{"id":29086,"date":"2023-12-05T09:12:12","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T14:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=29086"},"modified":"2024-06-12T12:02:27","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T16:02:27","slug":"space-weather-forecasting-could-help-prevent-global-disaster-says-senior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/space-weather-forecasting-could-help-prevent-global-disaster-says-senior\/","title":{"rendered":"Space weather forecasting could help prepare for solar storms, says senior"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every 11 years or so, the sun reaches the solar maximum, the most active part of its continuous cycle. Large sunspots appear, and solar winds and coronal mass ejections spew plasma into the Earth\u2019s magnetosphere. Such geomagnetic storms can be devastating, like the Carrington Event<\/a> in 1895 that lit up the skies and electrocuted telegraph operators across North America and Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

A solar storm erupted from the face of the Sun in April 2012. \/ Credit: NASA<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s happening again, said Jack Brewster \u201924. In early November, a <\/span>geomagnetic storm classified as G3<\/span><\/a> on the five-grade scale used by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Space Weather Center occurred.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into a solar maximum, we\u2019re going to get a lot more of these storms, G4 and G5 category,\u201d said the ROTC cadet<\/a> and physics and computer science double major. \u201cWhich is really when it\u2019s time to start worrying. We have no way to mitigate these effects.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists predict the solar maximum to hit in 2025. If a G4 or G5 storm hits Earth, it could possibly have a significant impact on communication, temporarily disabling cellphone and satellite networks and wireless internet access, Brewster said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201c<\/span>Internet Apocalypse<\/span><\/a>\u201d could happen with less than a day\u2019s warning, he said, which is why NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, among others, are working on ways to improve space weather forecasting using big data.<\/span><\/p>\n

After attending Army ROTC Advanced Camp in Summer 2023, Brewster got his hands on some of that data, collected from the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar installation in Alaska, during a space weather internship at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Working with West Point student Eric Rodriguez, Brewster saw the need to simplify the compilation of data that was siloed within separate systems.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really obnoxious, the way you have to go through six different websites to look for the data\u201d on ionospheric activity, he said. \u201cI thought, \u2018We could really use some computer science<\/a> on this, as well.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Brewster and Rodriguez worked 40 hours a week for five weeks during the summer. With the sponsorship of David Moffett, professor and chair of Furman\u2019s physics department<\/a>, Brewster was able to continue working on the project after the West Point internship ended. Collaborating online, the students developed code that could pull data from the disparate databases, compile it and export it in one file that researchers could then use to easily locate specific experimental information that could help forecast future solar activity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to the information from the Poker Flat installation, Brewster and Rodriguez plan to expand their project to include data from NASA\u2019s network of All Sky Imagers across North America.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Nov. 7 \u2013 just a few days after the G3 geomagnetic storm \u2013 the students presented their research poster, \u201cIndices and Geomagnetic Storm Identification,\u201d at the Space Environment Applications Systems and Operations for National Security conference at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty big in the space weather community,\u201d Brewster said. \u201cI shook some hands and made some connections\u201d \u2013 including scientists from NASA, the Department of Defense, the lab at Johns Hopkins and other organizations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One connection, with a representative from <\/span>Blue Eye Soft<\/span><\/a>, a company based in Greenville County, South Carolina, led Brewster to a job he\u2019ll start in the spring, working on a space weather forecasting project.<\/span><\/p>\n

This spring, Brewster will also receive his commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He won\u2019t know what branch he\u2019ll join in active service until later this fall, but his preference is the Cyber Command \u2013 and, having been ranked as \u201cmost preferred\u201d by the U.S. Army Cyber Command, his career forecast seems favorable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Brewster\u2019s story illustrates <\/span>The Furman Advantage<\/span><\/a>, an educational framework that provides every student an individualized educational pathway and opportunities for high-impact learning experiences, said Lt. Col. Sarah Whitten, professor of military science.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past two summers, Cadet Jack Brewster chose to pursue academic internships and opportunities related to the space field,\u201d Whitten said. \u201cThe culture of The Furman Advantage, focused on high-impact, engaged learning through research, set the stage for Jack to seek out unique and challenging opportunities that leverage his academic and military experience from his time at Furman.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here comes the sun, says Jack Brewster \u201924, and it won\u2019t be all right if solar activity causes widespread internet outages within the next few years. A data compilation project the senior has been collaborating on could help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":29088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,58,44,49,61,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-computer-science","category-internships","category-military-science-rotc","category-physics","category-the-furman-advantage","category-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32661,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29086\/revisions\/32661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}