Solar Storms
Building a business case to protect and prepare ground based infrastructure against geomagnetic storms
30 April 2013 | IET London: Savoy Place, UK
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Certificate of attendance
Attendees can request a certificate which they may use as evidence for their CPD records.
Registration
Programme
About the event
Join us on… 30 April 2013
As our Chair and Keynote Speaker, Prof Mike Hapgood, RAL says ‘Good engineering design must be the first line of defence against space weather’.
‘We are becoming more and more reliant on technology and that technology is becoming more and more delicate. Be afraid, very afraid.’ James Arbuthnot, Chairman of the Parliamentary Defence Select Committee, 18 March 2012
Effects of solar events ‘solar storms’ on technology today
Throughout history, humanity has steadily increased its dependence upon technology. Although technology has vastly improved the quality of life for billions of people, it has also opened us up to new risks and vulnerabilities. Loss of GPS, whether brief or long term, would have impacts on safety, convenience and the economy.
We need engineers to harden weak spots in our vulnerable infrastructure to resist the effects of solar storms.
The sun follows a roughly 11-year cycle of activity, measured by the number of sunspots on its surface. The solar maximum - when sunspot activity peaks, with a corresponding increase in solar flares and billion-ton blobs of magnetic field-generating solar plasma known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) launched from the sun's surface - is forecast to occur later this year.
Confirmed speakers
Seminar Chair and Keynote speaker
- Professor Mike Hapgood, Head of the Space Environment Group, RAL Space
Seminar speakers
- James Kimmance, Head of Risk Management, Parsons Brinkerhoff
- Dr Chris Frost, Neutron Irradiation, STFC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
- Dr Sally Leivesley, Newrisk Ltd
- Graeme Taylor, Principal Research Scientist, NPL
- Dr Alan Thomson, Head of Geomagnetism, British Geological Survey
- Keith Ryden, Reader in Space Engineering, University of Surrey
- Dr Simon Platt, Senior Lecturer in Electronics, University of Central Lancashire
Past delegates of the IET Solar Storms seminar 2012 have said:
…‘increased awareness gained from attending this event may be used to initiate or contribute to research related to ongoing work in this topic area.’
‘The 2012 Solar Storms event has changed my perception of risk and has caused me to consider how the impact of CME might impact my business.’
