6 May 2011  •  Solar physicists rubbed shoulders with satellite developers and utility directors at the 13th annual Space Weather Workshop, which took place in Boulder the week of 25–29 April. Close to 300 participants spent a lively week at what has become the world’s largest meeting focused on the impacts of solar activity on Earth’s near-space environment and the resulting risks to our technologically dependent society.

NOAA's GOES-15 satellite monitors solar activity as well as weather on Earth. (Image courtesy NOAA/NASA/Lockheed Martin.)

The annual workshop originated as a tool for scientists at NOAA’s Space Environment Center—now the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)—to communicate with a growing variety of clients and stakeholders. It’s now facilitated by the UCAR Visiting Scientists Program with funding from NOAA, NSF, and NASA. The range of attendees and speakers has broadened as well. An interest group on commercial space activities now holds a yearly roundtable, and former NOAA administrator Conrad Lautenbacher delivered the 2011 keynote talk on how the space weather enterprise can prepare for and mitigate solar storms.

This year’s workshop also featured sessions on how stormy space weather could affect air and ground transportation; power grids; GPS mapping, positioning, and timing; and the reinsurance industry. The wide spectrum of issues echoes a warning delivered by Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on a visit to SWPC. “Craig told us that a major solar storm would be one of the most difficult emergencies for the nation to recover from,” says SWPC director Thomas Bogdan.

Even as the longest and most pronounced solar minimum in more than a century unfolded, public interest in space weather has continued to grow, as evidenced by a doubling in subscribers to SWPC data and services over the last five years. The April workshop concluded with sessions delving into the unusually deep and long solar minimum that recently ended, as well as the prognosis for the solar maximum that’s due sometime in the next several years. The current forecast from a multiagency consensus panel is posted on the SWPC website, along with monthly updates on the solar cycle's progression.

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