Unless it has a large/global magnetic field, the atmosphere may be stripped away (like Mars), but I'm not familiar with solar wind conditions for red dwarfs. I'd like to target detecting auroral kilometric radiation from Proxima b to confirm the existence of a magnetic field, but it will take quite a while before we'd be able to bring our technology up to the required sensitivity.
Yea I read up on some of the old work about the flares on Proxima. Nasty stuff. 2013 normal people language article and the 1951 article describing Proxima which is neat in that THE Harlow Shapley is the primary author.
no no no no OH hell no. we can do better. Place a ring of super conductive magnets at about 80° north and south, cool them, run some current through them and BOOM magnetic field. then start melting the ices or even better, get some 10-20 mile wide asteroids and gently land them on Mars to pump up the atmosphere and create a hydrosphere. If we are gonna go big or go home, Let's go REALLY big!
I don't think francopoli has seen "The Core", which was a good choice on his part.