BGS Space Weather Activities

The Geomagnetism Team of the British Geological Survey (BGS) has long experience of monitoring the Earth's magnetic field, at its magnetic observatories, providing reliable, real-time high quality data products and services, geomagnetic activity forecasting, and related space weather research.


BGS's space weather activities include:
  • Real-time 24/7 operations, data processing and delivery of products and services from three UK magnetic observatories and six observatories elsewhere around the world
  • Monitoring and Analysis of Geomagnetically Induced Currents (MAGIC)
  • Real-time geomagnetic activity index derivation and delivery (e.g. Kp, Ap and Aa)
  • Next day local K indices for production of definitive Kp, Ap and Aa (by International Service for Geomagnetic Indices)
  • Daily space weather forecasts for three-days ahead for oil and gas industry, power transmission companies, researchers and the UK Met Office
  • Daily magnetic activity forecasts and aurora alerts via social media to the public
  • A Geomagnetic Information Node for INTERMAGNET (www.intermagnet.org), helping to ensure the global provision of real-time magnetic observatory data
  • Warning of extreme space weather events for the UK Government and National Grid
  • Real-time, 24/7 data supply for the oil and gas industry to aid directional drilling and well-bore placement
  • Geo-electric field measurements to aid in the evaluation of and development of models for MAGIC

BGS's space weather research portfolio includes:
* Modelling geomagnetically induced currents, including
  • Ground conductivity
  • Ionospheric current models
  • Electric field models
  • Models of the electrical transmission grid system
* Prediction of solar and geomagnetic indices used in atmospheric density models for LEO satellite drag calculations
  • Linear (autoregressive) and non-linear (neural net) prediction algorithms
  • 3-hourly kp, ap and daily Ap, F10.7 indices

At our stand you can find out more about BGS's activities.

For more info, visit us at www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk.

Contact Thomson, Alan W.P., Team Leader, British Geological Survey, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3LA, United Kingdom, awpt@bgs.ac.uk