ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with an extensive tour of the natural environments that are influenced by space weather and how these environments have adverse impacts on human activities, mainly by disrupting many of the advanced technological systems critical to smooth functioning of modern technological societies. These environments include natural radio interference, the atmospheric radiation environment, the radiation, plasma and atmospheric drag experienced by satellites, the ionosphere and its impact on radio propagation, and geoelectric fields and their impact on power grids. It explores how these environments are influenced by the Sun: how the solar magnetic field provides the energy to drive space weather, in particular, by ejecting plasma and radiation that lead to geomagnetic and radiation storms that impact the Earth, also how Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere focus energy from the solar wind to produce major space weather impacts on the Earth. It also shows how scientists are working with policy-makers to incorporate space weather in their wider management of natural hazards and thus make real progress in mitigating its adverse impacts. Finally it discusses how those adverse impacts are evolving in the face of technological innovation, with some risks becoming less important, but also new risks emerging.
