UK Government Releases Space Weather Preparedness Strategy

October 12, 2015 - By GPS World Staff

The different space weather phenomena. (Image: UK Department for Business Innovation & Skills)

A “Space Weather Preparedness Strategy” has been issued by the government of the United Kingdom. The document sets out the nature of the risk to the UK from severe space weather, as well as progress made to prepare for the risk and priorities for future work.

Responsibility for managing the risk passed from the Cabinet Office to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in 2015.

The strategy — produced for government and local responders to guide preparedness — has been shared with international, industry and academic stakeholders. It is an updated version of the “Space Weather Preparedness Strategy” produced in July 2014.

The UK approach to space weather preparedness is underpinned by three elements: designing mitigation into infrastructure where possible; developing the ability to provide alerts and warnings of space weather and its potential impacts; and having in place plans to respond to severe events.

“The main challenge we face is that awareness of the risk is low,” reads the report’s executive summary. “Much more needs to be done to encourage potentially vulnerable sectors to adopt measures to mitigate the likely impacts.”

Space weather, resulting from solar activity, can produce X-rays, high energy particles and coronal mass ejections of plasma. According to the executive summary, “Where such activity is directed towards Earth there is the potential to cause wide-ranging impacts. These include power loss, aviation disruption, communication loss, and disturbance to (or loss) of satellite systems. This includes GNSSs, on which a range of technologies depend for navigation or timing.”

GPS World reported on Richard Langley’s ionospheric research project in the March issue. Langley manages the CANSPACE Listserv, which includes frequent updates about ionospheric events.