The greatest CME of all time. From my upcoming book, Timothy Dailey, Apocalypse Rising: Chaos in the Middle East, the Fall of the West, and Other Signs of the End of the Age (Baker Publishing Group: 2016): "The Carrington Event
We are now venturing to describe a global nightmare that defies comprehension. The most powerful space weather event on record occurred in 1859 when an extraordinarily powerful solar coronal mass ejection struck Earth’s magnetosphere.
The Carrington Event, named after the English astronomer who witnessed it, was estimated to be some ten times more powerful than the 1921 Railroad Storm and 100 times more powerful than the 1989 Hydro-Québec Storm, which caused the collapse of the province’s electricity transmission system.
The effects of the 1859 Carrington Event were felt worldwide, producing several days of spectacular auroral displays. Telegraph stations burned, with wires exploding off their poles, causing forest fires. The newly-laid intercontinental telegraph cable at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was rendered useless. In short, Carrington heavily damaged what primitive electric infrastructure existed at the time.
Woolsey answers the question of what would be the effects of a present-day event of the same magnitude: “If a solar super-storm like the Carrington Event recurred today, it would collapse electric grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructures worldwide, putting at risk the lives of billions.”
The human and material cost of such an event are almost too fantastic to contemplate. Researchers from Lloyd's of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research in the United States used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the current cost of a similar event to the US alone at $0.6–2.6 trillion.
A study by The National Research Council of the National Academies came to a similar figure, with “an estimate of $1 trillion to $2 trillion during the first year alone … for the societal and economic costs of a ‘severe geomagnetic storm scenario’ with recovery times of 4 to 10 years.”
Up to ten years without electricity to provide us with food, water, transportation, and a thousand other things essential to our lives? How many of us would be left?
A Near Miss
Well, at least we don’t have to worry about solar flares—at least in our lifetime, right? Wrong. According to physicist Pete Riley, senior scientist at Predictive Science in San Diego, California, there is an astounding 1 in 8 chance that the earth will be the target of an enormous mega flare from the sun in the next decade. This solar storm would rival the Carrington event and could cause trillions of dollars in damage. The U.S. could take up to a decade to recover from such a catastrophe.
Those who still imagine that such a scenario is the stuff of fantasy will be unnerved to learn that on July 23, 2012 a coronal mass ejection of exceptional strength on the scale of a Carrington event tore through Earth’s orbit. Fortunately, our planet wasn’t there, having passed by with mere days to spare. A week earlier and the solar storm would have hit us full force.
A week earlier and exceedingly few of us would be left to read this page..."
You might find this interesting:
http://starburstfound.org/mammoth-extinction-due-supernova-explained-giant-solar-flares/