Delores Knipp was interviewed by Vox for a new article about a pending reversal of the Sun's magnetic poles.

The article, titled "The sun’s poles are about to flip. It’s awesome — and slightly terrifying," discusses the regular shifting of the Sun's poles and solar storms that can result from the process.

Knipp, a research professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is an expert on solar wind-geospace coupling and space weather and has written extensively about historic solar storms.

Solar storms can cause disruptions and damage to orbiting satellites and even electronics on Earth's surface, depending on the severity of the storm.

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Delores Knipp was interviewed by the Washington Post for a new article on the sun entering its most active period in two decades.

Knipp, a research professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is an expert on solar wind-geospace coupling and space weather and has written extensively about historic solar storms.

Solar flares and sunspots naturally vary throughout the sun's 11-year solar cycle, but the period between January and October of this year is predicted to be particularly active. It could lead to visually spectacular aurora borealis and potentially disruptive or even damaging solar radiation to satellites.

Knipp is not the only Boulder researcher featured in the piece. The Washington Post also interviewed scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, which are both headquartered in Boulder.

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Delores Knipp was interviewed for a feature article in the Washington Post.

Knipp, a research professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is an expert on solar wind-geospace coupling and space weather and has written extensively about historic solar storms.

The Washington Post article focuses on an 1872 solar event that painted skies and disrupted electric systems. It also makes clear such events are not as rare as once believed.

Dan Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics on campus and an affiliated faculty member in Smead Aerospace, is also quoted in the piece.

The article follows a in the Astrophysical Journal discussing the storm. Knipp is a co-author of article.

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What would you do if the power went out? Our lives are increasingly reliant on technology; our work and our social lives often require access to the internet. Lights, televisions, and refrigerators require electricity to run. These devices, and the power grid as a whole, are subject to a major threat society is not totally prepared for: the Sun’s bad behavior. 

“Our Sun is naturally a magnetically active star, and it’s really pretty well behaved compared to other stars. But it does have fits, it does become prickly,” said Delores Knipp, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder. On February 19 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, she and other experts discussed how often space weather — the disturbances originating from the Sun, also known as solar storms — happens, and how it affects life on Earth.

The intensity of the Sun’s activity ebbs and flows over an 11-year pattern, known as the solar cycle. The Sun is approaching the current cycle’s maximum level, with the greatest amount of solar activity expected between 2023 and 2026. When a solar storm reaches Earth, the energetic particles spiral along the planet’s magnetic field lines, cascading toward the poles where they interact with the atmosphere and create a spectacular show in the northern and southern lights. Solar storms can also have other far-reaching effects such as changing the density of the upper atmosphere — which aerospace company SpaceX discovered last month when a small solar storm caused its satellites to encounter more atmospheric drag, falling out of the sky and burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.

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Research Professor Delores Knipp is interviewed in a new article in the MIT Technology Review about the recent failure of up to 40 satellites launched by SpaceX.

The satellites launched with no problems, but trouble struck the following day. The issue? A geomagnetic storm.

Knipp is an expect in space weather and its impacts on our planet.

The day after the launch, however, disaster struck. An eruption of plasma from the sun sent charged particles streaming into Earth’s atmosphere, sending the planet’s magnetic field haywire and increasing the density of its atmosphere. That increase in density meant there were more particles to push against satellites in Earth’s orbit. This phenomenon, known as atmospheric drag, can pull them out of their orbital paths.  

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Smead AES:  An Academic Home for a “Non-conforming” Space Scientist
(or Why Staying within the Lines While Coloring May Not be the Productive Approach)

Delores Knipp
Research Professor
Friday, Dec. 4, 12:30 p.m.
Zoom Webinar - Registration Required

Abstract: Sciences is the Department’s ‘surname.’  In this reappointment seminar I will discuss new space science results produced within my research cohort: the Space Environment Data Analysis (SEDA) group.  With a strong emphasis on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) data, we study the space atmosphere interaction regions where energy from solar and geospace storms tends to concentrate. 

This concentration of energy can have surprising and sometime counterintuitive effects.  I will also discuss how my non-traditional journey from meteorologist to space scientist to physics instructor to Space Weather Journal editor-in-chief has shaped my educational/research focus.  This journey has allowed me to reveal some of the extraordinary historical space weather events that developed at the interface of science, engineering and national decision making and to contribute to CU’s Space Weather Technology Research and Education Center (SWxTREC).

Bio: Delores Knipp is Research Professor in Smead AES. Her research focuses on weather at the space-atmosphere interaction region. She advances scientific use of space environment observations and promotes education related to space weather. She is a retired USAF Officer and the former Editor in Chief of Space Weather, the International Journal of Research and Applications. Delores earned her Ph. D. at UCLA.

In 2019 she was inducted as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. She was also awarded the International Baron Marcel Nicolet Medal for Space Weather and Space Climate and cited for looking  ‘beyond the space weather community by gaining important insights from discussions with users affected by (extreme space weather) events,’

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Analysis of a disrupted SOS signal during an early polar expedition showcases the importance of taking space weather into account when exploring new frontiers.

Eos, the magazine of the American Geophysical Union, spoke with research professor Delores Knipp about how space weather impacted an early airship expedition to the North Pole.

After the dirgible crashed on sea ice, the crew tried to radio for help, but no one responded. Their receiver could pick up news broadcasts from thousands of miles away, but their SOS signal went unheard. The culprit? A radio skip zone caused by an unlucky confluence of space weather disturbances.

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Delores Knipp
Research Professor, Smead Aerospace
Friday, Feb. 28 | 12:30 P.M. | AERO 120

Abstract: Space Weather is a relatively new term applied to research and applications of Sun-Geospace interactions. Space weather research, in one form or another, has been an ongoing activity in the CU and Boulder space-ecosystems for decades. In this presentation I will provide an abridged history of space weather--from societal omens to effects on engineered systems on the ground and in space that spans 2500 years.

Space weather observations preserved in clay tablets tell us humans have been observing space weather effects for millennia. Space weather ‘omens’ may have had a roll in the onset of the US Civil War. The last 60 years likely have been the most impacted as humans put evermore technology-based systems to use for communication, remote sensing, surveillance, military-advantage and exploration.

To that end, a great solar radio burst and space weather event during the Cold War (May 1967) brought humanity to the brink of World War III. Were it not for the very quick analysis and action of a CU-educated US Air Force Captain the threshold could easily have been crossed. Just five years later another great solar eruption was the source of 4000+ exploding sea mines off the coast of Vietnam (and the frantic effort to replace them).

These 50-year old, now de-classified stories, should keep us mindful of the crucial role CU faculty and Boulder scientists continue to play in space education, space weather and the interface of space environment effects on technology.

Bio: Dr. Knipp is Research Professor in CU’s Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department, Boulder, an Associate Scientist in the CU Space Weather Technology Research and Education Center, and a Senior Research Associate at the NCAR High Altitude Observatory. She earned her PhD in Atmospheric Science at UCLA.

Her research focuses on space environment and the atmospheric and solar events that disturb it. Her graduate students investigate: satellite drag; 2) solar disturbance effect in near-Earth space; 3) scientific use of space environment measurements from DoD, NASA and international space missions, and 4) inter comparison of measurements from research and commercial satellites with an eye toward making broader use of commercial satellite 'housekeeping' data to monitor environmental conditions in near-Earth space.

She promotes space weather education and studies historical space weather events to understand the impacts these events have had on society and the US military. Prof Knipp is a retired US Air Force Officer and the former Editor in Chief of AGU’s Space Weather Journal. In 2019 she was inducted as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and was awarded the International Marcel Nicolet Medal for Space Weather and Space Climate.

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Delores Knipp is earning two honors for her research into space weather.

Knipp, a research professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and the Chancellor’s Grand-Challenge Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center (SWxTREC) at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been awarded the 2019 International by the European Science Foundation.

In addition, Knipp was also selected as MIT’s Haystack Observatory 2019 speaker.

Both honors recognizes Knipp’s efforts to expand the field of space weather research and build awareness of its importance in science and engineering.

“Space weather is a new international discipline rooted in physics and engineering,” Knipp said. “We're bringing together researchers, theorists, practitioners, instrument designers and model developers.”

Knipp has played a central role in expanding the field as editor-in-chief of the American Geophysical Union’s Space Weather journal from 2014-2019.

“The research was largely coming out of the US and my efforts were to grow the community internationally. The first thing I did was visit universities in China under AGU sponsorship” Knipp said.  Subsequently she sought stronger ties with scientists and students in Europe, South America and Japan.

In her time leading the journal, submissions have doubled, and Knipp jokes reviewing so many articles has effectively earned her a new PhD in space weather.

“I had to be able to read papers covering every aspect of space weather from the sun to the upper atmosphere all the way down to the ground,” Knipp said. “Early on, I was also doing a lot of true editing. The journal is in English but the articles come from all around the world. For some, I was getting their writing up to a form so their science would shine.”

Knipp’s work also goes beyond the science and engineering community.  Her text book, “Understanding Space Weather and the Physics Behind It, is used at universities world-wide and has recently been translated into Chinese.  She has endeavored to engage the general public, often through writings and interviews on historical space-weather events.

One notable example is an article she published last year on a Vietnam War mystery. On Aug. 4, 1972, more than two dozen sea mines suddenly exploded in the water, without explanation. Through research she unearthed an unlikely cause – magnetized gas from the Sun during a solar storm.

“I like puzzle solving,” she said. “You can see these pieces slowly fit together. I've been able to go into historical documents and find these events.”

The article was initially published in Space Weather, but has since seen broad attention in other science publications and national media outlets. Giving historical events a platform allows Knipp to discuss the overall importance of space weather.

“These are very natural occurrences and we need to plan for them,” Knipp said.

Last week, Knipp delivered the Buonsanto Lecture. Her talk, titled “250 Years of Extreme Space Weather Storms: What has the Ionosphere Been up to?," was a tribute to the progress in space weather observing and modeling initiated by MIT researcher Dr. Michael Buonsanto. The presentation was webcast and is archived at the

She received the Nicolet Medal yesterday at the European Space Weather Week conference in Belgium.

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By Smead Aerospace Research Professor Delores Knipp and RAL Space Head of Space Weather Michael Hapgood:

On November 7, 2019, in response to an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) mandate, the world’s major space weather centers will start issuing global advisories related to disruptions in: high-frequency radio communications; communications via satellite; Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based navigation and precision location; and enhanced radiation risk to aircraft occupants.

As indicated by the “I” in ICAO, these new forecasting efforts transcend national boundaries. Primary responsibility for the global-24/7, watch, and advisory duties will rotate bi-weekly among the space weather centers.

In a real sense this represents a ‘change-of-state’ for the space weather discipline, thus aligning the discipline with expectations from the meteorology community. While space weather has been part of military aviation mission-planning for some time, civil aviators have not had consistent, world-wide access to space weather information.

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