No word yet on Al Gore’s response.
But is that analogy really valid when looking at the modern North American power grid? Long-haul transmission lines are designed to operate at up to 500Kv, and transmit many megawatts of power. Would a CME really give those systems significant problems? Much is made of the regional step up and step down transformers handling all of that load, but surely those also have overcurrent and overheat protection.
Seems that journalists and others are very concerned about this, but the people who design long-range high power transmission systems are notably absent from that conversation.
Still concerned about a "Grid Down", but seems that the real threat would be industrial sabotage/attack of physical infrastructure.
Seriously wondering about this.
Stoopid climate change! What can’t it do?
X8.7!
This is the biggest evidence yet for Manmade Climate Crisis! The only solution is more Socialism.
No word yet on Al Gore’s response.
Profound statement: the solar min's and max's affect Earth's climate more than all the CO2 we can ever produce, which is just 0.043% of the atmosphere.
Luckily, I had the prescient ability to get a ham license prior to the wildfires of 2018 when Paradise burned. That being said—if communications go down I can communicate around the state the country and the world. 20watts and a wire will do it. Granted, for the days of actual solar storms I may not get out anywhere with the bands, but that will clear up and I will be able to communicate.
I’d like to know how long we have been tracking and measuring solar flares. There was the Carrington event, but how strong was that, and others before and after that hit countries that didn’t have telegraph wires strung for many miles. I don’t think we have had the technology for that long, which makes me wonder just how strong a CME can be. A few decades doesn’t give much data at all.
I thought the one last week was the strongest in 150 years.
.
The most powerful flare on record was in 2003, during the last solar maximum. It was so powerful that it overloaded the sensors measuring it. They cut-out at X17, and the flare was later estimated to be about X45.
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010100/a010109/10109_Flares_HTML_Transcript.html
Perhaps Kalifornia might see a “ Grid Up” event that stops that day’s “Brownouts”, just sayin…….
WWG1WGA!
It largely missed the earth.
Someday, a Carrington-class flare will again hit earth.