Submarine Cable Monitoring (Google GARA)

Overview

This project, supported by a Google Unrestricted Research Award (GARA), develops operational monitoring tools for tracking geomagnetically induced voltages (GIVs) along global submarine fiber-optic cable routes. Submarine cables carry approximately 95% of global internet traffic and transoceanic financial data; extreme geomagnetic storms driven by solar activity can induce potentially damaging voltages in the repeater equipment that amplifies signals along these cables.

The project extends the foundational modeling work of the SCUBAS research project — which established the physical framework for computing geoelectric fields along cable routes — into a real-time operational monitoring context, enabling continuous assessment of cable vulnerability during geomagnetic disturbances.

Scientific Approach

The SCUBAS (Submarine Cable Upset By Auroral Streams) model, developed and validated in prior research, forms the computational core of this monitoring system. SCUBAS uses:

• Generalized thin-sheet electromagnetic analysis to compute geoelectric fields from ground-based magnetometer observations
• Transmission-line modeling of the cable system to estimate induced voltages at each repeater location
• Real-time or near-real-time geomagnetic field data ingestion from global magnetometer networks

Fig 1. Global submarine cable network showing routes assessed for geomagnetic vulnerability. The monitoring system targets high-risk corridors including North Atlantic, North Pacific, and transoceanic routes crossing continental shelves where geoelectric field amplitudes are largest.

Operational Goals

The primary deliverables of this GARA project are:

• A pipeline that ingests real-time ground magnetometer data and computes induced voltage estimates along specified cable routes
• Threshold-based alert capabilities for cable operators during geomagnetic storm events
• An expanded validation dataset covering multiple storm events across different cable routes and geographic regions
• Open-source tools and documentation to make GIC monitoring accessible to the broader research and infrastructure community

For the full technical background on the SCUBAS electromagnetic model and prior validation results, see the GMD & Submarine Cable Vulnerability (R02) project page.