Establishing the Provision of Space Weather Information in Support of International Air Navigation

At its 2002 Meteorology (MET) Divisional meeting, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) acknowledged the potential impacts space weather events may have on international aviation operations and identified establishing a space weather information service as means to mitigate those impacts. Subsequently, at its 2014 MET Divisional meeting, ICAO adopted Recommendation 2/7 to establish an expert group to develop provision for space weather information to international air navigation.

To fulfill Recommendation 2/7 from the 2014 MET Divisional meeting, in 2015, the ICAO Air Navigation Commission (ANC) established the Meteorological Panel (MET-P) and tasked it with developing provisions for space weather information for inclusion in ICAO Annex 3 Meteorological Service for International Air Navigation. A “work stream” within the MET-P composed of both operational users and space weather subject matter experts has developed draft provisions for space weather information to be endorsed by the MET-P and approved by the ANC.

The Space Weather Work Stream employed a system engineering-based process adopted by the MET-P leadership to refine the Space Weather Concept of Operations document, develop preliminary functional and performance requirements, translate those requirements into draft ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs), and identify criteria to determine the space weather information providers capable of providing the information required by the SARP. The Space Weather Work Stream is one of the first sub-groups in the MET-P to utilize this process to develop SARPs.

This paper will provide an overview of the process to develop the SARPs for space weather information that will be included in Amendment 78 to Annex 3, describe the criteria to identify capable space weather information providers, and identify the next steps required to implement the provision of space weather information for international air navigation.