solar proton events), and the low energy portion of the galactic cosmic ray population. Enhanced fluxes of these particles entering the atmosphere can produce significant and widespread degradation in short-wave radio propagation; in extreme cases even radio blackouts. The energetic particles also contribute to astronaut radiation exposure, especially on high inclination orbit missions during energetic solar particle events.

Listings and characterizations of solar x-ray flares

Collection includes a variety of space weather datasets from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and from the World Data Service for Geophysics, Boulder.