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touchline
12
Feature
Is it just Pie in the Sky?
Space Weather
Chris Hootton
In the last issue of Touchline we started exploring a risk that not many are familiar with that
could be set to have an increasing influence over the next few years – space weather. We began
by looking at the origins and effects of space weather upon Earth. In part 2 we will now look at
the preparation and action that need to be considered to minimise a doomsday scenario.
The day is 27 July 2012. The Olympic stadium bustles and buzzes
with anticipation, its angular floodlights bathing the running track
in a swathe of luminescence. Amurmur ripples round the capacity
80,000 crowd as the Olympic torch is spied, and as Danny Boyle’s
opening ceremony reaches its crescendo… the lights flicker off,
the power fails and the arena is plunged into night leaving the
masses to tweet their displeasure… in the darkness.
This may sound like scare mongering, but the 2012 Olympics
could fall victim to the effects of a geomagnetic storm if the Met
Office and NASA predictions come to fruition.
It is perhaps an unfortunate coincidence that London’s glorious
moment in the global spotlight may be overshadowed by the
arrival of a solar maximum. Scientists are concerned that the
beginning of the current solar cycle has been delayed by several
years, meaning the maximum period will arrive between 2012 and
2013, potentially bringing major infrastructure disruption.
Only recently the Sun has emitted the largest flare for four years
and space weather experts are warning of a potential financial
impact surpassing those of a hurricane.
As we noted in the last edition of Touchline, we are more
vulnerable now than ever to the effects of space weather due to
our dependence on interconnected technologies. Space weather
can cripple power grids, distort navigation systems, interrupt
communications and derail transport services, all of which could
leave affected areas with fragile power grids and without electricity
for weeks, even months, before repairs are carried out.
But what can be done to mitigate the effects of space weather?
The first logical step is to improve the prediction and forecasting
technology available. There are steps being taken, particularly
by the space and aviation industries, to forecast solar activity, and
there are satellites being developed to warn of impending space
weather spikes.
Some of the main forecasting services include the International
Space Environment Service (ISES), the US Air Force Weather
Agency (AFWA) which provides space weather data for the
US Department of Defence and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction
Centre (SWPC) which supplies information for civilian and
commercial users. These services can give early warnings of
adverse weather, and geomagnetic storms can be predicted up to
three days in advance with reasonable accuracy. However, this
is only applicable to the slower moving Coronal Mass Ejections,
not the unpredictable, faster solar flares.
Complete surround surface imaging of the Sun has been captured
for the first time on 7th February this year by NASA and their
orbiting space telescopes. The telescopes named ‘Ahead’ and
‘Behind’ launched in opposite directions in 2006 and reached their
opposite points at 186m miles apart on their mission to provide
360-degree images of the Sun. The telescopes are capable of
penetrating deep into the Sun’s atmosphere and the imagery can
then be used to measure magnetic activity on the surface and
help to predict when our star is about to spew radioactive particles
towards Earth. This is a big step in helping to minimise the effects
of Coronal Mass Ejections, allowing satellites time to be switched
to a lower voltage or rotated so that their shields are facing the
superheated energy. These advance warnings could also allow
power grid operators to reroute power away from potentially
disruptive magnetic storms or shutdown vulnerable areas.
Dr Richard Fisher, a NASA scientist of 20 years, in an interview
with The Telegraph recently compared the effects of space
weather to a natural disaster like a hurricane, and the National
Academy of Sciences warned that a powerful solar storm could
cause 20 times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina in
2005, a storm that wreaked more than $125bn of damage.
So, this is obviously a risk that needs to be considered seriously.
Understandably there is a concerted industry effort to implement
changes to alleviate the impacts of space weather.
In an ideal world, technologies that are susceptible to space
weather would be made more robust and be capable of operating
through geomagnetic storms. However, the extra cost imposed
on businesses proves prohibitive and difficult to justify in the
recent times of low space weather activity. The space industry
is not surprisingly the leader in implementing these upgrades
to satellites as they are most exposed, and electricity utility
companies have worked to protect power grids given the heavy
reliance on their service. 1940 shows the first instance
Part II
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