{"id":2505,"date":"2015-01-04T05:08:25","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T13:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveviewgps.com\/blog\/?p=2505"},"modified":"2025-09-17T09:26:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:26:50","slug":"white-house-outlines-six-step-plan-for-solar-flares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liveviewgps.com\/blog\/white-house-outlines-six-step-plan-for-solar-flares\/","title":{"rendered":"White House Outlines Six-Step Plan for Solar Flares"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of us know the disaster caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, and even droughts. However, a natural phenomenon that we might not realize could devastate our technology-driven society is space weather. When there are variations in the environment between the sun, Earth, and the whole solar system, this is referred to as space weather. To put it exactly, space weather describes the solar energetic particles, coronal mass ejections,and solar flares that could impact our orbiting planets, specifically Earth.<\/p>\n

A huge solar storm strikes only around once every 500 years<\/a>, however, it can leave devastating consequences. One particular devastation is that it could damage our worldwide power grids permanently. Solar flares can also mess up global positioning systems and their GPS tracking<\/a> and GPS navigation applications by causing telecommunication and power outages and disrupting satellite transmissions.<\/p>\n

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has begun to improve preparedness by releasing the National Space Weather Strategy<\/a> and National Space Weather Action Plan, which bring together other agencies to help prepare for worst-case scenarios (like the 1859 Carrington event which was where telegraph lines exploded due to a geomagnetic solar storm.)<\/p>\n

The Action Plan identifies specific outcomes, timelines, and activities that the Federal government is going to act on accordingly, and widely coordinates with proposed investments in the President’s Budget for the 2016 Fiscal Year. After three years, it will be evaluated again and updated as needed. The Strategy identifies objectives and puts guiding principles into place for guiding these efforts immediately and in the future.<\/p>\n

Also, new actions are being announced by both Federal and non-Federal agencies of enhancing national space-weather preparedness even further. These actions include:<\/p>\n

Both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Air Force will make space environment data publicly available for validating and improving space-weather gauging.<\/p>\n