Accepted author manuscript, 2.1 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Rights statement: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 844 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of space weather reasonable worst-case scenarios for the UK National Risk Assessment
AU - Hapgood, Mike
AU - Angling, Matthew
AU - Attrill, Gemma
AU - Bisi, Mario
AU - Cannon, Paul
AU - Dyer, Clive
AU - Eastwood, Jonathan
AU - Elvidge, Sean
AU - Gibbs, Mark
AU - Harrison, Richard
AU - Hord, Colin
AU - Horne, Richard
AU - Jackson, David
AU - Jones, Bryn
AU - Machin, Simon
AU - Mitchell, Cathryn
AU - Preston, John
AU - Rees, John
AU - Rogers, Neil
AU - Routledge, Graham
AU - Ryden, Keith
AU - Tanner, Rick
AU - Thomson, Alan
AU - Wild, Jim
AU - Willis, Mike
PY - 2021/4/30
Y1 - 2021/4/30
N2 - Severe space weather was identified as a risk to the UK in 2010 as part of a wider review of natural hazards triggered by the societal disruption caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in April of that year. To support further risk assessment by government officials, and at their request, we developed a set of reasonable worst-case scenarios and first published them as a technical report in 2012 (current version published in 2020). Each scenario focused on a space weather environment that could disrupt a particular national infrastructure such as electric power or satellites, thus enabling officials to explore the resilience of that infrastructure against severe space weather through discussions with relevant experts from other parts of government and with the operators of that infrastructure. This approach also encouraged us to focus on the environmental features that are key to generating adverse impacts. In this paper, we outline the scientific evidence that we have used to develop these scenarios, and the refinements made to them as new evidence emerged. We show how these scenarios are also considered as an ensemble so that government officials can prepare for a severe space weather event, during which many or all of the different scenarios will materialise. Finally, we note that this ensemble also needs to include insights into how public behaviour will play out during a severe space weather event and hence the importance of providing robust, evidence-based information on space weather and its adverse impacts.
AB - Severe space weather was identified as a risk to the UK in 2010 as part of a wider review of natural hazards triggered by the societal disruption caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in April of that year. To support further risk assessment by government officials, and at their request, we developed a set of reasonable worst-case scenarios and first published them as a technical report in 2012 (current version published in 2020). Each scenario focused on a space weather environment that could disrupt a particular national infrastructure such as electric power or satellites, thus enabling officials to explore the resilience of that infrastructure against severe space weather through discussions with relevant experts from other parts of government and with the operators of that infrastructure. This approach also encouraged us to focus on the environmental features that are key to generating adverse impacts. In this paper, we outline the scientific evidence that we have used to develop these scenarios, and the refinements made to them as new evidence emerged. We show how these scenarios are also considered as an ensemble so that government officials can prepare for a severe space weather event, during which many or all of the different scenarios will materialise. Finally, we note that this ensemble also needs to include insights into how public behaviour will play out during a severe space weather event and hence the importance of providing robust, evidence-based information on space weather and its adverse impacts.
KW - space weather
KW - reasonable worst case scenarios
KW - national risk assessment
KW - extreme conditions
KW - technological impacts
U2 - 10.1029/2020SW002593
DO - 10.1029/2020SW002593
M3 - Journal article
VL - 19
JO - Space Weather
JF - Space Weather
SN - 1542-7390
IS - 4
M1 - e2020SW002593
ER -