A research work on the impacts of space weather on aviation industry, conducted by PhD student Mr. Dabin Xue at the Department of Land Surveying & Geo-Informatics (LSGI), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), was recently selected to be highlighted by the Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, a journal published by the Springer Nature with an Impact Factor of 42.1.
The research paper “Examining the Economic Costs of the 2003 Halloween Storm Effects on the Northern Hemisphere Aviation Using Flight Data in 2019”, co-authored by Mr. Dabin Xue, his supervisors Dr. George Zhizhao Liu at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Dr. Jian Yang at the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, and Dr. Shiwei Yu (a former graduate from Dr. Liu’s Lab), was recently published at the AGU journal “Space Weather” in March 2023. It claims to be the world’s first one to quantify the potential economic impacts of space weather on aviation operation, which is an interdisciplinary study involved with Space Physics including Ionosphere and Cosmic Radiation, GNSS Satellite Navigation, and Air Traffic Management as well as Operation Research.
Space weather events, closely related to the 11-year cycle solar activities, can disruptively affect the aviation operations on the Earth in various aspects such as high-frequency communication blackouts, GNSS-based navigation and surveillance failures, and increased levels of cosmic radiation. These disruptions pose great potential risks to flight safety and security and result in flight delays and even flight cancellations. The consequential economic loss can amount to tens of millions of euros.
Based on the space weather impact data from the severe solar storm event 2003 Halloween Storm in the Solar Cycle 23 and the flight data in 2019, this research from an operational perspective assessed the impact of a space weather event similar to the 2003 Halloween Storm on the aviation flights in 2019 when the current 11-year Solar Cycle 25 just began. New air traffic management strategies have also been proposed to mitigate the effects of these disruptions. This study can be a benchmark for evaluating and alleviating the potential effects of future space weather on aviation operations.
More information about this Research Highlight can be found at Nature Reviews Earth & Environment https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-023-00496-9. The original paper can be found at Space Weather
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022SW003381.
最近，薛大彬博士，来自香港理工大学土地测量及地理资讯学系，进行了一项研究工作，旨在探究空间天气对航空运行的影响。该研究被著名出版机构Springer Nature旗下的“Nature Reviews Earth & Environment”期刊选为研究亮点，该期刊的影响因子为42.1。
一篇题为“Examining the economic costs of the 2003 Halloween storm effects on the North Hemisphere aviation using flight data in 2019”的研究论文，由薛大彬博士（香港理工大学）、杨剑教授（南方科技大学）、刘志赵教授（香港理工大学）、和俞世炜博士（香港理工大学）共同撰写，发表在AGU旗下的“Space Weather”期刊上。这篇论文是全球首篇分析空间天气对航空运营影响的研究，旨在量化空间天气对航空运行的潜在经济损失。该研究涉及多个学科领域，包括空间物理学（如电离层和宇宙辐射）、全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）、卫星导航、空中交通管理、运筹规划等。
空间天气会导致航空通信中断、基于GNSS的导航和监控失效，同时还会引起宇宙辐射增加等一系列问题。这些影响不仅威胁着飞行安全，降低了航行效率，还直接导致航班延误甚至航班取消的情况发生。该研究利用2019年的飞行数据，假设2003年万圣节磁暴发生在2019年，从通信、导航、监视、和宇宙辐射四个方面分析了空间天气对航空运行的影响，并估算了空间天气可能带来的经济损失，金额可高达数千万欧元。此外，该研究还提出了特定的空中交通管理策略，以减少空间天气的负面影响。
由太阳活动引发的空间天气现象呈现出11年的周期性变化。据预测，2025年将是下一个太阳活动高峰期。这项研究可作为评估和缓解未来空间天气对航空运营影响的基准。
第一作者简介：薛大彬，2023年获香港理工大学博士学位（导师：刘志赵教授），南方科技大学联合培养（导师：杨剑副教授）；2015年，2018年分别获南京航空航天大学学士和硕士学位（导师：胡明华教授）；研究方向：空中交通管理，空间天气，绿色航空等。
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刘志赵教授：https://www.polyu.edu.hk/en/lsgi/people/academic-staff/prof-liu-zhi-zhao-george/
杨剑教授：https://www.sustech.edu.cn/zh/faculties/yangjian.html
胡明华教授：https://cca.nuaa.edu.cn/2021/0903/c15639a259540/page.htm
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