Scientific American: When It Comes to Solar Storms, We Don’t Even Know How Bad It Might Get

[Poll_Blind]

From Scientific American:[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0.3077em 0.3077em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]When It Comes to Solar Storms, We Don’t Even Know How Bad It Might Get[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3077em 0.3077em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Space weather is not all bad. After all, the charged particles streaming out from the sun that cause geomagnetic disturbances on and around our planet also produce the lovely aurorae near Earth’s poles—and sometimes at much lower latitudes.

But when the sun really acts up, spewing out heaps of charged particles in a burst called a coronal mass ejection, space weather can get a bit more menacing—and future storms could be even worse than the ones we’ve experienced. Solar storms can damage power grids, fry communications satellites and disrupt aircraft electronics. A few oft-cited historical examples: a 1989 solar storm caused billions of dollars in damages in Quebec and triggered a blackout affecting millions. An even bigger storm in 1859 rocked telegraph systems in the U.S. and abroad; the induced currents coursing through the wires were so strong that they ignited fires in telegraph offices. If something like that happened in today’s vastly more wired world, country-size regions could lose power for months, according to a recent U.K. assessment; the damages could run into the trillions of dollars.

But what if the superstorm of 1859 isn’t even as bad as it gets? The problem is not just that our technological world is vulnerable to stormy space weather, which it is, but also that we don’t really know what kind of storms to expect, according to a commentary in the April 19 issue of Nature by Mike Hapgood of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the U.K. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

“In the long term, we still have little sense of what maximum space weather event we should prepare for,” Hapgood notes. He adds that many power grids are now built so that their transformers can withstand an event the size of the 1989 Quebec storm. But sooner or later that level of preparedness will be insufficient: “Last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan show the dangers of preparing only for an event similar to that seen in recent decades.” We already know that bigger storms happen on relatively short timescales—both the 1859 storm and a 1921 event were much more powerful than the 1989 flare-up.

Not only is this article relevant, it's a fascinating read. Good Sunday Afternoon reading, IMO.

PB

[LonePirate]

1. See the Nicolas Cage movie "Knowing" for a fictionalized look at how bad it might be

[Javaman]

2. That movie was unbelievably awful!

the only "cool" part was the plane crash.

beyond that, it was like a how to book for the right wing end of times rapture.

On top of that the "aryan" looking aliens was just way to much for me.

it was nothing more than propaganda drivel for the right wing Apocalypse hopers.