Reducing the space weather impacts on vulnerable infrastructure through long-term climatological studies and forecast

Hazardous impacts of space weather on ground infrastructures arise from the effects of large variations in geomagnetic field. These impacts range from slow, cumulative multi-year excessive corrosion of the pipeline systems to fast (minutes) collapse of power grids.

Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre under the auspice of Geomagnetic Laboratory, Natural Resources Canada has long-term experience in working closely with industry in addressing their needs for mitigation of the adverse space weather effects. It includes several aspects, such as: 1. Development of the methodology for assessing the effects of space weather on vulnerable infrastructure (pipeline is used as an example herein). It includes statistical studies of the occurrences of different levels of geomagnetic activity, global and regional models of the ground conductivity and effects of the infrastructure topology. As a result, sequence of statistical maps for different areas of Canada is produced, which shows the probability of occurrences for different levels of disturbances 2. On-line service for evaluation of the variations of the most valuable parameters, such as corrosion protection levels for pipelines of amplitude of geomagnetically induced currents. 3. Forecast of the extreme events is the most important and challenging tasks and is an operational product of the Space Weather Forecast Centre. The examples of the forecasts of geomagnetic activity for different regions of Canada is demonstrated using examples of the latest (2000-2010) events. Here we address the issue of importance of the proper provision of advanced warnings and real-time updates for local users.