Solar Storms

[Syf]

Hello everyone. I though I'd post about recent solar activity here.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetic field today, on March 8th around 1100 UT. The impact was weaker than expected, sparking only a mild (Kp=5) geomagnetic storm. However, the storm could intensify in the hours ahead depending on electromagnetic conditions in the wake of the CME. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. This CME could have been a lot worse with just a few different factors.

A HUGE SUNSPOT is active and pointing at us. AR1429 continues to grow. It is now more than seven times wider than Earth, which makes it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. AR1429 is in a position to send more CMEs toward earth. Of these, we could see a CME event on a scale not experienced by modern man. AR1429 is so massive, that sun-gazers can spot AR1429 without a telescope.

I am not sounding the 2012 "doomsday" bell here. I am merely pointing out current events. However, I do encourage everyone to be aware of what a major CME can do to us here on earth. I do encourage all members to figure out what they would need to do to far well in the event AR1429 or some other sunspot causes a major catastrophe where you live.

Please feel free to discuss this topic here as well as news of solar events if you become aware of them before I can post.

 

[Jasoneagle]

A little on the Effects Earth can feel:

Spoiler: From Wikipedia

Impact on Earth

When the ejection is directed towards the Earth and reaches it as an interplanetary CME (ICME), the shock wave of the traveling mass of Solar Energetic Particles causes a geomagnetic storm that may disrupt the Earth's magnetosphere, compressing it on the day side and extending the night-side magnetic tail. When the magnetosphere reconnects on the nightside, it releases power on the order of terawatt scale, which is directed back toward the Earth's upper atmosphere.

This process can cause particularly strong aurorae in large regions around Earth's magnetic poles. These are also known as the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) in the northern hemisphere, and the Southern Lights (aurora australis) in the southern hemisphere. Coronal mass ejections, along with solar flares of other origin, can disrupt radio transmissions and cause damage to satellites and electrical transmission line facilities, resulting in potentially massive and long-lasting power outages.[4]

Humans in space or at high altitudes, for example, in airplanes, risk exposure to intense radiation. Short-term damage may include skin irritation with potential increased risk of developing skin cancer, but it is likely that any affected individuals would recover from any such exposure.

If anyone can capture some views from the Aurorae than that is one thing I would like to see. and though power and Electronic Equipment can be affected keep in mind that the tech of today has some safeguards that will help but my suggestion would be to trun them off when not in use and (always get the insurance on your cell phones)

 

[Syf]

It has been all over the news now. "Solar Storm hits Earth"... I watched the news casts, I read it in the paper. Each one of them points out that "We got lucky". Yet, people seem to be blowing off the event as trivial, at best. I'm beginning to think people will deserve what they get when something bad really does hit.

A major CME event will NOT be the end of the world... But it WILL have a major impact on daily living at least for a short period of time. How much time is dependant on how strong the Solar Storm is.

First things to be effected are Satellites. That means GPS and Cell phone services will be disrupted. For those that "Must" have their cell phones... LOL is all I can say. My wife will personally go nuts when it happens. I laugh when people say "Our current technology can withstand it". Don't be crazy. All satellites launched in the last 10 years have less than a 3rd (1/3) the shielding or hardening that the previous generations of satellites had. And to top that, when the earth is hit with a CME, the outer atmosphere "swells" (just like your human skin with an allergic reaction to something you ate). This increases drag on LEO Satellites (LEO = LOW EARTH ORBIT), which causes 2 things. 1, the people controlling the satellites have to re-orient the sat or 2, the drag can cause damage to the Sat's orbit (Sat is shorthand for satellite, from here forward I will refer to them as Sat, Sats, etc to save me a few keystrokes). When this happens, Sats can "fall out of the sky"... You need proof, look up Skylab, America's first Space Station.

As for Earth being effected... Here are some quotes from an article on the Washington post site from 1999 - http://solar.physics.montana.edu/press/WashPost/Horizon/196l-031099-idx.html

Some effects of solar storms were far beyond the nuisance level, especially at higher latitudes. In August 1972, a 230,000-volt transformer at the British Columbia Hydroelectric Authority blew up when shifting magnetic fields induced a current spike.

In the Atlantic cable between Scotland and Newfoundland, 2,600-volt surges were recorded during a magnetic storm in March 1940. Short-wave broadcasts often were blocked for hours

On March 13, 1989, a storm plunged Quebec into a complete power blackout, affecting millions.

Over the years, such failures -- which follow the sunspot cycle -- have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

The North American Electric Reliability Council, which oversees the entire U.S. electrical grid, estimated that a storm only slightly stronger than the one that hit Quebec could cascade into the United States.

Yes, we are talking a major CME "can and will", sooner or later, hit the good 'o' U. S. of A. This also is true for people ANYWHERE in the Northern Hemisphere. And... IF the Solar Storm is strong enough, it can blackout the entire Global power-grid. This is a "Possible" event... Be it 1 in 500, or 1 in 50,000 Solar Storms, it's still a real possibilty. Anyone ever play a lottery? Even buy a "powerball" ticket... The odds of winning a lottery like the famous "Powerball" game (for those in many States in the USA, you all know what the Powerball lottery game is) is 1 in 147...MILLION. Yes, I said 1/147,000,000, yet more people believe they can win the powerball MORE than people believing (or preparing for) the odds of a global Solar Event effecting them. The ODDs of a major CME are a fraction of the powerball odds! Wake up people... The SUN is like a Soldier, armed with a machine gun... And better yet, he's crazy. This soldier is spinning in circles on one leg while firing his machine gun on full automatic with a nearly unlimited number of rounds in his magazine! And we, the planet Earth, are some bystander standing five meters away (actually 94 million miles, but the SUN is 109 times BIGGER than the Earth), waving our hands in the air like an idiot saying "you can't hit me"!

I've lived through an Ice storm that took out power in Oklahoma. The Power was restored where I live after a week... But some parts of the State went without electrical power for OVER a month... I've seen winds knock down power-lines and even the poles which the wires are connected to busted in half... I've had a few run-ins with "Events". People, I've looked at an EF5 class Twister outside my window as it was moving towards me... and I've lived to see the aftermath of real devastation. I can say I know what storms are and when to not disregard the possibility of being directly effected by a storm... I can only say that if a person fails to "be ready" to live through... and "survive" an event, a storm, a nightmare, etc... then such a person will get what they deserve. Such a person as my wife... but she's lucky because she has me, and I know how to survive it and do everything I can to ensure hers, and my children's survival when the time comes.

 

[Dominus_Noctis]

Meh, the one in 2006 was far far worse - populist fear mongering over events such as these or NEOs is laughable when you consider how much we reduce the budget of agencies that monitor, announce, and predict "space events".

 

[Borg_Queen]

No matter how big or small an CME is that comes towards us, I always makes sure to turn off my electricals so they won't get shot-circuited. I know the biggest danger of being struck is then you think it's no danger at all, so I respect all of these phenomenons, not just CMEs.

This is interesting times indeed, though I doubt it will be like it was in the 2012 movie.

 

[Syf]

NEOs is not a good thought. There is only a couple thousand being tracked thanks to lack of funding. If the money was there, I'd take up such a job. But it falls to the backyard hobbyist to provide most of the sky watching man-hours. But when they spot a real threat, what can anyone doe? Nothing currently. Our "best minds" can think up solutions all day, but politicians would fund it even if NASA said "We will be hit on XX:XX:XX" day. Politicians can't see past their own greed.

CMEs are a bigger threat to our way of life simply because they happen a lot. From what I can find, there have been at least 8 CME events that hit earth since the beginning of this year alone. We are in the Solar Maximum year, which means we are likely to see stronger and stronger CME events.

My question is, how many of us are really ready to live like it was the year 1800? How many of us really understand what we would face and how to actually survive. There is little threat to our health directly (unless the SUN discharges a very massive CME that strips the earth of it's EM field completely... but that is unlikely). Depending on the redundancy the the power grids, an instant blackout of electrical grids and failure of anything "powered on" is the biggest threat. The recovery period of such a power-grid failure will be costly, and is likely to take weeks or months for most city areas, and months, up-to over 1 year in rural areas. Overall, if it's a global scale interruption of power grids, it will likely take 2 plus years to get all grids back online.

Let's say that in the near future the earth is hit with a major CME event. The things that will fail instantly are:

Electric Power Grids
Cell and land phones
GPS systems
Communication systems.
Satellite based TV (This even will effect Cable TV customers because most channels are piped in via satellite feed).
Radio Transmissions would be blocked for days, not counting the power grid failure.

Additionally, transportation (Cars, trucks, boats, etc) may be effected if the event is strong enough. Especially anything "in motion" when it hits. This does imply the possibility that airplanes might stall and fall to the ground.

Secondary, yet nearly instant critical systems to fail at the same time or within a couple days:
Water systems
Fuel systems
Medical and Emergency services.

All these will failure because they depend on electricity.

Now the big question... Without all this for a few weeks or more, ask yourself can I get by?

 

[Dominus_Noctis]

We live near a few pulsars as well (not to mention there are supernovae going off 'all over the place' relatively speaking) - the likelihood of getting hit by a gamma burst is low, but quite possible as well. And then there is of course the recent fear-mongering about nuclear bombs detonated in LEO. At what point are you willing to draw the line? If it's only the instantaneous things you know about that you get concerned about, that's a rather open argument, dependent entirely on how much attention one pays and how much one cares about long term problems (i.e. global warming, war, etc). Regardless whether you know of a CME or not, you personally can do very little about it. Even if you switch all your electronics off, they are still going to get fried when hit with the amount of energy required to cause such a global catastrophy.

Then of course, you still have your computer on right now - and presumably are still using all sorts of electronic gadgets - and yet another CME just struck and that will keep happening every day sporadically. Better to spend your time installing solar power cells etc and to increase climate advocacy.

 

[Syf]

If you want to talk about things no one can do anything about, then we need a different topic for that in it's own. The list of things one can do nothing about is a "huge list of things".

If you want to talk about what I am doing for efforts against global warming, I can assure you that my "Carbon Footprint" is 70% less than the average American. I use power-saver or LED lighting where ever possible, I travel minimally in an auto, and even my computer shuts itself off (including the monitor) if I leave it on alone for 5 minutes. I kill the power to it when I am going to be away as to not use one extra watt of power when not needed. So, I am doing a lot more than most Americans to fight global warming. I pay attention to all events one can possibly be aware of. I was aware of global warming before most Americans even heard of it.

Now about War and global hunger, What do I do about those... Wait, wait, wait just a minute... this is way off topic at this point. This thread is about Solar Storms and the possibility of a sever one disrupting the power grid, the chaos it would cause, and what people "plan to do" to survive until power and order is restored.

If someone wants to believe it will never happen or there is Nothing they can do after it happens, That is fine... for them. Please do not waste the time making a post to tell me how wrong I am for having a plan of action to help my family and friends endure such events "if and when" they happen.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

This would be a completly different threat than the ones the Emergency Managment Agencies predict and plan for.

Yet, people seem to be blowing off the event as trivial, at best. I'm beginning to think people will deserve what they get when something bad really does hit.

That is always the case when it comes to disaster prevention/preparation and Civil Protection/Disaster Aid. HK and I can tell, as we are a part of these institutions.

Security concepts, safety standards, emergency plans and disaster readiness are always updated when something bad happens.
(Though this is not a universal statement. Actually it is only 50% true).

Additionally, transportation (Cars, trucks, boats, etc) may be effected if the event is strong enough. Especially anything "in motion" when it hits. This does imply the possibility that airplanes might stall and fall to the ground.

Secondary, yet nearly instant critical systems to fail at the same time or within a couple days:
Water systems
Fuel systems
Medical and Emergency services.

All these will failure because they depend on electricity.

Now the big question... Without all this for a few weeks or more, ask yourself can I get by?

"If the effect is strong enough"
The problem is, that we need to know exactly how strong the event will be and what damage it will cause. No estimates, but facts.
Because for preparing emergency plans and for dispatching units it is a big difference, if you can use a "KTW4" (BLS ambulance with 4 stretchers) or if you need to get some alternate transportation - like walking.

Do not underestimate Civil Protection units. We are very resourceful
In fact, we can operate for a given time without electricity. If there is "just" a power outage, we have transportable generators (1.5x1x1 meters) which can provide electricity for a complete aid station. Same with the medical units of the Armed Forces. They even have generators hardened against EM bursts.
Water can be accessed with the help of the Fire Department and some of the ways to get water are not electrical, but mechanical.

Hospitals do also have a back-up systems. One of the hospitals around here uses the machine of a German Leopard 2 tank.

Even though power outtages will cause *major* disturbances I think we can at least provide a basic system of health care and emergency services - in the first world.
The biggest problem would probably be public safety. Though the large power outtage in New York seemed to be pretty crime-free (for NYC standards).

However I do not want to imagine the implications on the political and global scale.

And then there is the possibility that most electrical devices just cannot be operated anymore.
Well, then we're screwed. Because that means no back-up system, of course.