The United Kingdom officially opened its first space weather forecasting center last week. The weather forecasting center, officially named the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre, is based in the organization’s headquarters in Exeter. Funding for the center was announced late last year (1).
An image of a solar flare, one of the events the space weather center will be forecasting.
Since May of this year, the center has been operating 24/7, ahead of its public launch on October 8th. In addition to giving early warning of space weather threats to critical infrastructure such as the UK’s power grid, the Met Office provides publicly-available forecasts published on its website (2).
“Space weather” covers how radiation and high-energy particles that are ejected from magnetic storms in the Sun interact with Earth’s magnetic field and impact technology on the Earth’s surface. Severe space weather can knock out satellite communications, disrupt global positions systems (GPS), and interfere with power grids.
The Space Weather Operations Centre came about after three years of discussion between the Met Office and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service. The National Weather Service was interested in establishing a backup for its Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC).
To determine how soon a solar event will impact Earth, forecasters at the SWPC and Met Office will use the same models based on data from the same spacecraft. Catherine Burnett, space weather program manager at the Met Office says that by running models at slightly different times, forecasters will be able to compare the results and generate a more accurate picture (2).
Sources:
1. Gibney, E. (2014, October 9). UK Launches Space Weather Forecast Centre. Nature.com. Retrieved October 12, 2014, from http://www.nature.com/
2. Space Weather. (n.d.). Met Office. Retrieved October 12, 2014, from http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/