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Perth: (The Conversation) Last week, three tiny Australian satellites from Curtin University's <keyword id="23932163" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Binar-Space-Program" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Binar Space Program" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Binar Space Program">Binar Space Program</keyword> burned up in Earth's atmosphere. That was always going to happen. In fact, Binar means "fireball" in the Noongar language of the First Nations people of Perth. When a satellite is in low Earth orbit (2,000km or less), it experiences orbital decay as it drags closer and closer to the surface, eventually burning up. But these cube satellites (<keyword id="21533654" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="CubeSats" source="keywords">CubeSats</keyword>), known as Binar-2, 3 and 4, entered the atmosphere much sooner than originally planned. They only lasted for two months - a third of what was expected. This significantly reduced valuable time for science and testing new systems. The reason for their untimely demise? Our Sun has kicked into high gear, and the Binar satellites are far from the only casualty. Recent high <keyword id="20792842" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Solar-activity" source="keywords">solar activity</keyword> has been causing an unexpected headache for satellite operators in the last few years, and it's only increasing. <h2>Why is the Sun so active? </h2> Solar activity includes phenomena such as sunspots, solar flares and solar wind - the stream of charged particles that flows toward Earth. This activity is a product of the Sun's ever-changing magnetic field, and approximately every 11 years, it completely flips. At the midpoint of this cycle, solar activity is at its highest. While this cycle is known, specific solar activity is challenging to predict - the dynamics are complex and solar forecasting is in its infancy. In the last few months, indicators of solar activity were more than one and a half times higher than predictions for this point in the current cycle, labelled <keyword id="22712826" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="solar-cycle-25" source="keywords">solar cycle 25</keyword>. <h2>The impact of <keyword id="20087207" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="space-weather" source="keywords">space weather</keyword> </h2> Space weather refers to the environmental effects that originate from outside our atmosphere (mostly the Sun). It affects us on Earth in a variety of noticeable and unnoticeable ways. The most obvious is the presence of auroras. In the past few months, auroras have been visible far more intensely and closer to the equator than in the last two decades. This is a direct result of the increased solar activity. Space weather, and solar activity in particular, also creates additional challenges for satellites and satellite operators. Higher solar activity means more solar flares and stronger solar wind - resulting in a higher flux of charged particles that can damage or disrupt electrical components on satellites. It also means an increase in ionising radiation, resulting in a higher dose for astronauts and pilots, and potential disruptions to long-distance radio communications. But for satellites in low Earth orbit, the most consistent effect of solar activity is that the extra energy gets absorbed into the outer atmosphere, causing it to balloon outward. As a result, all satellites less than 1,000km from Earth experience a significant increase in <keyword id="23473319" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="atmospheric-drag" source="keywords">atmospheric drag</keyword>. This is a force that disrupts their orbit and causes them to fall towards the planet's surface. Notable satellites in this region include the International Space Station and the Starlink constellation. These satellites have thrusters to counteract this effect, but these corrections can be expensive. Low Earth orbit also contains many university satellites, such as the Binar CubeSats. Cube satellites are rarely equipped with tools that can adjust their altitude, so they're entirely at the mercy of space weather. <h2>What happened to Binar? </h2> The Binar Space Program is a satellite research program operating out of Curtin University. It aims to advance our understanding of the Solar System and lower the barrier for operating in space. The program began operations with its first satellite, Binar-1, in September 2021. This was less than a year into solar cycle 25 when solar activity was relatively low. In these conditions, the ten-centimetre cube satellite started at an altitude of 420km and survived a full 364 days in orbit. The program's follow-up mission - Binar-2, 3, and 4 - were three equally sized CubeSats. However, they were expected to last approximately six months owing to the extra surface area from new deployable solar arrays and a forecast increase in solar activity. Instead, they only made it to two months before burning up. While cube satellite missions are relatively cheap, the premature ending of a mission will always be costly. This is even more true for commercial satellites, highlighting the need for more accurate space weather forecasting. The good news is the Sun will calm down again. Despite the current unexpectedly high solar activity, it will likely slow down by 2026, and is expected to return to a solar minimum in 2030. While this was not an explicit goal of the mission, the Binar Space Program has now poignantly demonstrated the dramatic effects of solar activity on space operations. While the untimely loss of Binar-2, 3 and 4 was unfortunate, work has already begun on future missions. They are expected to launch into far more forgiving space weather. (The Conversation).

Right now, the Sun is far more active than predicted - and small satellites are paying the price

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Deepmind's GraphCast AI can produce an accurate 10-day weather forecast in under a minute.</li><li>The Google-owned company's AI model is the first that can outperform conventional forecasters.</li></ul>New research has shown that an AI model developed by Google-owned Deepmind has outperformed traditional weather forecasters for the first time.The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi2336">peer-reviewed study</a>, published in the journal Science, said that Deepmind's GraphCast AI model "significantly outperformed" the conventional system for predicting the weather, which is run by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecast.The AI model can produce an accurate 10-day forecast in under a minute and represents "a turning point in weather forecasting," according to the paper."Weather prediction is one of the most challenging problems that humanity has been working on for a long, long time," Pushmeet Kohli, Deepmind's VP of research, told Business Insider."If you look at what has happened in the last few years with climate change, this is an incredibly important problem," he said.GraphCast is trained on 39 years of historical weather data from the ECMWF. According to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ft.com/content/ca5d655f-d684-4dec-8daa-1c58b0674be1">the Financial Times</a>, the research showed that GraphCast's three to 10 day weather predictions were more accurate than conventional forecasts. But Deepmind warned that the model did have some limitations compared to non-AI forecasts when dealing with the uncertainty inherent in longer-term weather forecasts.Speaking to the FT, the architects of the project said that GraphCast had been able to predict where Hurricane Lee, a powerful storm that hit North America earlier this year, would make landfall three days before traditional forecasters.ECMWF machine learning specialist Matthew Chantry told Insider that GraphCast represented "a significant and welcome step forward" for the industry.He told the FT that once trained on a wider variety of historical data, models such as GraphCast would prove to be much cheaper than current weather forecasting methods, which rely on powerful (and expensive) supercomputers."We might be talking about 1,000 times cheaper in terms of energy consumption," he said. "That is a miraculous improvement."

Deepmind's new AI could help forecast extreme weather faster

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Memorial Day weekend was marred by severe storms across the US.</li><li>More than 20 people died, and tornado warnings are in effect for Maryland, Texas, and other states.</li></ul>Memorial weekend is the unofficial <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stocks-forecasts-markets-summer-months-tough-performance-inflation-data-nvidia-2024-5">start of summer</a>, and this year it was marred by a series of severe weather incidents that scientists say could continue as temperatures rise.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/extreme-weather-blunts-the-us-militarys-technological-edge-2024-5">Severe weather</a>, including thunderstorms and tornados, swept across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kentucky over the holiday weekend, destroying buildings and killing over 20 people, according to the Associated Press. Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, declared a state of emergency on Monday after five people died in the state from incidents associated with the severe weather.The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tornado-alley-is-shifting-east-to-mississippi-tennessee-alabama-2023-4">storms moved</a> to the Northeast on Memorial Day, placing the Washington, DC, metropolitan area under a tornado watch on Monday evening. Parts of Texas, the Lower Great Lakes, and the Mid-Atlantic continue to be under a tornado watch for Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.The NWS warned of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-flash-flood-warning-how-to-stay-safe-vermont-2023-7">flash flooding</a> in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region on Monday, and hail in the Southern Plains and Texas on Tuesday and possibly Wednesday.<div type="image" title="Semi truck damaged in Texas storm" height="683" width="1024" msid="110505030" hostid="261" sizebytes="60048"></div>Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma told the AP that a persistent pattern of warm, moist air is behind the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tornadoes-more-us-than-anywhere-else-world-2019-5">string of tornadoes</a> over the past two months.Sjoukje Philip, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said that while attributing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-tornadoes-highlight-rising-risk-climate-change-supply-chains-2021-12">tornadoes to climate change</a> is not straightforward, there is a link."With <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-hurricanes-form-2018-9">hotter sea surface</a> temperatures, the air can hold more moisture. So I can also imagine that whenever there is precipitation, whether that's from a tornado or something else, there can be more rainfall, on shorter timescales. So that's a really clear relation," Philip told the AP.The series of storms comes as temperatures climb in parts of the US, including Texas, where weather forecasters predicted temperatures of up to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/texas-breaks-temperature-records-amid-triple-digit-forecast-oklahoma-remains-under-tornado-threat/3551004/">120 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend</a> in some parts of the state. And just last week, in Mexico, temperatures got so hot that multiple <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heat-wave-mexico-monkeys-falling-dead-trees-climate-change-extreme-2024-5">monkeys suffered heat stroke</a> and were dropping from trees like apples. Philip noted that 2023 was the hottest year on record and that average temperatures are expected to continue to rise, which could trigger more severe weather.

Memorial Day weekend marred by severe weather &mdash; and it's not over

<ul class="summary-list"><ul class="summary-list"><li>Weather apps are tech's sleeper hit.</li><li>Data shows we're addicted, even when they don't work that well.</li></ul></ul>What's the temperature right now, wherever you're reading this?Chances are you can answer with a decent level of confidence — even if you haven't left the house today — because we're all living our lives with mini digital weather bureaus in our pockets.The Guardian is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/17/weather-apps-addiction-climate-crisis-anxiety">rather boldly reporting</a> that weather apps have become an "addiction." And these apps have become big business.According to a <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/health/articles-reports/2023/05/08/how-and-where-americans-get-information-weather">recent YouGov poll</a>, apps are the number one source for weather information among Americans, used by 53% of people. <a href="https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/weather-app-market-report#:~:text=The%20global%20weather%20app%20market,technology%20to%20improve%20their%20business">A report by market research company Grand View Research</a> valued the industry at over $800 million in 2022, and estimated it could grow to $1.4 billion by 2028. And yet as anyone who's been caught in a rainstorm with no umbrella knows, it's not really clear that these apps actually do their job all that well.Eric Floehr, who founded a company called ForecastWatch that analyzes weather forecasts, told The Guardian that while weather apps are overall more accurate than they used to be, they still suck at a lot of things, like certain types of long-term forecasting, or accurately predicting the weather for certain areas.At best, weather apps "perform about as well as meteorologists, but some of the most popular ones fare much worse," <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/04/weather-apps-forecast-predictions-information-overload/673648/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Charlie Warzel recently wrote</a> in The Atlantic.Still, there's a weather app for everyone: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.williamking.whattheforecast&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=US" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sassy weather apps</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grailr.carrotweather&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=US" target="_blank" rel="noopener">irreverent weather apps</a>, <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weather-fit-outfit-planner/id1194408342" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fashion-conscious weather apps</a>, <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id486154808?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">practical weather apps</a>, and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.enzuredigital.weatherbomb&amp;hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">aesthetic weather apps</a>. And then there's the big gun: The Weather Channel app, which had over 55 million monthly active users in 2020 — more than the <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/most-popular-news-apps-uk-us-2022/">most downloaded news app in the US</a>, NewsBreak, <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=c3cc1e994ded29a379ef155d4c13cd30ec9726a47a87a6444b4268db506be345&amp;postID=64b64a587e1bbd0b48533187&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fcompany%2Fparticle-media-inc-%2Flife%2F6959a80f-a841-48ce-bbd0-f93a552fc432%2F">which reports it has 40 million</a>.And it's a smart business model. A weather app can use US government data (and many do, The Guardian reported) which is free to use for any purpose, <a href="https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api#:~:text=As%20a%20public%20service%20of,ensure%20that%20everyone%20has%20access">according to the National Weather Service's website</a>. They can then make money by <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/gy77wy/stop-using-third-party-weather-apps">using your location data</a>, feeding in ads, or <a href="http://www.meetcarrot.com/weather/presskit.html">charging for fun add-ons</a> such as customization and sharing options. Weather apps are also able to avoid a lot of the controversy that surrounds other tech business models: they're not <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-twitter-plans-risk-more-scams-and-misinformation-experts-2022-11">dealing with a stream of misinformation</a> or <a href="https://www.insider.com/airbnb-bait-and-switch-scam-how-to-get-money-back-2023-2">scams</a>, or <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48916828">harassment on their platforms that they need to moderate</a>, or a gig-economy model that raises <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-driver-lost-uk-legal-battle-court-worker-rights-employment-2021-2">legal</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-raises-workers-leaked-documents-2022-10">ethical</a> considerations.Over-complicated social-media innovators <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-alternatives-social-media-discord-mastodon-hive-cohost-truth-2023-2">think they can win by creating the next Twitter</a>, but in this economy, perhaps they'd be better off creating the next weather channel instead.

In this economy, the winner is weather apps

London, Jul 2 () Scientists have employed methods normally used to forecast weather to predict how rapidly COVID-19 could spread in different countries as lockdown is eased, as well as assess the effectiveness of measures put in place. An international team, including meteorologists from the University of Reading in the UK, applied data assimilation, a technique that combines multiple sources of information to estimate how a situation will develop over time, to the pandemic. The study, submitted to the journal Foundations of Data Science, suggests it is possible to make reasonably accurate predictions of how easing measures might affect the spread of the virus up to two weeks in advance. This technique is usually used to pair computer simulations with real weather observations to forecast future weather, the researchers said. "A key result from this work is that we can estimate accurately how the reproductive (R) number varies in time in response to implementing or loosing up various mitigation measures," said Professor Geir Evensen, from the NORCE: Norwegian Research Centre, who led the study. R number is the number of people a person with COVID-19 is likely to infect. Previous computer model forecasts can be tested against the subsequent weather data to help make future short-term predictions more accurate, the researchers said. When applied to the novel coronavirus, observations including hospital admissions, the number of patients in intensive care, and the number of daily deaths can be combined with models calculating risk of vulnerability, exposure, infection and death, according to the researchers. "Most data is uncertain to some degree, but combining as much of it as possible from different sources can iron out some of this uncertainty when predicting future events," said Javier Amezcua, one of three Reading scientists that worked on the study. "Meteorologists use this method all the time to understand and forecast natural processes like weather, but its uses extend beyond that," Amezcua said. The study allows estimations to be made of how situations will develop in different scenarios, and can be used to create longer-term forecasts, the researchers said. This means it could be useful to predict the impact changes of lockdown policies, such as reopening schools and shops or increasing permitted socialising, might have on the spread of infections, they said. The team applied the technique to estimate coronavirus spread in eight different countries around the world -- England, France, the Netherlands, Norway, the US, Canada, Brazil and Argentina -- which have all seen the virus spread in different ways. SAR SAR

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Right now, the Sun is far more active than predicted - and small satellites are paying the price

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Deepmind's new AI could help forecast extreme weather faster

Tom Carter

Memorial Day weekend marred by severe weather and it's not over

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In this economy, the winner is weather apps

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Scientists use weather forecasting technique to predict COVID-19 spread

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