Geophysical Centre in Dourbes

High energy solar flares can cause release of solar material - high energy particles. In the events when such material release is Geo-effective, it may have sufficient energy to overcome the shielding effects of the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere. These Solar Energetic Particles will cause then measurable radiation fields increase by ground level instruments. The solar ejecta will perturb the omnipresent galactic cosmic rays and cause anisotropies. Due to the much higher speed of  galactic cosmic rays paricles, perturbations in their flux intensities will eventually arrive before the energetic particles from the Sun. A network of ground based neutron monitors (NMDB) and muon-detectors will then register the potentially dangerous solar plasma in advance. The aspects of Ground Level Alerts and Solar energetic particles are addressed by EURADOS Work Group 11 under tasks 3, 4, and 10. The main objectives here are:

• to identify the precursors of energetic solar particles with sufficient lead times
• to generate a timely warning and/or alert and create an operational procedure for GLE management
• evaluate the parameters of the incoming energetic particles