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For my interview, I sat down with Nate Miles, a software engineer at NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
For my interview, I sat down with Nate Miles, a software engineer at NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Above is an image of the Liftoff of NOAA's GOES-U on June 25, 2024
This center is one of several across the U.S. focused on natural disaster prediction. Nate specializes in working on the GOES/U and SWFO-L1 satellites. The GOES/U satellite, the fourth and final in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) R-Series, is the most advanced weather and environmental monitoring system in the Western Hemisphere. It provides imagery, atmospheric measurements, real-time lightning mapping, and, most importantly, space weather monitoring—Nate’s area of expertise.
Space weather primarily involves monitoring geomagnetic storms, and the satellites Nate works on play a critical role in this. He helped design the satellites to measure phenomena like sunspots, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and auroras during these storms. Geomagnetic storms begin when complex sunspots are identified, releasing solar flares and Earth-directed CMEs, which can result in storm conditions.
Above is a clip of the model produced using data from the GOES/U satellite to measure Sunspots
Nate discussed the recent observation of Active Region 13664, a group of sunspots that produced multiple solar flares, leading to the most severe geomagnetic storm since the Halloween Solar Storms of 2003. He explained that the storm's intensity was due to "Cannibal Coronal Mass Ejections," where multiple CMEs collide, merging into larger, more powerful storms with amplified magnetic fields and plasma. When these reach Earth, they can have significant effects on space weather.
Above is a clip of the model produced using data from the GOES/U satellite to measure Coronal Mass Ejections
Above is a clip of the model produced using data from the GOES/U satellite to predict where an aurora can be seen
Above is a model that Nate helped develop that is measuring the Plasma Density and Solar Wind Speed at Earth during the observation of Active Region 13664
The reason all of this stuff is observed and why it is so important for Nate to do the job he does is because Space Weather still has major effects on Earth. According to him, these geomagnetic storms he observes have widespread and massively significant impacts on some of our most important devices. They will shut down entire power grids at times. Nate described to me the system they have in place to help prevent these storms from having extreme impacts on peoples lives. He explained that whenever one of these storms is observed all power grids around the world are alerted, and to stop anything major from happening one may need to completely shut down just to keep the rest of the world running, so for example during the geomagnetic storm produced during Active Region 13664 a power grid in Quebec had to shut down to keep the U.S and Canada from losing power. These storms also do things such as damage high aviation flights communication systems, or damage spacecraft electronics such as the satellites Nate is working on, along with causing telluric currents in pipelines, and causing geomagnetically induced currents that shut down our power grids.
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