SWIMMR Activities in Ground Effects (SAGE)

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Space weather is a recognised hazard to several critical UK national infrastructures, including the power, pipeline and rail networks, with the potential for substantial (multi-billion pound, many days) economic impact on society. In the context of the SWIMMR project N4 ('Ground Effects Forecasts'), the fundamental driver of impact to these infrastructures is the enhancement of the existing electric field in the ground (the ground electric field, or GEF) during geomagnetic storms, which results from space weather. This GEF acts like an 'unwanted' extra battery applied to an already electrically conducting circuit. The GEF is therefore the source of electrical currents and voltages at the Earth's surface that can upset safe and continued operation of systems such as power grids and their power transformers, and systems for pipeline corrosion avoidance and for railway signalling. The overall aim of the SAGE project is therefore to be better at now-casting, and for the first time ever, forecasting the GEF in the UK. Flowing from this new capability, the project we propose will also impose this now/forecast GEF on mathematical models of the UK power, pipeline and rail networks. From this we will calculate where the risk points are in each system, under space weather, and how big the impacts might be during severe space weather. This will help government, industry and other stakeholders better understand and mitigate the effects of severe space weather in these key technologies. Such aims (now-casting and forecasting the GEF and quantifying the hazard to ground-based technologies) are fully in line with, and will be leading, in terms of internationally recognised goals in this area, for example as described by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations.To get to the point where we can propose this ambitious project, UK scientific capability has recently benefited from the NERC 2017 'Highlight Topic' project on 'Space Weather Impacts on Ground-based Systems' (SWIGS: www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/research/SWIGS/home.html), led by the PI on this present proposal. SWIGS has had the aim of developing the science underpinning the ground effects of space weather, whilst also creating and developing infrastructure models such that space weather impact can be quantified. SWIGS has helped improve a space weather power grid model for the UK, led to the first space weather high pressure gas pipeline model for the country and has produced new insights into space weather impact on the UK rail network. SWIGS collaborators have also developed independent UK capability in physical and empirical modelling of ionospheric and magnetospheric magnetic fields, which drive the GEF, with solar wind input. These novel capabilities will be fully harnessed in the proposal described here.The SAGE project team comprises internationally known scientists from British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Imperial College and Mullard Space Science Laboratory (University College London). The project collaborators seek to build on the achievements of the SWIGS team, by coupling several mathematical models constructed during the SWIGS project, representing different elements of the problem, as well as implementing novel forecasting ideas. This will provide an operational now-cast and forecast system in partnership with, and delivered by, Met Office. This operational system will take measured or forecast solar wind data near the Earth and use these to estimate present and future GEF impacts on the power, pipeline and rail networks of the UK, up to 1 hour ahead. These results will be made available on a series of web displays on systems at the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre and will be communicated to industry and the public.