v6: Space Weather — Solar Storms Join the Risk Equation
A fourth signal enters the meter: space weather. Solar geomagnetic storms measured by the NOAA Kp index, combined with solar flare classification, can knock out power grids, GPS, and satellite communications. The new blend is 55% news + 30% market + 15% space weather.
The scenarios WakeUpNeo.ai is designed to detect have one thing in common: they disrupt the systems that modern civilisation depends on. Pandemics, financial crises, and geopolitical conflicts all make the list — but there is a fourth category that operates on a completely different timescale and origin: space weather.
What is space weather?
Space weather refers to conditions on the sun and in Earth's magnetosphere that affect technology on and around Earth. The primary threats are geomagnetic storms — disturbances in Earth's magnetic field caused by solar wind — and solar flares, which release intense bursts of X-ray radiation. Both can damage or disable satellites, overload power grid transformers, disrupt GPS signals, and interfere with high-frequency radio communications. A Carrington-scale event (the largest ever recorded, in 1859) would cause multi-continent blackouts lasting weeks to months.
Two NOAA signals
| Signal | Source | Scale | Stress formula |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kp index (planetary geomagnetic activity) | NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center | 0–9 (9 = extreme storm) | clamp((Kp − 3) / 6, 0, 1) × 10 — calm below 3, max at 9 |
| Solar flare class | NOAA SWPC | A / B / C / M / X | A=0, B=1, C=3, M=6, X=10 — X-class flares register maximum stress |
The two signals are averaged into a single space weather score (0–10), polled every hour from NOAA's real-time data feeds. On most days both will read near zero — the sun is calm and the Kp index stays below 2. During a G3 or G4 geomagnetic storm (Kp ≥ 7) or an X-class solar flare, the space weather component spikes sharply.
The new three-component blend
score = news × 0.55 + market × 0.30 + space_weather × 0.15
Space weather enters the equation at 15%. This is intentionally conservative: severe solar events are rare, and the signal should register when it matters without amplifying routine minor Kp fluctuations into false positives. News remains the dominant driver at 55%; market stress is reduced from 40% to 30% to make room for the new component.
Why does space weather belong in a risk meter?
A sufficiently severe geomagnetic storm is a civilisation-level risk that operates independently of politics, markets, or disease. It has no warning time beyond a few hours for coronal mass ejections, it can simultaneously knock out power grids across multiple continents, and its economic and humanitarian consequences would dwarf most conventional crises. The meter is designed to detect precisely these kinds of systemic tail risks — space weather belongs in the equation.