Space Weather in the UK: Updates on the UK Strategy and International Engagements

The UK Government has included "Severe Space Weather" on its National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies since 2011. This has led to a long series of national and international engagements and strategic developments both between UK agencies/entities and with international agencies/organisations (such as ESA, NOAA, NASA, COSPAR, ISES, ICAO, WMO, and UN COPUOS). In addition, the UK has carried out a series of wide-ranging investigations to mitigate space-weather impacts at the national level including the development of a national Space Weather Strategy.

A key part of the overall mitigation to space-weather impacts on the UK is the need for UK space-weather forecast capability and direct advice to government on all things space weather. These were achieved through the setting up of a UK staffed 24/7 space-weather forecasting centre at the Met Office alongside the formation of the Space Environment Impacts Expert Group (SEIEG) of experts to provide the necessary advice to government.

As part of the national commitment to enhance the space-weather forecasting capability (both in the UK and for global enhancement), the UK has been spearheading the Lagrange Programme to facilitate the development and building of a dedicated space-weather operational spacecraft to be put into orbit at the Sun-Earth L5 point through the ESA Space Safety Programme. Other key developments have included high levels of commitment in the service activities of the ESA programme such as the Heliospheric Expert Service Centre. The UK has also taken a lead on several other space-/ground-based space-weather endeavours that are proving highly complementary to current UK and global capabilities.

In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the above along with any outline of the UK Space Weather Strategy open to the public at the time of the Fall AGU 2019 Meeting.