Recordings of geomagnetically induced currents and a nowcasting service of the Finnish natural gas pipeline system

Abstract

The geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) in the Finnish natural gas pipeline have been measured at one site in southern Finland since November 1998. We give an overview of this long and uniform time series covering one sunspot maximum. We also briefly discuss the conventional magnetic activity indices K and Ak, and, additionally, the range of the magnetic field and of its time derivative, as indicators of the GIC activity. The measured GIC data formed the basis of the development of a nowcasting service (GIC Now!), which was implemented within the European Space Agency Space Weather Applications Pilot Project. The service provides a near‐real‐time view of the geomagnetic activity level and nowcast estimates of GIC and pipe‐to‐soil voltages in the Finnish natural gas pipeline system. We describe the operation and validation of this service in this paper.

Continental scale modelling of geomagnetically induced currents

“…2): the upper layer is 30 km with a resistivity of 5000 Xm and the lower infinitely deep layer has a resistivity of 20 Xm. Although this is different from the model applied previously by Viljanen et al (2006), it gives very accurate results. It is evident that a large variety of apparently very different ground models can yield a satisfactory result (e.g., Parker 1983).…”

“…Several studies have been made for the Finnish high-voltage power grid (Pirjola 1989;Elovaara et al 1992;Mäkinen 1993) and the natural gas pipeline (Pulkkinen et al 2001a;Viljanen et al 2006). Sweden: Wik et al (2008) performed a statistical study of GIC in South Sweden, and Wik et al (2009) and Pulkkinen et al (2005) considered the most extreme GIC events observed in Sweden in July 1982 and October 2003.…”

Space Weather: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

“…The large geomagnetic storm of March 1989 which blacked out Quebec, and the "Halloween storm" of 2003 produced a large increase in research and development related to geomagnetic storm effects on long conductors, both in the U.S. and in Europe (e. Pipelines are another class of long conductor that can be affected by anomalous space weather-induced telluric currents. These earth currents can produce enhanced erosion of pipelines if there are breaks in insulation, and can cause disturbances and outage of corrosion-protection electronics (e.g., Campbell 1978Campbell , 1980Viljanen et al 2006).…”

Space Weather: Physics, Effects and Predictability

“…Different harmful processes may take place if the negative potential becomes too large; therefore the potential has to be carefully adjusted. This is an engineering solution to the space weather effect, to provide an active protection to cope with the most severe expected magnetic storms, rather than relying on a space weather prediction service (Viljanen et al 2006). Space weather models may help in determining and specifying the design parameters.…”