The 16th Quadrennial Solar-Terrestrial Physics Symposium (STP-16) was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, from 1st to 5th of June 2026. Organised under the auspices of SCOSTEP, this international meeting brought together the solar-terrestrial physics community to discuss the coupled Sun-Earth system, spanning solar activity, heliospheric processes, magnetospheric and ionospheric dynamics, and their implications for Space Weather forecasting. The program combined plenary lectures, parallel oral sessions, and poster presentations, covering both established results and emerging methodologies in the field.
The Solar and Space Physics group of the University of Rome Tor Vergata contributed to the symposium. Prof. Dario Del Moro gave a talk titled “Probabilistic Solar Corona Evolution Forecasting with Denoising Diffusion Models”, presenting a proof-of-concept for uncertainty-aware forecasting of the solar corona. The work, developed within the SWATNet project, applies generative deep learning — specifically Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPM) — to simulate the evolution of the solar corona as observed in Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths, producing calibrated probabilistic ensembles rather than single deterministic predictions. The approach addresses a central challenge in Space Weather forecasting: quantifying the uncertainty associated with the stochastic evolution of solar active regions.
The presentation prompted fruitful discussions on the role of probabilistic and generative methods in heliophysics and on their complementarity with deterministic foundation models, opening promising avenues for future collaboration.
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