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Solar activity remained high throughout May.

June 2, 2023: If you’re a satellite, this story is important.

A series of geomagnetic storms in 2023 has pumped terawatts of energy into Earth’s upper atmosphere, helping to push its temperature and height to a 20-year high. Air surrounding our planet is touching satellites in low Earth orbit and dragging them down.

“Blame the sun,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley. “Increasing solar activity is heating the top of the atmosphere. The extra heat has no effect on weather or climate at Earth’s surface, but it’s a big deal for satellites in low Earth orbit.”

Above: A severe geomagnetic storm on March 24, 2023, injected more than a terawatt of infrared energy into the thermosphere. Image credit: Michael Underwood in Yellowstone National Park

Mlynczak is an expert on the temperature up there. For 20 years he has been using the SABER instrument on NASA’s TIMED satellite to monitor infrared…