Socio-economic hazards and impacts of space weather: the important range between mild and extreme

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of understanding and preparing for a range of space weather events, from mild to extreme, highlighting their socio-economic impacts and the value of mitigation strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for analyzing the impacts of various space weather events and underscores the economic benefits of mitigation investments.

Findings

Economic impacts of century-level space hurricanes and lesser gales are comparable.

Mitigation investments can yield benefits exceeding their costs.

Understanding the full spectrum of space weather impacts is crucial for societal preparedness.

Abstract

Society needs to prepare for more severe space weather than it has experienced in the modern technological era. To enable that, we must both quantify extreme-event characteristics and analyze impacts of lesser events that are frequent yet severe enough to be informative. Exploratory studies suggest that economic impacts of a century-level space hurricane and of a century of lesser space-weather "gales" may turn out to be of the same order of magnitude. The economic benefits of effective mitigation of the impacts of space gales may substantially exceed the required investments, even as these investments provide valuable information to prepare for the worst possible storms.