Posted on 12/01/2016 10:12:44 PM PST by nickcarraway
THERE is a one in eight chance that the Earth will be hit by a huge solar storm by 2020 which could potentially leave the world without Internet, phone service and many more services that modern-day humans rely on.
Researchers have warned that there is roughly a 12 per cent chance that a solar storm could smash into Earth by the end of the decade.
The powerful event would likely be as huge as the Carrington Event, which occurred on 1859.
The solar storm which hit 150 years ago was so powerful that its southern auroras could be seen as far north as Queensland in Australia.
Today, in a modern world so dependent on technology, the implications would be far more severe.
Solar storms can wreak havoc on global technology as the radiation which pummels our planet heats up the outer atmosphere, causing it to expand.
This means that satellite signals will struggle to penetrate the swollen atmosphere, leading to a lack of Internet service, GPS navigation, satellite TV such as Sky and mobile phone signal.
Additionally, increased currents in the Earth’s magnetic field – or magnetosphere – could theoretically lead to a surge of electricity in power lines, which can blow out electrical transformers and power stations leading to a temporary loss of electricity in a region.
The prediction of a huge solar storm by 2020 was made by Pete Riley, senior scientist at Predictive Science in San Diego, California, who was surprised to see that the chance was so high.
He said: “Even if it’s off by a factor of two, that’s a much larger number than I thought.”
A solar storm the size of the Carrington Event would cost an estimated $2trillion (£1.6trillion) to the US economy in the first year it struck, with a 2008 report from the National Research Council stating that it could take up to 10 years to fully recover.
There’s a one in eight chance that you’ll get hit by something if I ever lose enough weight to get out there :)
Plausibly the events aren’t random.
Actually, the panel gets warm and I need to figure out how to prevent birds from dive bombing into it like it’s a pool of water.
(I love solar panels because I’m a super cheap conservationist but don’t tell the left because they’ll try to take credit for it)
I forgot about banking. I really don’t want to wait in line.
We can trade with each other. I can make bread in a brick oven! I just bought a pizza oven to put in the gas barbecue.
This could be fun for about a week.
In this part of Arizona, the birds would fry!
Probably will have to get the extra super duper battery that coverts the solar to electricity. Fun project!
What are we doing to mitigate THIS risk???
Building a wall.
Actually Trump has made comments regarding the need to harden our Grid...
We are vulnerable to major disruption from EMP—weather related or bad foreign player.
There is a 99.99999% chance that bears will poop in the woods tonight.
some people are just always crying wolf to get attention.
We can get a land line BBS system set up afterwards... :-)
There’s a pretty kick ass off grid place west of my plot you can get for probably 350-375k. Comes with a square mile and 50% mineral rights...
I think the chances are lower, but a repeat of the Carrington event (September 1859) in this high-wired tech civilization would knock us for a loop. We should have plans in all advanced nations, that would bring back the grid as fast as possible in this eventuality.
How they got to their probability number is a bit baffling to me. A major solar flare event would likely happen near the peak of an active solar cycle. We are currently in the dying phases of a rather weak solar cycle that peaked in 2012 and 2013. The next peak is unlikely to be very strong according to those who research these things, and not due until perhaps 2023-2025.
My guess would be that solar flares will be weak and not very frequent between now and then. Even the next peak provides no greater opportunities than any of the past several. We survived very strong peaks in 1947 and 1957, and strong ones again in 1979 and 1989. The worst thing that happened in all of that period was a moderate flare event that knocked out the grid in Quebec in March 1989. That was disruptive but not catastrophic.
We have no way of predicting when this mega-flare will take place. The 1860 peak (as it is identified) that was associated with the Carrington event was not a particularly strong one but one of a series of rather average peaks in the mid-19th century. Why it happened then and not any other time is unknown and perhaps unknowable.
We would have a warning of a day or so, and could presumably shut down some of the grid to prevent it from shorting out (something that happened on a smaller scale after the Carrington event around 1919 IIRC). Technology was not very advanced then but it knocked out telegraph service in much of the U.S. for days.
With things like this, probability numbers are meaningless and useless. The bottom line is, this could happen and we know it could happen. Since we can’t predict it, we would be stupid and short-sighted to ignore the risk. And there are probably things that could be done in terms of advanced planning and creation of back-up resources (in well positioned locations). It would still be a huge dislocation event, but perhaps not as catastrophic, if a plan was available. I don’t think a plan is available today. This is something Trump can probably work on over the next few years. He needs to find the right experts to advise not on when, but how we recover. The when part is unknowable and there is no point in wasting time speculating about that.
have to rebuild the telephone system first, though ;>)
My tinfoil hat will save me.
We are doing the same mitigation for massive solar flare as we are doing for an ELE meteor strike or the eruption of the Yellowstone super-volcano. Some things cannot be prevented or mitigated, they just are and we have to deal with the consequences afterward.
In fact, many solar phenomenon are cyclical. The 11 year and 90 year cycles of sunspot activity are fairly well known, for example.
Good info. My only quibble would be to reword as follows:
...this will eventually happen and we know it will happen.
BTW, here’s an excellent archive of past events, from 1859 up to 2003. The effects range from very serious to downright hilarious.
One other thought: Two of the strongest CME’s known, 1859 (nailed us) and 2012 (missed) occurred during relatively “weak” solar cycles’ peaks.
Not likely as we are entering a solar minimum which means almost no activity.
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