Digitisation of part of the UKSSDC ionospheric film archive.

Digital copies of Ionospheric data 1957 - 1991:
The asset created will be digital whole roll scans of data stored on 35mm film, taken by the UK ionospheric
monitoring programme between 1957 and 1991; and the necessary software to
extract individual records from the digitised copy. The films are part of a larger film
archive (~27,000 rolls) held by the UK Solar System Data Centre in its archive at the
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. This secures and improves access to a valuable
environmental data resource including 11 severe space weather events.

The UK Government has recognised the potential risks of a severe Space Weather
event in the National Risk Register. Quantifying the 1 in 100 year risk of extreme
Space Weather events is vital to managing risk and has direct policy impact.
(Hapgood 2011)
The asset created by digitising ionograms is a valuable addition to the historical
record of solar activity and its impacts, which is of underlying importance to research
into the likelihood and severity of solar events. Quantified understanding of Space
Weather risks is expected to lead to innovation in engineering solutions and
operational systems to predict events and mitigate effects. (Hapgood and Thomson
2010), (Cannon 2013). This data set would be complementary to early solar and
geomagnetic records including UKSSDC solar data assets that could be created
through a parallel bid to this call; and the digitised magnetograms at the British
Geological Survey (BGS), another NERC asset.
Cannon P 2013 Extreme Space Weather: Impacts on Engineered Systems and
Infrastructure, Royal Academy of Engineering http://bit.ly/16dLBCF
Hapgood MA 2011 Adv. Space Res. 47:12 2059-2072
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2010.02.007
Hapgood MA and Thomson A 2010 Space Weather: Its Impact on Earth and
Implications for Business Lloyd's 360 Risk Insight (RAL Space) http://bit.ly/13G7dH0