At the Met Office headquarters, the screens in one corner of the control centre are focussed on close up imagery of the Sun. It is here that a space weather prediction team, one of only a small number worldwide, operates 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. The weather in space has the potential to impact our lives here on Earth in a fundamental way.
GPS, power grids and satellites are some of the vital technologies vulnerable to changes in the earth's magnetic field. As a result, the Met Office has turned to Aberystwyth University researchers to help them improve their space weather forecasting abilities. Space weather is mostly driven by activity on the Sun.
Examples include solar flares, which are intense bursts of radiation. The UK government has included severe space weather in its National Risk Register. A 2025 estimate by Lloyds, external found that a severe space weather event could cost the world economy 2.4 trillion dollars ($2,400,000,000,000) over a five year period.
The Met Office has been working with key infrastructure operators since 2014 to try to keep us safe from those impacts, by producing forecasts using equipment on earth and satellites out in space. Richard Stone, from the space forecasting team, said it allowed them "to diagnose anything that's happening on the Sun's surface, provide a forecast and alert the relevant users to be able to take mitigating actions". Stone said the available technology was incredibly impressive, but still at an early stage.
"We've made great strides since 2014, but observations are still limited," he said. Despite spotting an event on the Sun's surface around three days before it reaches Earth, there are no more sightings until it reaches satellites about one million miles away. This gives scientists around one hour to more precisely predict its real effect on Earth and, if needed, warn partners of the mitigation needed to avoid disruption.
"It's like seeing a storm on the east coast of America and then not having any observations until it gets to Ireland," said Stone. The agency has turned to a group of researchers, led by Aberystwyth University, to improve its forecasting abilities. The project is being led by Professor Huw Morgan, who is Head of Space Physics at Aberystwyth University, working alongside Northumbria, Durham and Reading universities.
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