Solar and Space Weather Radiophysics

Abstract

As technology has vastly expanded in the last century and a half, those technologies that can be affected by the Sun and by solar-produced processes has also increased in number and in their design and operational complexity. A brief history of the influences of solar-produced effects on technologies is provided, beginning with the deployment of the initial electrical telegraph communications systems in the 19th century. An overview is provided of present-day technologies that can be affected by solar-terrestrial phenomena such as galactic cosmic rays, solar-produced plasmas, and geomagnetic disturbances in the Earth's magnetosphere. Some recent considerations of the effects of solar radio noise and bursts on radar and radio communications systems are discussed. New and advanced initiatives in studies of the Sun by radio techniques, especially with the FASR project, will provide important information that will be of considerable relevance to understanding and forecasting space weather.