Space Weather

An extreme space weather event could degrade critical infrastructure and disable large portions of the electrical power grid, communications networks, or space systems resulting in cascading failures that would affect key services such as precision farming, water supply, healthcare, and transportation across large areas and, potentially, much of the globe.

Overview

Space weather events, in the form of solar flares, solar energetic particles, and geomagnetic disturbances, occur regularly. During its eleven-year solar cycle, the Sun’s magnetic poles reverse in a process that releases vast amounts of energy, solar particles, and solar plasma that can affect Earth’s magnetic field. This activity can disrupt signals on the electromagnetic spectrum (e.g., radio waves) and produce currents in long metal structures (e.g., electric transmission lines, pipelines, and railway lines).

Why Should We Prepare for Space Weather?

While most critical infrastructure sectors will not be directly affected by space weather, loss, disruption, or degradation of power affects the ability of all other sectors to execute National Critical Functions (NCF). NCFs are activities so vital that their disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating effect on national security, economic security, and/or public health and safety. Unlike adversarial EMP, space weather events are inevitable. Though severity will vary, space weather events are an expected part of the regular solar cycle.

Resources

• Protecting and Preparing the Homeland Against Threats of EMP and GMD 
• Space Weather | Ready.gov
• Space Weather Operations, Research and Mitigation Activity
• NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)
• NERC Geomagnetic Disturbance Data