Presenter
Matthew Allcock
Matthew is a space weather consultant working to improve resilience of critical infrastructure across Europe. He recently led a major project on space weather risk to UK critical national infrastructure which involved interviews and workshops with 100+ industry representatives across the space, energy, communications, and transport sectors, leading to recommendations to policymakers on key ways to improve infrastructure resilience. He has also worked on projects for the European Space Agency, including assessing the space weather risk to autonomous transport and modelling of geomagnetically induced currents in electricity transmission networks. Previously he worked at EDF Energy, Europe's biggest nuclear energy provider, leading the programme to ensure that nuclear power stations remain resilient to space weather and other natural hazards such as flooding, rainfall, and climate change.
Abstract:
Living with a star means that we, and any infrastructure we build in space or on Earth, are at the mercy of the Sun’s explosive phenomena such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, known as “space weather”. Extreme space weather is the ultimate black swan event: a low probability, high impact hazard that can disrupt critical infrastructure in space and on Earth. The famous Carrington Event of 1859 melted telegraph wires and electrocuted operators; today’s equivalent could collapse power grids, destroy satellites, and shower Mars-bound astronauts with severe radiation. This talk examines space weather’s physical mechanisms, the history of extreme solar events, critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, and how forecasting and monitoring capabilities can be exploited to help mitigate the risk.
