In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a warning about a possible solar storm. A gigantic cluster of spots on the sun ignited and expelled material heading directly towards Earth.
A few hours later, the watch was replaced by a warning: a storm rated G4 – on a “G” scale of 1 to 5 – was coming. That weekend, solar activity was even stronger, creating aurora borealis that stunned people as far away as Arizona. Behind the scenes, space weather scientists were working around the clock to ensure that the risk of catastrophic effects, such as widespread power outages or communications outages, remained at a minimum.
Lack of data can make forecasting solar storms difficult, according to Mike Bettwy, meteorologist and chief operations officer of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. The agency is working to change that: On Tuesday, SpaceX is expected to launch the agency’s GOES-U spacecraft, the latest in a family of satellites designed to monitor the sun’s impact on our atmosphere, particularly at l approaching a peak in its activity cycle. .
Mr. Bettwy spoke with The New York Times about what goes into predicting space weather and the challenge of trying to make sense of an often unpredictable sun. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How does the space weather forecast system work?
Our Boulder office is one of several regional monitoring centers around the world. There are others in Sweden, the United Kingdom and Australia. We collaborate by comparing and sharing our forecast models, which are all slightly different.
Similar to terrestrial weather, storm watches go out first and a warning is issued when we are more sure of what is coming. Alerts are issued when the weather has actually been observed.
We work regularly with NASA’s Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office, which does a lot of computer modeling of the sun. And we notify NASA’s Space Radiation Analysis Group whenever there might be potential radiation exposure to astronauts on the International Space Station.
We’re also talking to the North America Electric Reliability Corporation, which maintains the power grid every day, about what could happen. They then inform their own subsidiaries across the country and Canada.
What instruments are used to monitor solar activity?
The Solar Ultraviolet Imager, which is on the GOES-16 satellite, is what we use the most. It monitors temperatures on the surface of the sun and shows us the evolution of sunspots and their environment.
Two other critical satellites are NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer and our Deep Space Climate Observatory. They are about a million kilometers from Earth. It seems far away, but there are actually 93 million kilometers between us and the sun, and the resulting plasma travels at high speed. By the time it hits these satellites, we really only have an hour or less to know that something is going to hit us.
There is also a system of magnetometers, sensors that detect changes in the solar magnetic field, scattered around the world.
How could the forecasting system be improved?
More satellites would be extremely useful. Ideally – and this will never happen, because it is not financially feasible – we would have a satellite every million miles between Earth and the Sun. With more satellites, we could see how solar matter evolves and changes as it approaches us.
The new GOES-U satellite will have a coronagraph to take images of the sun and provide us with higher resolution data to aid forecasting.
Better modeling of space weather is also underway. With terrestrial weather, there is a lot of data. We are simply spoiled by tons of sightings. With space weather, we just don’t have that. It’s difficult to make tough decisions with just one or two key pieces of data.
We are also working to develop our monitoring, warning and warning system. At this time, we don’t really have the ability to release a G5 watch. When we issue a G4 watch, it technically means G4 or higher. And with the warnings we can only issue up to a G3.
We are working with our international partners to review this. Not only will this give us the ability to communicate more precisely, but it will make it easier for people without a technical background to understand what we are talking about.
Isn’t it scary to know that we are at the whim of an unpredictable sun?
It can be intimidating. But in recent decades we have learned to live with the sun. We learned about its power and what it can do. Most agencies have appropriate precautions in place to deal with this.
When a very intense storm occurs, there is always the possibility that the impact will be greater than we anticipated. And that’s the part that keeps us up at night. We want to make sure that even in the worst case scenario, everything will be okay.
What is the worst case scenario?
The Carrington event of 1859 is like the granddaddy of space weather events. It is the most intense geomagnetic storm on record, with a significant impact on communications around the world.
We live in a different world now. Since then, technology has come a long way. So that’s what we’re trying to prepare for. If we hold another Carrington event, we want our infrastructure – the power grid, satellites, aviation and internet – to remain, for the most part, functional.
What should we expect as the sun approaches peak activity?
The sun is definitely entering its most active phase. A few days after the last solar storm, we had one of the strongest flares we’ve seen since 2005. It came from the same sunspot cluster, just before turning to the west side of the sun.
But we don’t know when the solar maximum occurs until it has happened. The general consensus is that this will take place between late 2024 and early 2026. Over the next couple of years, the likelihood of getting more G4 events is quite high. G5 activity is a little more uncertain, but the chances of seeing it again are possible.
You can prepare for space weather the same way you would for thunderstorm or tornado season. Prepare emergency kits. Be prepared for power outages and interruptions.
I was working at NASA during the Halloween storm of 2003, and my biggest takeaway from it was that it could have been worse. Now, more than 20 years later, our overall preparedness is even greater. So even if we had a larger event than what we saw in early May, I would like to think the ramifications will be pretty minimal.