Extreme Events in Geospace: Origins, Predictability, and Consequences

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Introduction

Natalia Buzulukova, NASA GSFC, Heliophysics Science Division, Greenbelt, MD, United States, University of Maryland, Astronomy Department, College Park, MD, United States

In everyday life, most people usually do not experience space weather effects. Hurricanes, floods, snowfalls, and heat waves are more common manifestations of normal extreme weather.

The effects of space weather are hidden and sometimes intertwined with other factors. However, specialists who work in the fields of radio communications, GNSS positioning, avionics, and satellite design and operations deal with space weather effects on a regular basis. The extreme effects here could include degradation of GNSS services, rerouting of many commercial flights, or loss of satellites after a geomagnetic storm or a substorm. Another example is an extreme solar radiation storm that could pose serious radiation hazards for astronauts/cosmonauts onboard ISS, or future crewed missions to the moon or Mars. Countermeasures and mitigation techniques could be very costly, but the general public would probably not count these cases as extremes.

In the case of a truly extreme and rare space weather event, things could turn out differently. An historically extreme geomagnetic storm could induce large electrical currents flowing in the Earth (Geomagnetically induced currents, GICs) that will seriously disable electrical power grids, leaving millions of people without electricity. The threat is not hypothetical: the famous geomagnetic storm in March 1989 left 6 million people in the Quebec province of Canada without electricity for 9 h. A geomagnetic storm with the highest intensity ever was recorded on September 1–2, 1859, and was named after the British astronomer Richard C. Carrington, who observed solar eruption during the event. It has been shown recently for the Carrington event to have an intensity ~ 3 times bigger than the 1989 storm event. During the Carrington storm, fires were set on telegraph stations. According to a report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2008), the total economic impact from a similar event happened today could exceed $2 trillion, or 20 times greater than the costs of Hurricane Katrina. A report of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2013) estimates the time needed to repair damages for U.K. power grid system in weeks or months. That extreme space weather event will be obviously noticeable for everyone!

On July 23, 2012, the Earth was lucky enough to miss the extreme solar eruption and the ensuing Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection (ICME) that according to estimates would have generated a geomagnetic storm with intensity comparable to that of the Carrington event. Today, such threats from extreme space weather are internationally recognized as being serious, that is, having sufficient probability to happen during the next 10–20 years.

Scientific studies are essential for understanding the origins and predicting the consequences of extreme space weather. Public discussion on the topic of extreme space weather include views ranging widely from the end of civilization as we know it, to it can't happen here. We need to develop scientific knowledge to describe what the credible risk is and to give insights into how to mitigate the consequences. This book presents an attempt to describe our current scientific understanding of extreme space weather events in geospace. The chapters are written by leading experts from many different fields of space research. The book collectively links solar eruptive events with space weather effects and impacts on the Earth, presents an account of the available modeling tools and data sets, reviews historical knowledge, discusses national and space policy issues, shows how space weather risks have evolved over time, and outlines the future challenges for the community.

One of questions raised throughout the chapters of this book is how to define an extreme space event. It is obvious that extreme geomagnetic storms like the Carrington event will bring many adverse effects to the technological systems and infrastructure, and therefore it is important to assess risks associated with the occurrence of extreme geomagnetic storms. But there are multiple examples throughout the book showing that extreme space weather effects could occur during milder solar and geomagnetically active conditions. For example, extreme GICs are often associated with substorm activity. However, occurrence of extreme substorms do not correlate well with occurrence of the extreme storms. Substorms are also related to the phenomenon of satellite surface charging. Occurrence of extreme geomagnetic storm would not be a necessary condition for these adverse effects, that is, GICs or spacecraft surface charging. Other such examples of this complexity can be found in different chapters of the book. One important point that we would like to leave the reader with: the definition of extreme effects and their impacts varies from space weather topic to topic. We need further studies to understand the nature of extremes, as well as the set of conditions where and when the extremes occur.

The content of the book can be briefly described as follows.

Chapter 1 by Dr. M. Hapgood gives an introduction to the field of space weather, outlining major space weather effects and impacts, and linking them to their solar origins. This chapter shows how technological advances changed the risk associated with space weather, and how this risk could change in the future.

Chapter 2 by Dr. N. Gopalswamy describes the solar origins of extreme space weather events. Extreme solar eruptive events and their consequences are considered, including statistics for coronal mass ejections, solar flares, solar energetic particles (SEP) events, and the magnetospheric Dst index. Basic physical parameters of extreme solar eruptions and their consequences are estimated, including expected one-in-100-year and one-in-1000-year event sizes.

Chapter 3 by Dr. K. D. Leka and Dr. G. Barnes review the current status of solar flare forecasting techniques and methods. At present, the field of solar flare forecasting uses the most developed statistical methods and approaches in the field of space weather. The chapter describes forecasting history and definitions, presents basic approaches, and discusses methods for the evaluation of performance. The chapter stresses the need for a better understanding of physics behind flare events, and emphasizes the role of first-principle models.

Chapter 4 by Dr. Yu. Yermolaev et al. presents different ways to use statistical methods for the prediction of extreme space weather. They differentiate between different solar wind structures and their efficiency to produce geomagnetic storms.

Chapter 5 by Dr. P. Riley reviews current statistical approaches for the estimation of extreme space weather, and applies it to calculate occurrence rates for geomagnetic storms, substorms, and SEPs. One of the results is that the likelihood to observe an extreme geomagnetic storm in the next 10 years is ~ 10%. However, 95% confidence interval lies between 1% and 20%, that is from quite unlikely to very probably. It seems this is a natural limitation of current statistical approaches, because the number of points representing tail distributions for extreme events is small.

Chapter 6 by Dr. S. Sharma presents another approach to predict the probability of extreme space weather from the viewpoint of statistical physics of nonequilibrium systems, an active topic of research in magnetospheric physics. The chapter stresses that geospace exhibits both coherent behavior and multiscale behavior, arising from internal dynamics as well as driven by the turbulent solar wind. The modeling and prediction of space weather, including extreme events, requires consideration of both the global and multiscale aspects.

Chapter 7 by Dr. G. Lakhina and Dr. B. Tsurutani reviews the present knowledge about magnetic superstorms. The chapter presents historical background and introduces storm classification and some important characteristics. Historical data from Colaba and Alibag magnetic observatories are shown with the list of intense and superintense storms starting from September 1847. The chapter also estimates some basic characteristics of Carrington events and discusses the maximum intensity for a future possible supergeomagnetic storm.

Chapter 8 by Dr. C. M. Ngwira and Dr. A. Pulkkinen, and Chapter 9 by Dr. J. Love and Dr. P. Bedrosian describe the current understanding of effects and impacts associated with GICs. These chapters nicely present basic GICs theory, provide illustrative examples, overview model results, and derive hazard maps for extreme events. The chapters stress the importance of additional data sets required for improved risk assessment and general understanding of GIC effects, namely, magnetotelluric surveys and direct measurements of geoelectric fields during geomagnetic storms.

Chapter 10 by Dr. N. Buzulukova et al., and Chapter 11 by Dr. M. Sitnov et al. present two different approaches to modeling the geospace environment for extreme conditions, namely, global first-principles models of the terrestrial magnetosphere, and empirical models of storm-time magnetic fields and pressure distributions. The chapters describe the available modeling tools, review the modeling results for extreme geomagnetic storms, present distributions of currents and pressure for the intense storms, and outline future challenges. Chapter 10 also shows an example of nonextreme geomagnetic storm with intense ground dB/dt variations, presenting model results and tracing the source of the variations from the ground to the solar wind and magnetospheric drivers.

Chapter 12 by Dr. W. Denig et al. presents detailed data analysis and signatures of extremes for 12 cases starting from the March 1989 geomagnetic storm and ending with the March 2012 storm. For each case, a review of published literature is also performed that helps to connect observed signatures of extreme events with the magnetospheric responses.

Chapter 13 by Dr. M. Panasyuk et al., Chapter 14 by Dr. R. Hajra and Dr. B. Tsurutani, Chapter 15 by Dr. D. Ferguson, Chapter 16 by Dr. S. Lai et al., and Chapter 17 by Dr. L. Narici et al. describe different forms of radiation in the near-Earth space environment and their solar-cycle dependence, as well as their space weather effects and impacts, including discussion of implications for crewed space missions. The role of nonsolar source for the most energetic population, Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs), is emphasized in Chapter 13. Chapter 14 demonstrates that the most energetic magnetospheric radiation belts are observed during the declining phase of the solar cycle, helping to define extremes. Chapters 15 and 16 discuss the effects of radiation on spacecraft surface charging, arcing, and deep dielectric charging. Chapter 16 also offers detailed definition of extremes for spacecraft surface-charging effects.

Chapter 18 by Dr. W. K. Tobiska et al. and Chapter 19 by G. Gapirov et al. describe atmospheric effects of radiation environment with application to aviation. Chapter 18 characterizes radiation exposure for space weather events at aviation altitudes and introduces a new dose index (D-index) to be used for aviation radiation alerts. Chapter 19 introduces a new and important space weather phenomenon, high-energy transient luminous atmospheric events, or TLEs, related to thunderstorm activity. The chapter presents discussion of TLEs as a new radiation hazard for suborbital flights and the relationship of TLEs to other space weather phenomena.

Chapter 20 by Dr. A. Mannucci and Dr. B. Tsurutani, Chapter 21 by Dr. Fuller-Rowell et al., Chapter 22 by Dr. X. Yue et al., Chapter 23 by Dr. G. Crowley and Dr. I. Azeem, and Chapter 24 by Dr. R. Redmon et al. present different aspects of thermospheric and ionospheric effects and impacts associated with space weather. Chapter 20 explores the dynamics of total electron content (TEC) during extreme ionospheric storms, and the role of prompt penetration electric fields (PPEFs). The latter can have strong influence on low-altitude satellite drag during intense magnetic storm events. Chapter 21 describes how thermosphere-ionosphere (T-I) coupled system might respond to different types of extreme events, namely extreme enhancement in solar radiation and extreme geomagnetic storms. Chapter 22 discusses intense solar radio bursts (SRBs) and their impact on GNSS systems. Chapter 23 explores the effects of ionospheric storms on GPS/GNSS signals and systems. The chapter describes various types of ionospheric disturbances, effects on communications, navigation, and surveillance, providing illustrative examples for a number of intense and extreme storms. Chapter 24 presents a detailed study of three moderate geomagnetic storms where aviation systems were seriously or partially degraded, and explores the solar origins for these events.

Chapter 25 by Dr. V. Airapetian explores relations between space weather, astrophysics and life sciences. This chapter discusses the result of interactions of extreme CME and SEP events with the magnetosphere, ionosphere, and atmosphere of the early Earth and shows how extreme events might have initiated the production of precursors of life.

Chapter 26 by Dr. D. Boteler describes the Canadian experience of dealing with space weather. As a result of their geographical location, Canada is especially prone to space weather adverse effects. The chapter shows many examples of how space weather affects different technological systems, and everyday life.

Chapter 27 by Dr. M. Hapgood and Chapter 28 by M. MacAlester discuss the ways space weather scientists communicate information with other experts, including engineers, economists, emergency managers, and policy makers. The two chapters present complementary views and help the reader understand how space weather scientists should present the information in order for it to be useful to other experts.

The book concludes with three short technical reports. Chapter 29 by Dr. S. Worman et al. presents first results and ongoing efforts of identifying, describing, and quantifying the social and economic impacts of space weather in the United States. Chapter 30 by Dr. D. Neudegg et al. reports on the current state of extreme space weather monitoring in Australia. The last chapter, Chapter 31 by Dr. M. Ishii, briefly describes the current state of space weather research in Japan.

In conclusion, we note that personal and organizational experience of space weather can hardly provide good insights into the real extremes, because by definition these events occur rarely. With the methods provided by science, it is possible to greatly enhance our knowledge by looking at historical events or collecting information from solar observatories about powerful eruptions that missed the Earth (e.g., the July 23, 2012, event). Collection of extreme events could be also enhanced from observations of solar-like stars, making it possible to derive occurrence rates for extremes with greater accuracy, a point that could be essential for policy makers. These methods rely on continuous systematic measurements of geomagnetic activity on the Earth (starting from the 19th century), modern observations of solar activity and solar wind structures, and finally, recent and future observations of solar-like stars. The science of extreme space weather has proven to be a complex interdisciplinary field connected to many surrounding fields. We hope this book will be helpful for those who are interested in understanding these interconnections, as well as the origins, predictability, and consequences of extreme space events in geospace.

This book project started as a Fall AGU 2015 session, Origins of Extreme Events in Geospace, where the editor was the primary convener. The book chapters have been peer reviewed by the members of the community (excluding three short technical reports in the end of the book). Dr. B. Tsurutani served as a guest editor for Chapter 10 written by Dr. N. Buzulukova et al. The editor would like to take the opportunity to thank the authors' team, without whose help and support this project would not be possible.

Part 1

Overview of Impacts and Effects

Chapter 1

Linking Space Weather Science to Impacts—The View From the Earth

Mike Hapgood    RAL Space, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, United Kingdom

Space and Planetary Physics Group, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

Abstract

This chapter explores how we can link space weather science to impacts. It stresses the value of tracing space weather from its societal impacts on human activities on Earth back to its origin on the Sun, thus enabling us to more clearly identify the solar, heliospheric, and terrestrial phenomena that are crucial to assessing and forecasting the societal impacts of space weather. The chapter also presents a structure that consolidates most space weather impacts into four major topics: (1) the geoelectric fields that drive geomagnetically induced currents; (2) the complex behavior of the upper atmosphere and its seemingly diverse impacts on radio systems and satellite orbits; (3) the atmospheric radiation that increasingly disrupts digital devices, both on aircraft and on the ground; and (4) the interaction of satellites with the rich plasma environments that fill many operational orbits, not least the vital geosynchronous ring. This focus on major topics provides a way of simplifying the links between science and impacts, which can otherwise appear as a long and complex list of impact areas that risk being boring and confusing because of the diversity of space weather effects. It facilitates an understanding of how the science links to impacts—especially in extreme space weather conditions. In a final section we look to the future and consider how space weather risks may evolve. We review a number of technological developments that may change our perception of space weather risks in the next few decades. This includes areas in which new technologies may open up new space weather risks as well as areas in which new technologies may retire current space weather risks.

Keywords

Space weather; Societal impact; Geomagnetically induced currents; Single-event effects; Scintillation; Satellite drag; Ionospheric group delay; Satellite charging

Chapter Outline

1 Introduction

2 Space Weather Environments at Earth

3 Geomagnetically Induced Currents—The Impacts of Natural Geoelectric Fields

4 Space Weather Impacts on the Upper Atmosphere

4.1 Overview of the Upper Atmosphere

4.2 Trans-Ionospheric Radio Propagation

4.3 Atmospheric Drag

4.4 Atmospheric Radiation Environment

4.5 Satellite Plasma Environments

4.6 Looking to the Future: How May Space Weather Risks Evolve?

References

1 Introduction

Scientific discussions of space weather and impacts traditionally start with a discussion of the solar sources of space weather. They then trace along the flow of energy and momentum through the solar wind to the Earth, then to terrestrial environments where space weather interacts with technology. This is a very natural approach for anyone with a physics background—follow the energy flow. In this chapter we will take the opposite approach by tracing space weather from its societal impacts on human activities on Earth back to its origin on the Sun. This reverse approach has an important advantage in that it enables us to more clearly identify the solar, heliospheric, and terrestrial phenomena that are crucial to assessing and forecasting the societal impacts of space weather, since it ensures we follow the chains of physical processes that produce significant