The U.K. Met Office, which is funded by the government to provide national weather services, is now also planning to supply space weather forecasts for the region. Two teams of scientists presented their research at the U.K.-Germany National Astronomy Meeting held in March in Manchester, England.

The Met Office will work with the nation's space weather researchers to adapt current weather and climate models to incorporate the effects of space weather on a layer of the Earth's atmosphere called the thermosphere, which is a region about 56 to 373 miles (90 to 600 kilometers) above the planet's surface.

The International Space Station orbits within this atmospheric layer, and the thermosphere often sees impacts from strong space weather events, the researchers said.