5 Apr 2017

The Embassy of Italy to USA in Washington will host, on May 18 2017, a workshop on "Space Weather as a global challenge" with a focus on research, operations and preparedness. The event is organized in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State.
Space Weather is the physical and phenomenological state of natural space environments; the associated discipline aims, through observation, monitoring, analysis and modelling, at understanding and predicting the state of the Sun, the interplanetary and planetary environments, and the solar and non-solar driven perturbations that affect them; and also at forecasting and now-casting the possible impacts on biological and technological systems.

Space weather is identified as a naturally occuring phenomenon that has the potential to cause substantial detrimental effects on a nation’s economic and social well-being. Space weather may disrupt satellite operations, communications, and electrical power grids, potentially resulting in cascade failures of key services. It may also significantly degrade critical infrastructure systems and technologies, with potential negative impacts on both health and safety across entire continents.