OR/16/030 Space weather and ESWW12
| Thomson, Alan W P. 2016. Geomagnetism review 2015. British Geological Survey Internal Report, OR/16/030. |
BGS space weather research and applications were strongly represented at the 12th European Space Weather Week (ESWW12) in November 2015, in Oostende, Belgium. This well attended conference and workshop had around 400 participants from 39 countries taking part in 16 sessions, 15 working meetings, a ‘trade fair’ and several business meetings.
During ESWW12 members of the Geomagnetism team presented a poster (Alan Thomson) and a talk (Gemma Kelly). Ellen Clarke convened a session titled Geomagnetically induced currents and space weather, and co-organised with Alan Thomson an ‘end-user’ lunch event on Geomagnetically Induced Currents and the Risk to Power Transmission Systems in Europe. This lunch event promoted lots of discussion between researchers and representatives of industries affected by space weather.
Members of the team also contributed to two further oral presentations and collectively we manned two trade stands during the workshop trade fair. The BGS geomagnetic activity forecasting team were also invited to give another ‘Live Space Weather Forecast’ during the week, after the success of this initiative last year.
Science contributions
- Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) at mid-latitudes under extreme Dst scenarios (presentation).
Extremely large values of the Dst magnetic activity index are rare; the largest in recent decades occurred during the March 1989 geomagnetic storm, peaking at -589nT. Estimates of Dst for the ‘Carrington Event’ of September 1859 suggest a peak of at least -850nT, and recent theoretical work has suggested Dst could reach -2500nT. From these extreme values of Dst we therefore modelled the possible magnitude of magnetic variations that could occur at mid-latitudes during large Dst excursions and computed the likely GIC that may follow in mid-latitude European high-voltage power distribution networks.
- An Assessment of Pc5-Like Pulsations Observed During the Carrington Storm (poster).
The Greenwich and Kew (both London) observatory magnetograms for 1–2 September 1859 show prolonged periods of Pc5-like pulsations (continuous fluctuations with a period of 150–600 seconds), driven by the solar wind during the recovery phase of the storm. Unlike the very high amplitude variations that are off scale during the peak of the magnetic storm, these pulsations have apparently been well preserved in the records. We analysed the measured amplitude and duration of UK Pc5 pulsations in both the Carrington storm and in modern day records. In terms of various measures, the pulsations during the Carrington event are large but not particularly extreme, compared to more recent severe storms. However this conclusion may be a result of limitations in the hardware of the time.
Fair stands
This year BGS ran two ‘trade stands’ at the ESWW12 Fair to raise the profile of our Space Weather activities and to promote INTERMAGNET.
The BGS Space Weather Activities stand showcased many of our services including:
- The ‘Monitoring and Analysis of Geomagnetically Induced Currents’ (MAGIC) service for UK industry
- Real-time geomagnetic activity index production and delivery
- Daily, 3-day space weather forecasts and aurora alert service
- Warning of extreme space weather events for the UK Government and National Grid
- Real-time, 24/7 data supply for the oil and gas industry to aid directional drilling
- Geo-electric field measurements to aid in the evaluation of and development of GIC models
- Public outreach activities — the Raspberry Pi magnetometer and the GeoSocial Aurora map
BGS also organised an INTERMAGNET stand at the fair to promote the work of INTERMAGNET to the space weather community. In particular the INTERMAGNET network has evolved to provide one-second data and near real-time data access, specifically in response to monitoring requirements for space weather research and applications.