Renewed Support Dawns in Europe: An Action to Develop Space Weather Products and Services

Abstract

The effects of space weather span a range of sectors. They can cause radio communications problems; can disrupt synthetic aperture radar systems, the Global Positioning System (GPS), and the future European Galileo systems; and can increase radiation risks for aircraft crew and passengers. Electric power network disturbances and enhanced corrosion effects observed in long-distance fuel supply pipelines are other well-known effects of unfavorable space weather. In severe cases, large-scale power outages have also been traced to space weather phenomena (Figure 1). Research efforts in various countries—including the U.S. multiagency National Space Weather Program (http:// www.nswp.gov), the International Space Environment Service (ISES; http://www.ises-spaceweather.org/), and several European initiatives sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission (EC)—have demonstrated that adverse space weather poses a tangible threat to humans and modern technological systems and assets on the ground, in the air, and in space. Although methods to model some aspects of space weather have been developed by these agencies, all agree that their performance needs to be improved—in many cases, prediction accuracy is inadequate to allow the transition from models to reliable operational services. Further targeted research and development is needed. Funding for coordinated space weather science and applications effects in Europe has so far been on a project-by-project basis. Systematic national contributions to a pan-European space weather program are not yet in place, leading to fragmentation of European space weather initiatives. A certain level of