The economic impact of space weather: where do we stand?
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Space weather describes the way in which the Sun, and conditions in space more generally, impact human activity and technology both in space and on the ground. It is now well understood that space weather represents a significant threat to infrastructure resilience, and is a source of risk that is wide‐ranging in its impact and the pathways by which this impact may occur. Although space weather is growing rapidly as a field, work rigorously assessing the overall economic cost of space weather appears to be in its infancy. Here, we provide an initial literature review to gather and assess the quality of any published assessments of space weather impacts and socioeconomic studies. Generally speaking, there is a good volume of scientific peer‐reviewed literature detailing the likelihood and statistics of different types of space weather phenomena. These phenomena all typically exhibit “power‐law” behavior in their severity. The literature on documented impacts is not as extensive, with many case studies, but few statistical studies. The literature on the economic impacts of space weather is rather sparse and not as well developed when compared to the other sections, most probably due to the somewhat limited data that are available from end‐users. The major risk is attached to power distribution systems and there is disagreement as to the severity of the technological footprint. This strongly controls the economic impact. Consequently, urgent work is required to better quantify the risk of future space weather events.
Date Issued
2017-02-01
Date Acceptance
2016-12-05
Citation
Risk Analysis, 2017, 37 (2), pp.206-218
ISSN
0272-4332
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
206
End Page
218
Journal / Book Title
Risk Analysis
Volume
37
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2017 The Authors Risk Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Risk Analysis.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Sponsor
UK Space Agency
Grant Number
N/A
Subjects
Science & Technology
Social Sciences
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Physical Sciences
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Social Sciences, Mathematical Methods
Mathematics
Mathematical Methods In Social Sciences
Geomagnetic storms
power grids
space weather
GEOMAGNETICALLY INDUCED CURRENTS
SOLAR-TYPE STARS
COSMIC-RADIATION EXPOSURE
WAITING-TIME DISTRIBUTION
STATISTICAL PROPERTIES
MAGNETIC STORMS
AD 774-775
GREAT STORM
TREE-RINGS
EVENT
Strategic, Defence & Security Studies
MD Multidisciplinary
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2017-02-23