More and more airline flights travel near the North and South pole, where cosmic activity takes place due to the radiation that the sun emits. These cosmic storms can interfere with radio communication to airplanes, and even on-board navigation systems. The radiation can also be hazardous to people riding on the plane.

 

In years past, many flights did not go near the poles of the Earth, however last year there were over 7,000 polar flights.

 

The Sun can emit groups of solar particle, which fly towards Earth, and interfere with our atmosphere and magnetic field. Most of the activity takes place at the North and South poles of the earth because that is where the particles are attracted to. The poles have the strongest magnetic strength.

 

Visually, these interactions are known as the Northern Lights.

 

During high activity at the poles, or "bad weather" in space, is when airline flights want to avoid those areas.

 

"The air traffic controller could be talking to the pilot one minute and really, literally within a minute or so, that signal can go from quite clear to scratchy noise," stated Bill Murtagh of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Co.

 

A little radio interference during a flight is nothing to fret about, but a large burst of energy from one of the sun's solar flares can cause huge problems with GPS navigation for the plane, and can also expose people on the flight to large amounts of radiation.

 

However, some of the advantages of polar flights outweigh the risks, such as much shorter travel distances between countries that are halfway around the Earth. This not only saves time, but also saves thousands of gallons of fuel that the planes use.

 

Most of these polar flights have had no problems because the sun is at a solar minimum for activity. However, the sun's activity will begin and continue to increase throughout the following years.

 

Due to space weather, flights would have to be redirected, and arrangements made for the plane to land and refuel in order to finish the trip.

 

Predicting space weather is much more difficult than forecasting Earth weather, and as many of us have seen, weather predictions are no-where near perfect. Weather models have been made that can predict the weather for the earth, however none of the models for the sun are accurate enough.

 

The Space Weather Prediction Center has a space weather modeler, which can sometimes predict solar flares up to two or three days before they happen. This is done by detecting changes in plasma swirling underneath the sun's surface.

 

The sun flare predicting model is a big step towards forecasting space weather, However, a much better model is needed in order to accurately determine when polar flights can be taken.

 

Source: NPR