Natalia Buzulukova
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Extreme Space Weather Events and Their Effects and Impacts
In the modern technological society, many critical infrastructure sectors are vitally dependent from the state of the Space Weather. Recently, several studies have shown that a severe space weather event (e.g. geomagnetic storm) can cause considerable damage to the engineered systems and infrastructure. Examples include the impact on electric power grids and railway networks, the ionosphere and the satellite communications including GNSS systems, satellite surface/internal charging effects, the effects of radiation including effects on aviation and human exploration. There are controversies and debates on how to define extreme events, how to estimate their economical effects and how to predict their occurrence in the future. In this talk, we outline major effects and impacts of extreme space weather and elaborate on definition of extremes. We discuss geomagnetic storms and give examples of extremes outlining current status of predictions and modeling tools. In addition, we show some examples when serious adverse effects can happen during modest geomagnetic storms. Discussion of challenges and future directions will conclude the talk.