April 5, 2004 — The impacts and costs associated with meteorological storms occurring on the Earth’s surface are obvious, but what about those associated with space weather? Solar or geomagnetic storms — just like hurricanes, tornadoes, hail and floods — can cause damage resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses each year.

Impacts of Solar Storms
Ironically, solar storms are often seen from Earth as beautiful lights dancing in the night sky (i.e., the Northern Lights or aurora borealis), but looks can be deceiving. In reality, these storms can carry tremendous power and travel at speeds of as much as 5 million MPH. Solar storms have been known to knock out satellites, some power supplies, communications and navigation systems. Many of these effects are transitory, but they can be very disruptive and potentially dangerous — both to the systems themselves and the nation’s economy. Damage to these systems can also result in secondary effects that can disrupt virtually every major infrastructure dependant on them, including transportation, security and emergency response systems, telecommunications and other wireless networks and electronic equipment.

Increased Vulnerability with Advanced Technologies
The costs and impacts associated with solar storms increase as society becomes more dependant on the high tech innovations that are most vulnerable to solar storm activity. The added complexity of today's power grid system and the lack of reserve power within that system makes it very vulnerable to solar storms. Add to this the ever increasing prevalence and demand for satellite-based systems and you begin see the potential catastrophic impacts solar storms can have on today’s modern society. “Because of this, it is more important now (than ever) to have the capabilities and resources necessary to monitor, predict and understand space weather,” says retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “NOAA’s research and operational capabilities enable it to help the nation (and the world) prepare for these storms." Lautenbacher also noted that the agency’s space weather initiatives are in line with two of its primary mission goals; to serve society’s needs for weather and water information and to support the nation’s commerce with information for safe, efficient and environmentally sound transportation.

The NOAA Space Environment Center provides real-time monitoring and forecasting of solar and geophysical events. The center collects space weather data from satellites and ground-based sensors, including:

• The NOAA geostationary operational environmental satellites. They provide real-time measurements of solar flares, radiation storms, and geomagnetic disturbances and GOES-12 carries the worlds most advanced solar event detector — the solar X-ray imager.
• The NOAA polar-orbiting environmental satellites carry solar environmental monitors and instruments to measure ultraviolet radiation in space.

NOAA collects additional space weather data through cooperation with NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense. The NOAA space weather scales were created to communicate to the public the current and future space weather conditions and their possible impacts on people and systems. All of these activities help power companies, the airline industry, spacecraft operators, the communications industry and emergency officials predict and prepare for the potential damage of solar events well before they hit the Earth.

Value of Space Weather Observation
NOAA Chief Economist Rodney F. Weiher and Dr. Thomas J. Teisberg recently estimated that the economic benefits of providing reliable warnings of geomagnetic storms to the electric power industry (alone) would be approximately $450 million over three years (note that this doesn't include any other impacted industries). This is well above the $100 million cost of a new operational satellite that would provide such warnings (Teisberg and Weiher, 2000).

Economic Impacts on Power Grids and Satellite Systems
The satellite industry and electric power producers have experienced major financial losses attributed to space weather since the 1980s (Quinn, 2000).

Power Grids
The first recorded evidence of space weather effects on technology was in 1847 (Barlow, 1849). In 1859 a major failure of telegraph systems in New England and Europe coincided with a large solar flare (Tsurutani et. al., 1859). However, it wasn’t until the HydroQuebec Power Grid blackout in Quebec, Canada, in March of 1989 that the world truly realized the extent to which solar storms can impact the economy. The solar storm induced a nine-hour blackout which affected 6 million customers and ultimately cost this power company more than $10 million — putting the cost of this disaster in the same category as hurricanes and earthquakes (and this does not include the estimated cost to its customers, which was in the tens — if not hundreds — of millions of dollars) (Windows to the Universe Team, 2000). Additionally, Public Service Electric and Gas in New Jersey suffered serious damage to two of its transformers. It cost PSE&G eight million to replace the transformers and the cost of replacement energy during the time the transformers were taken out of service was approximately $16.8 million, so the net cost for PSE&G was over $24 million. Together, this single space weather storm cost Hydro Quebec and PSE&G more than $30 million. Comprehensive real-time protective space weather prediction services could have significantly reduced damages and costs. Hydro-Quebec’s solution to the blackout was to install devices that block solar storms created geomagnetically-induced currents from traveling through its transmission lines. Unfortunately, this solution is extremely complex and expensive ($1.2 billion) (Quinn, 2000).

It was soon realized that the key to protecting vulnerable high tech systems is the ability to forecast solar storms and to take appropriate measures to avoid (or at least minimize) potential damage before they strike the Earth.

Thanks to data from new sensors and improved forecast models, NOAA’s SEC forecasters were able to alert electric power customers 40 minutes before a solar storm hit the Earth on May 2, 1998. In response, electric power utilities were able to successfully divert power and increase safety margins on certain parts of the grid to avoid stress on the power system.

Researchers have found that local electricity prices in the northeast increase in response to the regionalized effects of solar storms. Specifically, in research supported by the National Science Foundation, Forbes and St. Cyr (2004) note that space weather disrupts the system that transmits the power from where it is generated to where it is distributed to customers. In examining the determinants of the real-time electricity price in the market over the period June 1, 2000, through Dec. 31, 2001, they concluded that solar storms (over this period) increased the wholesale price of electricity by approximately 3.7 percent or approximately $500 million over the 19 month sample period.

Satellites
Scientists point out that satellites are even more vulnerable to solar storms than power grids. Engineers have been forced to use much lighter shielding materials in order to keep costs down (it costs between $5,000 to $10,000 per pound to launch material into space) (Odenwald, 1999). Space storms don't even have to make a direct hit to harm a satellite, especially the many new low Earth orbit commercial satellites (orbiting only a few hundred miles above the Earth’s surface). During heightened solar activity, the atmosphere thickens, increasing atmospheric friction on LEO objects. In fact, $500 million in satellite insurance claims from 1994 to 1999 were the direct or indirect result of space weather (Kunstadter, 2002). Despite this, LEO satellites remain prime orbital real estate for the latest generations of communication satellite networks. Although astronauts can minimize radiation storm impacts by retreating into the shielded chambers of their space station, many other satellites must be switched to safe mode to survive solar storms.

The list of major satellites knocked out or damaged by solar storms is long and costly:

• The U.S. Department of Defense has estimated that disruptions to government satellites from space weather cost about $100 million a year (Rodgers, et. al., 2000).
• Storms in 1994 and 1997 knocked out three communications satellites (U.S. Telstar 401 and Canada's Anik-E1 and Anik-E2 satellites), which had to be replaced at a cost of about $200 million each (Chapline, 2000).
• The loss of telephone pager service to 45 million customers in May of 1998 and military reports of interruptions to high frequency radio communications during the Gulf War in 1991 have also been attributed to solar storms (NOAA Hearing, 2003).
• Airlines are concerned about space weather because it can disrupt navigation, as well as satellite and ground-based communication systems. During times of high solar activity, polar routes must be diverted to lower latitudes in order to avoid human exposure to increased solar radiation and other related complications. Such flight diversions can cost as much as $100,000 per flight, and this value does not even take into account economic loses to passengers (Murtagh, personal communication).
• Society is becoming extremely reliant on global positioning systems. A one percent gain in continuity and availability of GPS would be worth $180 million per year (Rodgers, et. al., 2000).

October-November 2003 Solar Storm
The solar storms that impacted the Earth between Oct. 19 to Nov. 7, 2003, further justify the benefits of NOAA space weather activities and remind the nation that space weather can be hazardous to Earth and space systems at any time during the 11-year solar cycle. This storm came as quite a surprise, since it occurred three-and-a-half years after solar minimum, when things are relatively quiet on the sun compared to solar maximum.

"It's like seeing a hurricane in November rather than August, when you'd typically expect it," commented Larry Combs, one of the NOAA Space Environment Center forecasters. “What also made these storms unusual is that there were two distinct, very intense geomagnetic storms, which both arrived in just 19 hours from the sun to the Earth. This ranks them as some of the fastest traveling solar storms on record and both produced the strongest activity this solar cycle — reaching extreme or G5 on the NOAA space weather scales." Because the NOAA Space Environment Center released advanced warnings about an unusually large solar storm, electrical utilities, airlines and spacecraft managers were able to take preventive action to minimize disruption of service — and the economy — due to the storm.

Only in the last few decades have we truly come to realize and appreciate the impact space weather can have on the Earth — and the world economy. Fortunately, many of the adverse effects of the sun's activities can be neutralized (or at least minimized) with NOAA SEC space weather products and services. NOAA’s space weather activities have already proven to be of significant economic value, and that value will only increase in the future (especially when the NOAA SEC merges with the NOAA National Weather Service later in 2004).

Relevant Web Sites
SPACE WEATHER - WHAT IS IT AND WHY DO WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT?

What is the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights?

THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF SPACE WEATHER INFORMATION

NOAA Space Environment Center

NOAA'S SPACE WEATHER INSTRUMENTS

NOAA geostationary operational environmental satellites

NEW SOLAR STORM DETECTOR SENDING REAL-TIME IMAGES USED TO WARN OF SUN’S DAMAGING STORMS

NOAA polar-orbiting environmental satellite

NOAA space weather scales

References
Forbes and St. Cyr (2004). Space Weather and the Electricity Market: An Initial Assessment,
under review at the Space Weather Journal.

Teisberg, Thomas, J. and Rodney F. Weiher, 2000. Valuation of Geomagnetic Storm Forecasts: An Estimate of the Net Economic Benefits of a Satellite Warning System. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Vol. 19, No. 2, Spring 2000, pp 329-334.

Rodgers, David J., Lesley M.Murphy, Clive S.Dyer, 2000. Benefits of a European Space Weather Programme. DERA report no. DERA/KIS/SPACE/TR000349. ESWPS-DER-TN-0001. Issue 2.1 December 19, 2000. ESA Space Weather Programme Study (ESWPS). http://www.wdc.rl.ac.uk/SWstudy/public/tr110v2_1b.pdf.

Barlow, W.H., 1849. On the spontaneous electrical currents observed in wires of the electric telegraph, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., London, 139, 61-72.

Tsurutani, B.T.; Gonzalez, W.D.; Lakhina, G.S.; Alex, S. The extreme magnetic storm of 1–2 September 1859. J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 108, No. A7, 1268.

Murtagh, W., personal communication. March 31, 2004. NOAA Space Environment Center. Boulder, Colo. Email: William.Murtagh@noaa.gov.

Quinn, L.R., Nov. 2000. Space Weather: Fighting the Flare-ups. Risk & Insurance http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dis/m0BJK/14_11/67315630/print.jhtml.

Windows to the Universe Team, Sept., 2000. How Much Can a Solar Storm Cost? Boulder, CO: ©2000-04. University Corporation of Atmospheric Research (UCAR), ©1995-1999, 2000 The Regents of the University of Michigan, Online at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/ or http://www.windows.ucar.edu/spaceweather/storm_cost.html.

Odenwald, S. March 10, 1999. Solar Storms. Special to The Washington Post; Page H01. Solar Storms. http://www.astronomycafe.net/wpstorms.html

Chapline, J. Fall, 2000. Here Comes the Sun: UNH scientists are unraveling the mysteries of solar storms. UNH Magazine Online. http://www.unhmagazine.unh.edu/f02/sun.html.

NOAA Hearing, Oct. 2003. What is Space Weather and Who Should Forecast It? COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE. SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, TECHNOLOGY, AND STANDARDS.
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. HEARING CHARTER. October 30, 2003, 2003. 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. 2318 Rayburn House Office Building.

Kunstadter, C., 2002. U.S. Aviation Underwriters Inc. New York City. Personal communication with William Murtagh, NOAA Space Environment Center.

Media Contact:
Jana Goldman, NOAA Research, (301) 713-2483