Continuous Li Observations: The Imperative Of Forecasting Space Weather

摘要

Society depends heavily upon a variety of technologies that are susceptible to the extremes of space weather, i.e., significant changes of the near-Earth environment that are driven by disturbances from the sun. Enhanced ionosphere currents will induce ground electrical currents that can disrupt and damage modern electric power grids and shorten the operational life of oil and gas pipelines. Solar storm-driven ionospheric density enhancements interfere with high-frequency (HF) radio communications and with navigation signals from GPS satellites.rnSpace weather events in the polar regions can degrade, or even completely blackout, HF communications along transpolar aviation corridors, requiring aircraft flying these routes to be rerouted to longer-distance lower latitude routes that may require refueling stops. Exposure of spacecraft during solar energetic particle events and radiation belt enhancements can cause temporary operational anomalies, damage critical electronics, degrade solar arrays and blind optical systems such as imagers and star trackers.