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Space weather

Halloween-like solar storm impacts

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 4, page 735 (2023)Cite this article

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Space weather events — radio blackouts, solar radiation storms and geomagnetic storms — can impact telecommunications and navigation systems, with knock-on effects on industries like aviation. The severe Halloween solar storm of 2003, for example, disrupted aviation radio communications for over two weeks and prompted the rerouting of some polar flights. The economic impacts of a similar event given current aviation patterns is unknown.

Compared with the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010, which had economic costs of around 1.7–3.3 billion euros, the impacts of another Halloween-like storm would be relatively small. However, it is still important to plan for such events to minimize losses and disruption.

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Original article

  • Xue, D. et al. Examining the economic costs of the 2003 Halloween storm effects on the North Hemisphere aviation using flight data in 2019. Space Weather 21, e2022SW003381 (2023)

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  1. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment https://www.nature.com/natrevearthenviron

    Laura Zinke

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  1. Laura Zinke
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Correspondence to Laura Zinke.

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Zinke, L. Halloween-like solar storm impacts. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 735 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00496-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00496-9

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