Solar flares and GPS

“Solar bursts may threaten GPS
Story Highlights• GPS receivers threatened by powerful solar flares
• Solar burst on December 6 disrupted most GPS receivers
• Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles
• Next storm peak expected in 2011


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Global Positioning System, relied on for everything from navigating cars and airplanes to transferring money between banks, may be threatened by powerful solar flares, a panel of scientists warned Wednesday.

"Our increasingly technologically dependent society is becoming increasingly vulnerable to space weather," David L. Johnson, director of the National Weather Service, said at a briefing.

GPS receivers have become widely used in recent years, using satellite signals in navigating airplanes, ships and automobiles, and in using cell phones, mining, surveying and many other commercial uses.

Indeed, banks use the system to synchronize money transfers, "so space weather can affect all of us, right down to our wallet," said Anthea J. Coster, an atmospheric scientist at the Haystack Observatory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The cause for their concern, Johnson said, was an unexpected solar radio burst on December 6 that affected virtually every GPS receiver on the lighted half of Earth. Some receivers had a reduction in accuracy while others completely lost the ability to determine position, he said.

Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, with the next peak expected in 2011.

If that increasing level of activity produces more such radio bursts the GPS system could be seriously affected, the researchers said.

And protecting the system is no simple task, added Paul M. Kintner Jr., a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, who monitored the December event.

There are two possible ways to shield the system, he said, both very expensive. Either alter all GPS antennas to screen out solar signals or replace all of the GPS satellites with ones that broadcast a stronger signal.

That's why it's essential to learn more about the sun's behavior quickly in an effort to find ways to predict such events, the researchers said.

In addition to the GPS system, the December solar flare affected satellites and induced unexpected currents in the electrical grid, Johnson said.

"The effects were more profound than we expected and more widespread than we expected," added Kintner.

Dale E. Gary, chairman of the physics department of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said the burst produced 10 times more radio noise than any burst previously recorded.

The difference between that burst and normal solar radio emissions "was like the difference between the noise level of a normal conversation and the noise level in the front row of a rock concert," he said.

"This is a wake-up call" to improve technology, commented Anthony J. Mannucci, group supervisor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Patricia H. Doherty, co-director of the Institute for Scientific Research at Boston College, said the burst affected but did not shut down the Federal Aviation Administration's Wide Area Augmentation System, which uses GPS signals to assist in navigation.

Most of the WAAS ground stations were able to maintain contact with enough satellites to continue working, though their accuracy was somewhat affected, she said.

The stations have to maintain contact with at least four satellites to work, but usually monitor at least 10 to increase their accuracy, she said. Most were able to meet the minimum, she said.

The briefing came at a Space Weather Enterprise Forum convened by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to discuss the effects of solar activity. Because of its increasing importance, Johnson said, the Weather Service's Space Environment Center was converted from a mainly research center in 2005 to an operational center reporting on solar activity and its impacts.”

“I saw that, too, geo!

Thank goodness I'm getting those pesky JMT trips out of the way by 2008, three years before the next peak year of solar flares....”

“You'll know the GPS is off if you're supposed to be on top of a mountain and you're really wading through a bottomland swamp.”

“Why such a strong burst at radio frequencies? Hmm.

Space Weather Alerts Timelines for December 1-15, 2006


Some Links:

Spaceweather Alerts By Phone (if you can get signal, $5.00/month)

Space Environment Center Log-in, Registration for Email Notifications (if you have a data-capable handset, are withing the data service footprint... and can get signal)

Space Environment Center Customer Services


Current conditions, near-term forecasts:

Spaceweather.com

Current Space Weather Conditions


Who's studying what....

Coordinated Solar Observations Home Page

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory”

“This is just one reason why I think backpackers should not rely solely on GPS. Compasses are cheap enough and light enough to fit into any pack or budget. If you do not know how to navigate with a compass, do some online research and learn.”

“another good reason to understand map & compass”

“Interestink. Spaceweather.com has relevance for shortwave radio, not that I spend any time on that anymore.”

“Sure, compasses are great until the earth's poles flip!”

“Anybody get the sense that Chicken Little should be notified???”

“i'll just flip my map & compass, LOL!”

““Sure, compasses are great until the earth's poles flip!”
BowlderMan
1:04:41 PM
4/05/07


At which point you buy a new cheap compass, or, just do everything backward!”

“
Exactly, Pam. No batteries either! [G]


Bracing for a more usual flare or Coronal Mass Ejection to arrive, it takes, what... ~8+ hours to transit?

But what warning would you have for a burst in the radio spectrum? I'm thinking None. By the time they know it's coming, it's here already. If there's a visual component, still none.

186,000 miles•sec^-1

”

“More Stuff!

... relating more directly to navigation.

Click the GPS link and see what they say about the "Planetary K-Index Plot".”

“I guess this stuff explains why I sometimes have the back track different from the out track by a significant distance on the GPS.”

“Maybe if the poles flip while I'm on my next backpacking trip in the Sierras, I'll finally get to visit the Andes!”

“LMAO, wouldn't that be special!”

“if the poles flip: tnatsni sdrawkcab yad!”

“It'll finally be an advantage to be dyslexic (sp?)!!”

“TT will finally make sense. MarkO and Stovey will kiss and make up, etc, etc.”

“There was a Nova special about the poles flipping. It's not a clean thing, it leaves wide swaths of the planet's surface exposed to full solar radiation.”

“Think of the tan you could get!”

“
Ra-di-a-tion!

Yes, indeed! You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too! When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was full to bursting. The next day - nothing! Swept away... swept away... But I showed them! I had a lobotomy in the end!"

"J. Frank Parnell"
(Fox Harris)
Repo Man (1984)

”