What is the Extreme Team?

Detailed observations of heliospheric processes during superstorms are rather limited, and statistics is sparse. Superstorms are unusually strong storms where the Dst index reaches below 300 nT and even below 500 nT in extremely rare circumstances. Evidence that geomagnetic storms can potentially be much stronger than that observed during the space age comes from historical observations of the solar storm in 1859, known as the Carrington event, and recent observations of the very powerful Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) that occurred in July 2012, that largely missed the Earth.

Understanding the effects of superstorms and the strongest (e.g., 1 in 100 years) space weather events is a key component of the National Space Weather Action Plan. Such an understanding is required to develop mitigation strategies for worst case Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC), spacecraft charging, communication outages and navigation error scenarios. Understanding the coupling processes that occur under extreme conditions presents a challenge, as these processes may be very different than those under the more typical conditions for which existing physics-based models were developed.

Saturation processes or nonlinear responses of the systems during extreme driving may preclude extending empirical parameterizations to the more extreme values for drivers that occur during such events. Using available observations of superstorms and historical records of extreme events, this Focused Science Topic (FST) will conduct focused investigations of key physical processes needed to extend modeling capabilities to the conditions that occur during extreme events. This proposed topic is relevant to nearly all of the Strategic Science Areas (SSAs).