7 ms·

> if they release any Earth-directed particles at all > It is the latest in a slew of bizarre observations as our sun is getting closer to a near-decadal peak

> if they release any Earth-directed particles at all > It is the latest in a slew of bizarre observations as our sun is getting closer to a near-decadal peak of solar activity. > It's not clear how our electrical, communication, and satellite system would fare in that scenario, as such a storm hasn't been spotted in decades, in which time humans have become much more reliant on technology. Or, perhaps, now we are just able to detect those solar activities with more precision than before, earlier, and we got used to have more sensationalist headlines?

ceejayoz 3y ago
This won't be it, but such concerns aren't entirely sensationalist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
- chmod775 3y ago
  Here's the bits that may most directly answer GP's question: > A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid. > In June 2013, a joint venture from researchers at Lloyd's of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) in the US used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the cost of a similar event in the present to the US alone at US$600 billion to $2.6 trillion (equivalent to $698 billion to $3.02 trillion in 2021[28]), which, at the time, equated to roughly 3.6 to 15.5 per cent of annual GDP.
swatcoder 3y ago
I don't think there have been any tremendous, relevant innovations in solar monitoring in a very long time. But (as with many other 10/100/1000 year events) we have been agressively positioning ourselves to be far more vulnerable to catastrophic impact. If contemporary society were written in Rust, quite a lot of it would be tagged "unsafe" for lack of wanting to deal with troublesome edge cases.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  There are now multiple satellites pointing at the Sun providing real-time updates. The image in the article is from SDO, Solar Dynamic Observatory. They are connected to sophisticated models predicting the Sun's weather. They can predict the direction and size of flares.
  - swatcoder 3y ago
    Sure, and does that materially change our ability to foresee or record the sort of large Earth-facing events we're discussing? The point is that for events of this class, we're not just "testing more often" as the person I replied to suggested. We do collect more data and can make more sophisticated models from that data, but the big stuff is a bit like seeing a thundercloud on the horizon and hasn't materially changed for all that tech.
    - ianburrell 3y ago
      We can predict with difficult if sunspots are going to produce flares, we can detect flares, and we can predict which direction they are going. We couldn't do any that decades ago. For thunderstorms on the horizon, we have tornado warnings. We also know if the thunderstorms belong to a hurricane since we can track them and somewhat predict their track.

ceejayoz 3y ago

This won't be it, but such concerns aren't entirely sensationalist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

chmod775 3y ago
Here's the bits that may most directly answer GP's question: > A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid. > In June 2013, a joint venture from researchers at Lloyd's of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) in the US used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the cost of a similar event in the present to the US alone at US$600 billion to $2.6 trillion (equivalent to $698 billion to $3.02 trillion in 2021[28]), which, at the time, equated to roughly 3.6 to 15.5 per cent of annual GDP.

swatcoder 3y ago

I don't think there have been any tremendous, relevant innovations in solar monitoring in a very long time. But (as with many other 10/100/1000 year events) we have been agressively positioning ourselves to be far more vulnerable to catastrophic impact. If contemporary society were written in Rust, quite a lot of it would be tagged "unsafe" for lack of wanting to deal with troublesome edge cases.

ianburrell 3y ago
There are now multiple satellites pointing at the Sun providing real-time updates. The image in the article is from SDO, Solar Dynamic Observatory. They are connected to sophisticated models predicting the Sun's weather. They can predict the direction and size of flares.
- swatcoder 3y ago
  Sure, and does that materially change our ability to foresee or record the sort of large Earth-facing events we're discussing? The point is that for events of this class, we're not just "testing more often" as the person I replied to suggested. We do collect more data and can make more sophisticated models from that data, but the big stuff is a bit like seeing a thundercloud on the horizon and hasn't materially changed for all that tech.
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    We can predict with difficult if sunspots are going to produce flares, we can detect flares, and we can predict which direction they are going. We couldn't do any that decades ago. For thunderstorms on the horizon, we have tornado warnings. We also know if the thunderstorms belong to a hurricane since we can track them and somewhat predict their track.