4 ms·
I'm published in the field of solar physics, though I dropped out of getting a PhD. I specialized in space weather modeling, and the solar wind specifically, an
by codezero 5y ago
I'm published in the field of solar physics, though I dropped out of getting a PhD. I specialized in space weather modeling, and the solar wind specifically, and studied a lot of larger flares that were Earth directed. I also dealt with the effects of strong solar activity on the spacecraft we used for our measurements (noise, downtime, etc...) so I am kind of familiar with the subject :)
A significant carrington event, in my opinion, would cause some surprising electronic failures, but not likely widespread ones.
The basis for my assumption (and that's all it is) is that previous failures of electronic systems because of solar flares have happened only on large scale electronics systems (power grids) and those systems were older, less shielded, and had bad tolerances.
Modern electronics, at least the bulk that are in daily use are much more shielded, higher quality, and resilient enough to not bring down civilization.
I'd expect it to be something more similar Y2K - definitely hit a few people, cost some money here and there, but literally everyone on the planet heard about it nonstop for quite some time because it might have been bad.
So, I think the tension around this is that, maybe depending on how astronomically large the event is, sure, it could be bad, like, if it stripped away our magnetosphere permanently somehow, yep, that'd suck and probably be a problem for humanity, but I find it to be on the unlikely end of things.
So folks aren't crazy for thinking it might cause some trouble, maybe even widespread, maybe even apocalyptic, but I think it's much more likely it will be an annoying and costly blip for most involved.
As an aside, I bet you'd be surprised with how often modern hardware has bit flips in memory because of cosmic rays alone, and we're mostly OK with that.
- goodcanadian 5y agoI am slightly more pessimistic than you. I would expect it to wreak havoc with power grids. There will be widespread power outages. As you say, the protection devices should limit the amount of serious damage, though there will be some. I expect it will take some time to restore power, though, as there will be many places where things need to be manually reset: hours to days. A few unlucky places may be without power for weeks. Electronics will largely be unaffected unless through bad luck of being connected without adequate protection to something else that suffers a surge (mains power or wired communications).
- codezero 5y agoI may be generally optimistic because I grew up in a place that regularly (once every few years) was without power for more than a week at a time and it wasn’t that bad as long as you were even barely prepared. I guess I believe we can patch up what ever does break within weeks or months and our society (the last year highlights) can survive in very extreme conditions. Temporary loss of technological comforts isn’t so big, and I believe, temporary.
- perl4ever 5y agoSeems like the issue would be if (almost) everywhere has an outage that isn't quickly repairable simultaneously. So many phenomena relating to the pandemic have been disruptive more because of synchronization of normally random things.
- codezero 5y agoYep. I just don’t think it’s likely to cause a global meltdown, lots of localized annoying failures. Maybe a few really bad spots.
- TMWNN 5y ago>Modern electronics, at least the bulk that are in daily use are much more shielded, higher quality, and resilient enough to not bring down civilization. Does the same shielding required for consumer electronics to meet FCC Class B requirements also protect them from solar events?
- codezero 5y agoHaven’t done anything to back this up, but I suspect buildings and cars are extra shielding for the bulk of what we need to avoid absolute meltdown. I also suspect modern manufacturing tolerances in general are better than needed and most FCC regulation seems to be focused on protecting the device from damaging other devices or interfering with the ambient EMF.
- rcxdude 5y agoThe main thing which protects them is size. Roll a neodynium magnet around a laptop or cell phone and it's already experienced a far larger magnetic field change than will ever appear due to a solar flare. The earth's magnetic field holds immensly more energy than the magnet but it's so extremely diffuse it will only effectively couple into massive-scale structures.