Reports in the news this week have highlighted that the Earth is being bombarded by the strongest solar storm since 2005, with the Northern Lights seen as far south as Yorkshire.
Dr Julian Rose, Knowledge Transfer Fellow from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, is currently carrying out research into the impact of space weather (including solar storms) on GPS, and has provided us with an explanation of this week’s events.
Dr Rose said: “Navigation, the national grid, internet banking, mobile phones, TV and aircraft landing systems are just a handful of applications that now rely on GPS.
“The sun is constantly bombarding the Earth with powerful radiation and every eleven years or so these energetic outbursts increase dramatically.
“We are currently experiencing one of these increases in solar radiation, which gives rise to space weather in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, creating what most of us know as the Northern Lights.
“In the past few days we have experienced these lights here in the UK, demonstrating the intensity of the solar storms taking place.
“In contrast to the beauty of the northern lights, space weather also badly affects GPS signals. The impact of solar storms can leave users with a problematic positioning or timing solution, or without any GPS solution at all!
“Space weather can also damage power grids. Recently, our research team has been working towards monitoring space weather in real-time. 4D space weather maps have been developed and we’re using them to monitor and image space weather conditions.
“As a result, improvements to the accuracy and reliability of GPS positioning and timing have been made.”
For more information about the research carried out at the University into space weather see the ‘Invert Group‘ website or the University’s Centre for Space, Atmospheric Oceanic Science.
For updates on solar storms this week see http://www.spaceweather.com/
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