The solar wind which arrives at any location in the solar system is, in
principle, relatable to the outflow of solar plasma from a single source
location. This source location, itself usually being part of a larger coronal
hole, is traceable to 1 Rs along the Sun's magnetic field, in which the entire
path from 1 Rs to a location in the heliosphere is referred to as the solar
wind connectivity. While not directly measurable, the connectivity between the
near-Earth solar wind is of particular importance to space weather. The solar
wind solar source region can be obtained by leveraging near-sun magnetic field
models and a model of the interplanetary solar wind. In this article we present
a method for making an ensemble forecast of the connectivity presented as a
probability distribution obtained from a weighted collection of individual
forecasts from the combined Air Force Data Assimilative Photospheric Flux
Transport - Wang Sheeley Arge (ADAPT-WSA) model. The ADAPT model derives the
photospheric magnetic field from synchronic magnetogram data, using flux
transport physics and ongoing data assimilation processes. The WSA model uses a
coupled set of potential field type models to derive the coronal magnetic
field, and an empirical relationship to derive the terminal solar wind speed
observed at Earth. Our method produces an arbitrary 2D probability distribution
capable of reflecting complex source configurations with minimal assumptions
about the distribution structure, prepared in a computationally efficient
manner.Comment: Accepted to the journal "Space Weather