Space Weather

"Space Weather studies the environmental dynamics of "geospace": the active (and sometimes stormy) region above the Earth's lower atmosphere including the ionosphere (which often reflects AM radio waves back to Earth) and the magnetosphere (home of the Van Allen radiation belts and the environment of many spacecraft -- including the numerous geosynchronous satellites used for communications and other applications.) The following list gives active links to information about space weather and associated fields of scientific research."

"The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is one of the nine National Centers for Environmental Prediction and provides real-time monitoring and forecasting of solar and geophysical events, conducts research in solar-terrestrial physics, and develops techniques for forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances. The SWPC Forecast Center is jointly operated by NOAA and the U.S. Air Force and is the national and world warning center for disturbances that can affect people and equipment working in the space environment.

SWPC works with many national and international partners who contribute data and observations; we also share our data and products with them. We are pleased to support efforts worldwide to inform users of space weather."

"IPS acts as the Australian Space Weather Agency, providing the Australian national radio propagation and space weather services. Systems and technologies affected by space weather, and supported by IPS, include:

• HF radio systems, such as communications and surveillance systems;
• Geophysical exploration, power systems protection and the cathodic protection of long-distance pipelines;
• Satellite and spacecraft operations

Support is also provided for international and domestic research into the space environment. IPS operates an extensive network of monitoring stations and observatories within the Australasian region and in Antarctica to gather information on the space environment in support of our customers' operations. IPS also exchanges this information with similar organisations world-wide.

IPS is an acronym for Ionospheric Prediction Service, which was our original name."

"This page provides explanatory text for the dials shown on the Rice Current Solar Wind Conditions and Current Solar Wind Conditions (Dials Only) webpage. These dials use the last good received set of measurements from the Real Time Solar Wind package on the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft. These data are relayed through the Space Environment Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), United States Department of Commerce. The ACE spacecraft is stationed near the Earth-Sun First Lagrange Point (L1), so it can stay constantly between the Earth and the Sun without using too much fuel. This L1 point is about 45 minutes upwind of the Earth in normal solar wind conditions."

"News and Information about the Sun-Earth environment."

"On numerous occasions during an eight year period of observation of the celestial neighborhood of the earth, from 1998 to 2006, while its neighbors (Mars, Venus and the moon) passed in proximity during their orbits they also came into close alignment at varying angles to the outbound solar flow and the heliospheric current system. At the time of these passages severe terrestrial weather events occurred. These observations exposed a puzzle that may point to potential influence to terrestrial weather from orbital relationship. This possibility deserves close evaluation and thoughtful consideration from the space-plasma perspective."