The Met Office has secured a new suite of space weather forecasting models capable of predicting how space weather will impact satellites, aviation, and communications and services which rely on the global navigation satellite system.
The technology, made in the UK, is now running on the Met Office’s new supercomputer and focuses on how the weather in space will affect the layers of the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
The Advanced Ensemble Networked Assimilation System has been described as a major breakthrough for UK atmospheric science.
Science minister Sir Patrick Vallance said: "Once again, cutting-edge British innovation is making a remarkable difference to our daily lives - this time from way up in the atmosphere.
"This is a really exciting example of how better understanding of what’s happening in space can protect the tech we all rely on, from GPS on our phones to keeping the power grid working."
The suite was built at the University of Birmingham and developed in a partnership with Lancaster University, the Universities of Leeds, Bath and Leicester and the British Antarctic Survey.
The Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre will be able to forecast how space weather will impact the thermosphere, which stretches from around 50 to 400 miles above Earth’s surface. It will also be able to predict impact in the ionosphere, through which radio and GPS signals travel.
The modelling will be able to take in near real-time data of the ionosphere and thermosphere, and analyse it alongside forecasts of solar activity from the sun.
Professor Farideh Honary from Lancaster University said: “We are happy to see our research being translated into a useful product to be used by industry. The research and modelling led by Lancaster is relevant to the aviation industry and in particular to flights using polar routes which are dependent on high frequency communications.
“These flights have significantly increased since their initial opening in the 1990s due to their operational advantages such as reduced flight times and fuel consumption, which translate to cost savings and environmental benefits like lower carbon emissions.”
The Met Office said it will complement its current space weather forecasting models, which predict the arrival of events from the sun’s surface.
The agency’s space weather manager, Simon Machin, said: “This delivers a world-leading capability that provides greater confidence and forecasting skill than any models currently in operation anywhere else in the world.
“This isn’t just about science - it’s about protecting the systems we rely on every day. From aircraft communications to GPS in your phone, space weather can affect us all.”
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