Eleven-year sunspot cycle season opens

First 11 of 11 paragraphs shown Electricity systems, airport navigation and satellites were now at risk from forecast plasma surges from the sun
The first major flare of the cycle was 1 August 2010: The science-plan was now to forecast risks future ‘Carrington-class’ events at Earth.
Evidence of periodic risks clear: The Carrington Events - massive electrical system failures linked to sunspots - gave credible evidence events on the Sun can create risks of failure of technologies on Earth and in space.
Sunspot season opened with sunspot 1 August 2010: As the 11-year cycle of the sunspot season opened and the cycle moves from negative to positive - the first major flare was 1 August 2010 - the science-plan was now to forecast risks future Carrington-class events at Earth.
Sunspots can blow Global Positioning System (GPS): The adverse effects of extreme space weather on modern technology—power grid outages, high-frequency communication blackouts, interference with Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals, spacecraft anomalies—are well known and well documented.
Electricity, navigation and satellite failure risks: The Carrington Event is increasingly recognised as the canonical example of extreme space weather. It provides credible evidence that the Sun can produce an event that would severely challenge many of the technologies critical to our twenty-first century society, notably the ubiquitous use of electrical power and huge range of public and commercial services that depend on space-based systems.
Massive events expected: Science groupos warned of a needs for “physics-based methods that can realistically handle major departures from average conditions”.
The Carrington effect: It shows that there is a clear need to express space weather risks in similar form to other natural hazards, e.g. to develop scientific methodologies that can estimate the likelihood of future Carrington-class events at Earth. This presentation will outline some key issues that need to be addressed in developing such methodologies, e.g.
- the severe limitations imposed on statistical techniques by the global nature of space weather; and
- the need to develop physics-based methods that can realistically handle major departures from average conditions.
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