Image: John Hartzel
What’s new: A study about the interaction of climate change and satellite orbits.
Why its important: There are a lot of threats to GPS, including severe solar activity. Severe solar activity, while inevitable, has always been considered, and still is, low probability but very high impact. This study shows the probability edging up a bit.
What else to know:
- July of this year saw solar maximum for the current 11 year cycle. The time when the sun is generally the most active.
- BUT major eruptions like the Carrington Event seem to be independent of the solar cycle according to experts at the National Center for Atmospheric Research at University of Colorado, Boulder.
- There are many varieties of intense solar activity. Some can damage electronics, some can push satellites out of orbit, etc.
Satellites, including those used for GPS and communications, will face greater risks in coming decades during solar-triggered geomagnetic storms because of the effect climate pollution has on Earth’s atmosphere, a new study found.
The increasing volume of planet-warming carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere is likely to make the air less dense, while geomagnetic storms have the opposite effect: The ensuing rapid changes in density as a result could cause serious troubles for satellite operations.
This study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, comes at a time when the world is growing more dependent on satellite networks for everything from internet access to navigation, as well as military applications.
