July 18, 2007
12:00 Noon - 2:00 pm
Rayburn Senate Office Building, Room 2225
"What is space weather and how does it affect us on Earth and in space? What are the boundaries between space weather and weather at the Earth's surface? Why should we be concerned about space weather? Will the new generation of larger-capacity passenger planes have to be more concerned with space weather?
Moderator:
Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science Fellow, American Meteorological Society
Moderator:
Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science Fellow, American Meteorological Society
Introductory Remarks:
The Honorable Congressman Mark Udall (CO)
The Honorable Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL)
Speakers:
Dr. Ernest Hildner, Space Weather Consultant, Boulder, CO
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Richard Barker, Manager of Systems Engineering, Fugro Chance Inc., Lafayette, LA
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Eugene Cameron, Manager of Global Support - Flight Dispatch, United Airlines, Chicago, IL
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Program Summary
Introduction to Space Weather
By “space weather”, we mean changes in the space environment that can and do affect mankind’s enterprises. Space weather has adverse effects on a spectrum of activities, from the obvious - NASA's Space Exploration Initiative, satellite operations, and communications – to the not so obvious – highway construction, farming, and cell phones. Airlines, electric grids, precision position finders, and others now take actions based on actual and predicted space weather storms. As developed countries’ economies – and our national security – become more technological, our vulnerability to space weather events will only grow.
NOAA’s Space Environment Center is the U.S. source for official alerts and warnings of space weather storms. Using data and models contributed by agencies and universities at home and abroad, the Center issues daily forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts when events occur, so affected customers can take action to mitigate or avoid deleterious effects.
Implication of Space Weather to Commercial Aviation
Over the past seven years there has been a very large increase in airline operations over the North Pole region. These routes have reduced travel time by many hours over the traditional North Pacific routes. They have opened up new destinations in Asia with non-stop flights from cities like Washington DC, New York, and Chicago. Since these routes provide shorter flight times, they also provide a positive affect on the environment through a reduction in emissions and a reduction in fuel use. However, while these newer routes are shorter, they are also somewhat more susceptible to disturbances resulting from the natural variability of space weather phenomena. Strong solar flare events can cause significant communication blackouts, also affect airborne navigational capability, and result in exposure of passengers and flight crew to increased levels of cosmic radiation. Needless to say, the safety and operational integrity of these flight operations are top priorities for all airlines. Consequently, the space weather products provided by the Space Environment Center provide essential information, in a timely manner, to enable operators to make the most appropriate operational decisions.
Space Weather Impacts on Marine Construction Survey Operations
Fugro’s clients and competitors use our high accuracy, digital GPS (DGPS) services to perform precise marine positioning, land construction surveys, and precision farming. All these operations involve large offshore and onshore capital equipment with significant mobilization and operational costs (e.g., drilling rigs, survey vessels, aircraft, heavy construction equipment and combines). A cost of airborne survey data collection is typically $50,000/day. Marine seismic data collection costs range from $80,000 to $200,000/day. Depending on the complexity of the operation, the number of support vessels and equipment required the daily costs of moving and operating an offshore oilrig can range from $300,000 - $1,000,000.
Any event that affects the availability and accuracy of GPS positioning has the potential to delay any or all of these operations, add additional costs and/or adversely impact their outcome, along with the possibility of infrastructure damage in the marine application.
Ionospheric range errors are one of the primary error components in the DGPS solution. The ability to accurately estimate and correctly apply these error components in the DGPS process is key to high accuracy GPS positioning. During periods of heightened geomagnetic storm activity caused by solar activity, the ionosphere can become so disturbed that it is difficult or impossible to accurately estimate the errors. Loss of GPS or L-Band DGPS correction signal tracking can also occur either by ionospheric signal scattering or solar radio interference. In these instances it is important to understand the nature of the outage and its potential duration.
It is crucial to our organization to receive timely and accurate information on impending solar or geomagnetic activity that may affect our operations. One consequence of the loss of accurate GPS positioning is the potential for damage to the offshore oil infrastructure with significant repair costs, down time, lost production and environmental impact. Our organization carefully monitors space weather conditions using NOAA – Space Environment Center (SEC) products and services. This enables us to alert our own crews and clients worldwide as to potential disruption and increased noise levels in positioning signals associated with survey operations.
Because of GPS’s addictive accuracy it has become the default embedded positioning component for phones, cars, marine, airborne and agricultural applications. Space weather forecasting and alerting of the public to the timing and magnitude of events that impact GPS now becomes very important. Risk avoidance is a key for a wide range of applications where there are economic or environmental risks.
NOAA’s Space Environment Center (SEC) is the agency tasked with providing space weather forecasting products and services. Elimination or reduction of research into solar phenomena that affect GPS accuracy and availability potentially results in limited or no forewarning of changes in GPS behavior, accuracy and availability that will impact all GPS users.
Biographies
Dr. Ernest Hildner was Director of NOAA’s Space Environment Center from 1986 until his retirement in 2005. The Center is the nation’s 24-hour-a-day center for alerts, warnings and watches related to space weather; it also accumulates for archive much data relating to space weather; and it performs applied research oriented toward improving space weather services. Dr. Hildner is a solar physicist who has worked for the High Altitude Observatory, NCAR, and for NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. His scientific specialty is coronal and interplanetary physics, in which he has published dozens of papers in peer-reviewed journals.
In addition to his responsibilities with NOAA, including being NOAA’s Program Manager for Space Weather, Dr. Hildner’s national responsibilities included being the founding Co-chair of the Committee on Space Weather for the National Space Weather Program, a member of the advisory committees for the NOAO National Solar Observatory and NCAR High Altitude Observatory, and serving on review panels for NASA and DoD projects. In December 2003, he received the Department of Commerce Gold Medal for advancing the Nation’s space weather services. He twice received the Presidential Rank Award for Senior Executive Service federal managers. He is or has been a member of the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, American Astronomical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, International Astronomical Union, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Eugene Cameron is Manager of Global Support - Flight Dispatch, for United Airlines, and is responsible for coordinating policies and procedures for United’s International Flight Dispatch Operations. He has been with United for 40 years, and has the pleasure of working from his home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada region of Northern California. Mr. Cameron has been instrumental in the development of Cross Polar Operations between North America and Asia, where United Airlines is heavily invested. Mr. Cameron has been associated with the flight dispatch operations of United during his entire career and is active on several International Air Transport Association(IATA) working groups, along with various International Air Traffic Working Groups, in the development of new international routes and procedures.
Mr. Cameron was the first airline representative to work with the Space Environment Center, in 1999 and 2000, to coordinate information exchanges concerning Space Weather affects on commercial flights in the polar region. The United Airlines Dispatch Center, in Chicago, plans over 1600 flight operations a day to destinations in the U.S. and international destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia.
Richard Barker is Manager of Systems Engineering with Fugro Chance Inc., Lafayette, Louisiana, where he has been employed for 28 years. He is a graduate of the California State Polytechnic University.
Richard has been involved in the design and development of systems used for worldwide marine navigation, positioning and construction survey services. With the advent of the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System in the early 1980’s he has been responsible for the development of GPS augmentation systems and services including precision kinematic, Wide Area Differential and High Precision DGPS services for Marine and Land applications.
Richard is a long time member of the Institute of Navigation (ION) where he has served in various capacities, including counsel member, and as General and Program Chair for the ION GPS Satellite Division conference. He has several published papers as author and co-author on GPS positioning.
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Space Weather: An Evolving Science & Policy Issues