Space Climate
LOCATION
Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AH
SPEAKER | Prof Mathew Owens, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading.
ABSTRACT | Space weather, variability in the near-Earth space environment over minutes to days, can adversely effect space- and ground-based technologies and poses health risks to humans in space and on high-altitude flights. To predict how the space weather may vary in the future, we first need to understand how it has varied in the past. Reconstructing "space climate" further back in time necessitates relying on increasingly indirect proxies, from direct spacecraft measurements (~60 years), to geomagnetic measurements (~150 years), sunspot observations (400 years) and, finally, cosmogenic isotope records in ice sheets and tree trunks (~10,000 years). I'll review what these are, what exactly they tell us and how much they can be trusted. I'll also, possibly imprudently, speculate about the most likely scenario for solar activity over the coming decades.
BIOGRAPHY | Mathew Owens is a Professor of Space Physics in the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading. He has wide interests across solar and heliospheric physics, both with a view to better forecasting of space weather and understanding stellar magnetism in general. He has also been known to dabble in research into possible coupling between the space environment and atmospheric electricity, particularly lightning.
SPEAKER | Prof Mathew Owens, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading.
ABSTRACT | Space weather, variability in the near-Earth space environment over minutes to days, can adversely effect space- and ground-based technologies and poses health risks to humans in space and on high-altitude flights. To predict how the space weather may vary in the future, we first need to understand how it has varied in the past. Reconstructing "space climate" further back in time necessitates relying on increasingly indirect proxies, from direct spacecraft measurements (~60 years), to geomagnetic measurements (~150 years), sunspot observations (400 years) and, finally, cosmogenic isotope records in ice sheets and tree trunks (~10,000 years). I'll review what these are, what exactly they tell us and how much they can be trusted. I'll also, possibly imprudently, speculate about the most likely scenario for solar activity over the coming decades.
BIOGRAPHY | Mathew Owens is a Professor of Space Physics in the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading. He has wide interests across solar and heliospheric physics, both with a view to better forecasting of space weather and understanding stellar magnetism in general. He has also been known to dabble in research into possible coupling between the space environment and atmospheric electricity, particularly lightning.