However, in recent years, pigeon keepers have discovered that these bursts of solar radiation have an upsetting effect on their birds, and the wiser ones among them have sought out ways and means to ascertain when such emissions are effected, and to refrain from training or racing their birds on those days, thus lessening the risk of losing them. These figures are therefore of considerable importance to aircraft, marine and space activity vehicles, and in the UK to the oil industry, the National Grid, the UK Ministry of Defence, the Ordnance Survey, the European Space Agency and, through its interest in North Sea oil production, the UK Government Health and Safety Executive. Several Geomagnetic Stations have been built and are maintained round the clock right round the earth in different countries. Their readings are collated by International agreement, and freely made available to all nations. The world hub of all these activities is located at the Space Environment Center at Boulder, Colorado, in the USA, and there are world data centres in Denmark and Japan.
All nations make multi-purpose use of the data provided from all sources.
Anything reading over 150 in geomagnetic activity, or 4 in 'K' Index figures, is considered unsafe conditions in which to train or race pigeons. Further, these readings have also been found to influence the surface weather in various ways, much of which is still being slowly discovered and understood. There is quite a bit of evidence that changes in solar activity do have measurable affects on weather. The correlation between the temperature at specific locations and the 11 year solar cycle are sometimes quite strong. Karen Labitske in Germany has done a lot of research in this area.