Space Weather encompasses the physical and phenomenological state of the natural space environment, including the Sun, the solar wind, the magnetosphere, the ionosphere and the thermosphere, and its interaction with the Earth. The associated discipline aims, through observation, monitoring, analysis, and modelling, at understanding the driving processes, predicting the state of the space environment and its disturbances, and forecasting their potential impact on ground-based or space-based infrastructure and on human life. The effects of Space Weather can range from damage to satellites arising from charged particles to disruption of power grids on Earth during geomagnetic storms, radio black-out on trans-polar aircraft routes, or disturbance of satellite positioning systems. Space Weather monitoring, study and applications are more and more important with the increasing use of space in day-to-day life for telecommunications, observation and navigation.
Four-year Plan for WMO’s Coordination of Space Weather Activities 2020-2023 (English - French - Russian - Spanish - Arabic - Chinese) was drafted by an Inter-Programme Team on Space Weather Information, Systems and Services (IPT-SWeISS) and approved by the Eighteenth World Meteorological Congress (Cg-18) in 2019. The implementation of space weather services and applications aligned with the FYP2020-23 is expected to provide significant benefits to WMO Members, in terms of more precise observations and improved.
In November 2021, the Expert team on Space Weather (ET-SWx) was established under the Infrastructure Commission at its Management Group meeting and reporting to the Standing Committee on Data Processing for Applied Earth System Modelling and Prediction (SC-ESMP) in order to benefit from the Global Data Processing and Forecasting System (GDPFS) end-to-end systems model in support of the development of operational services. ET-SWx is tasked to coordinate with relevant WMO bodies the development of WMO Technical Regulations and guidance and other relevant documents on all aspects related to space weather. It follows work done by IPT-SWeISS, however with a broader mandate.
