Authors: Kathryn Wilbanks (University of Michigan)

Extreme space weather events, while few and far between, can have devastating impacts across multiple industries and infrastructures. Perturbed solar wind from the Sun travels through interplanetary space disrupting radio signals, increasing drag in low earth orbit, creating induced currents in power grids, and much more. These effects can cause serious but preventable harm to infrastructure. Estimations of economic impacts due to extreme space weather events range in the billions to trillions of dollars. As such, it’s paramount to provide actionable space weather forecasts to protect our economy and infrastructure. However, current attempts to model extreme events rely on extrapolation of historical data sets, statistical studies, or nonphysical parameterization of input variables starting from the Lagrange 1 (L1) point instead of realistic conditions from the Sun. This work showcases the initial attempts to improve our abilities to predict extreme Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) through complex physics modeling using the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF). By driving the whole Sun to Earth system, this work hopes to provide an extreme event bound by first principle physics to enhance both our understanding and our forecasting capabilities.