Understanding and Predicting Geomagnetic Secular Variation via Data Assimilation

: Geomagnetic data assimilation is a recently established research discipline in geomagnetism. It aims to optimally combine geomagnetic observations and numerical geodynamo models to better estimate the dynamic state of the Earth’s outer core, and to predict geomagnetic secular variation. Over the past decade, rapid advances have been made in geomagnetic data assimilation on various fronts by several research groups around the globe, such as using geomagnetic data assimilation to understand and interpret the observed geomagnetic secular variation, estimating part of the core state that is not observable on the Earth’s surface, and making geomagnetic forecasts on multi-year time scales. In parallel, efforts have also been made on proxy systems for understanding fundamental statistical properties of geomagnetic data assimilation, and for developing algorithms tailored specifically for geomagnetic data assimilation. In this chapter, we provide a comprehensive overview of these advances, as well as some of the immediate challenges of geomagnetic data assimilation, and possible solutions and pathways to move forward.