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The application of knowledge about Geospace has brought great benefits to modern
society in the form of global communications, navigation and remote sensing systems.
It has also shown how these systems can be impacted by geospace weather, and how
terrestrial infrastructure such as electrical power can also be severely disrupted.
However, our basic understanding is not yet sufficient to allow quantitative
assessment of these impacts or predict when they will occur. Geospace is the outer limit of the Earth's biosphere. As Man's knowledge of the natural and man-made processes affecting the biosphere develops, the influences of this boundary region on global change should be understood. For example, man is already polluting geospace: Very low frequency (VLF) radio waves generated by long power lines and navigation transmitters are changing the natural radiation belts, and space debris is accumulating in Earth orbit. The long term consequences of these activities have yet to be determined. Geospace provides the only large scale natural plasma laboratory available to man. Thus it provides an excellent opportunity for plasma research with applications to laboratory and astrophysical plasma problems.
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Why study Geospace from Antarctica ? |
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