9 ms·

Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012

234 points by jamessun 12y ago

herendin 12y ago
As the event lasted only 4 hours, does that mean it would have had different levels of effect on different regions of the planet? Countries on the far side would be better shielded.
- ars 12y ago
  I don't see mention of 4 hours, but presumably that's how long it took to either erupt or transit through empty space. If it hit the earth it would have slowed down and stayed longer. The charged particles interacting with the magnetic field of the earth would have produced a planet wide EMP (larger than even a nuke could do). The charged particles would have induced electric current in any large wire and would have acted on the whole planet.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > I don't see mention of 4 hours, but presumably that's how long it took to either erupt or transit through empty space. It took only 4 hours to get from the Sun to Earth, but then it 'slows down' and hangs about?
  - herendin 12y ago
    4 hours was approximately the duration of the CME according to the times under one of the videos. I was thinking of the 1989 CME, which had localised effects in Canada. But that was much smaller
lcusack 12y ago
So basically the Mayans would have been right?
- bprater 12y ago
  "21 December 2012" was the proposed date of the Mayan Apocalypse. So the end of the world would have been a few month early.
  - angersock 12y ago
    Should've used NTP or PTP.
lifeformed 12y ago
How predictable are these storm events?
- codezero 12y ago
  There are different factors that make some things predictable and some not. Many models use the solar rotation as a baseline, so some structure that was there in one rotation will likely be there in the next one (this is similar to persistence modeling in climate). Sudden, large CMEs are not necessarily predictable, but they may be to some degree, most of the solar wind modeling efforts are aimed at determining the time of arrival of a structure on the Sun at Earth (or whether it will arrive) rather than determining if such a structure will happen or not, though as I said, there are some ways to make educated guesses. Once you think a CME will be Earth directed, the important factors are how strong it is (magnetic field and proton density) and how soon it will arrive. Steady solar wind takes about four days to make the journey but huge solar flares may take less than 24 hours, all told, this is still plenty of time for most satellite operators to prepare their satellites by baffling them or taking other precautionary measures.
js2 12y ago
Other than the breathless headline, WaPo adds nothing to the original reporting. Suggest to change the link to http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/ http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23... and use that article's title (“Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012”).
- webXL 12y ago
  I agree. Although reading some of the comments on WaPo makes me happy to be on HN.
  - ryan_j_naughton 12y ago
    I couldn't agree more. Reading the comments on wapo wherein individuals ridiculed the NASA report as pseudoscience and compared it to global warming (as deniers) utterly depressed me. Then I read the HN comments where there is an evidence driven debate over the extent of the possible impact of such an event (generally concluding utter catastrophe), and my hope is restored.
  - ryan_j_naughton 12y ago
    I couldn't agree more. Reading the comments on wapo wherein individuals ridiculed the NASA report as pseudoscience and compared it to global warming (as deniers) utterly depressed me. Then I read the HN comments where there is an evidence driven debate over the extent of the possible impact of such an event (generally concluding utter catastrophe), and my hope is restored.
- dang 12y ago
  Thanks. We changed to that (from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/07/23/how-a-solar-storm-nearly-destroyed-life-as-we-know-it-two-years-ago http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/...).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
codezero 12y ago
I previously did research forecasting solar storms. original comment: Highly unlikely, they compare it to the Carrington storm of 1859, which didn't destroy any life (or even life as we know it), so even if it were more powerful, it probably wouldn't have destroyed all life. It may have interfered with a lot of satellites and communications systems though. edit: Any damage from a Carrington level event would likely have been localized and temporary. For life as we know it to be destroyed, it would be irrecoverable or permanent, which is why I am arguing against the statement "life as we know it would be destroyed." Many satellites are exposed to the open solar wind all the time, and ones in low Earth orbit, though shielded to some degree by the magnetosphere are designed to deal with large solar flares either by baffling sensitive instruments or shutting down temporarily (some may even change their orbit).
- meowface 12y ago
  The phrasing is "life as we know it", which is much less severe than actual life. Though I imagine hospitals and other medical facilities might encounter serious issues, including inpatient deaths, were such a big solar storm to occur.
  - codezero 12y ago
    I still don't think this is accurate. I say this as someone who used to study solar physics and worked with people on the STEREO team. We've seen lots of powerful solar events strike the Earth and so far, even the ones that have struck in times of modern technology have only caused localized issues, and those localized issues were usually a result of some level of poor design.
    - pyre 12y ago
      > Carrington storm of 1859 Isn't this storm supposed to have set telegraph wires on fire? Why would the magnetic field involved here not do the same to our electric grid? Wouldn't most transformers be overloaded / damaged by the additional electricity induced on the grid? Or is this less likely to happen everywhere? It's been a while since I studied electro-magnetism, but IIRC a magnetic field induced a current orthogonal to it's direction. Does this mean that not all transmission lines would be equally affected?
kjs3 12y ago
I really need to get busy building that Faraday cage in the basement.
- ars 12y ago
  I know you are joking, but to take you seriously for a moment, a Faraday cage would not help at all. A Faraday cage only shields against high frequency fields, but a CME is a very low frequency event. You need mu-metal, and huge amounts of it. Plus it would knock out the power grid, so all the gear in your basement wouldn't be all that useful.
  - skaevola 12y ago
    Can you explain the frequency dependence of the Faraday cage? The only time I can think of them being ineffective is against waves which are above the plasma frequency of the metal the cage is made of.
    - ars 12y ago
      If the wavelength of the EMF is larger than the size of the entire cage it will go through the cage like it wasn't there. (Although it would also have a hard time affecting the small items inside.) A Faraday cage also can not shield against a static, or slowly changing magnetic field.
graycat 12y ago
Let's see: Say that one of these storms arrives at a point in time. Then over time, these storms form a stochastic point process. Now it should be fairly clear intuitively that at least roughly increments, that is, arrivals of points, are stationary in time and independent. Presto: It follows that the stochastic point process is a Poisson process about which we know a lot. So, we'd like the arrival rate of this Poisson process, say, in arrivals per year. Okay, we can get a good estimate just by dividing the number of arrivals we have observed over the number of years we have been observing. Then with this estimate of the arrival rate, we can calculate the probability of an arrival in, say, the next 10 years. Since, when was it, 18?? or some such, we've actually had no arrivals at all that hit Earth, the arrival rate is low and the chances of an arrival in the next 10 years is low. Relax! Good news, right? I mean, the sky is not really falling this time after all!
- mturmon 12y ago
  Bad news for this model: it's not stationary, due to the 11-year solar cycle, and to other behaviors at longer time scales superimposed on the cycle. But if you average out over at least the solar cycle, you could come up with a rate of superstorms per-cycle. There have been about 15 cycles since the 1859 superstorm, which would mean that perhaps you expect ~ 1 chance in 15 of such a storm in the coming cycle.
  - graycat 12y ago
    Of course what I mentioned is also called the 'axiomatic' derivation of the Poisson process. In part it's nice because it starts with 'qualitative' assumptions and ends up with the full algebra of the process and its distribution and independence of times between arrivals. Details are in E. Cinlar, 'Introduction to Stochastic Processes' in his chapter on the Poisson process. There he also touches on the non-stationary case, and what he has may (I'm in hurry this morning) be equivalent to your "average out over ... the cycle". Since a finite sum of independent Poisson processes is a Poisson process, your 1 in 15 over the next cycle may be equivalent to 1 in 2014 - 1859 years over the next year. I do the same for asteroids: We have a good ballpark estimate of the rate of killer asteroids, and the rate is low enough to f'get about it.
chatmasta 12y ago
I wish the article spent some time discussing how we can defend against the effects of storms like this. It mentions a 12% chance of getting hit by one in the next 10 years (and I assume that percentage is much higher for a probability space of the next 50 or 100), but makes no mention of potential mitigation strategies. Can you imagine how disastrous this would be? People would likely wake up without power, and think little of it at first. "Oh, it's a power outage. Better light some candles and wait it out." Then hours, days would pass. There would be no internet, television, or even newspapers to report what happened. We would be reduced to hearing the news from Shakespearian harriers! I wonder if this would cause mass revolt. What happens when you completely disable modern technology on all of earth? If this is as likely as they say it is, there needs to be some serious research into mitigation strategies not only of the immediate technological effects, but also of the sociological effects. Edit: maybe not all of earth, as the NASA page compares this to a localized blackout in Quebec. Can anyone comment on the geographical range of damage?
- ars 12y ago
  To defend against it you just need a fuse, or a relay. Put one on each transformer that cuts power if it exceeds limits, this would save the transformer and would allow us to restore function pretty quickly.
  - chatmasta 12y ago
    That seems like a cheap solution that would protect not only against solar storms, but lightning strikes as well. Are these fuses common in transformers? If not, why?
    - ars 12y ago
      I don't think they have them - just watch any transformer fire fueled by electricity. I say "fuse or relay", but for the power levels involved these are NOT simple components.
      - growupkids 12y ago
mseebach 12y ago
From the linked NASA article: > "... knock modern civilization back to the 18th century ..." and later: > "According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina." Is that figure for the US, or the world? Also, while that's a lot of money, it's not "knock modern civilization back to the 18th century"-money. So which one is it? Neither the NASA or WaPo article seems to give a clear answer.
- ars 12y ago
  It would have wiped out the power grid, no power to anyone for months. (Unless you had a generator and fuel.) Although we would fix it. Assuming current levels of production it would take years to fully repair, but I assume after a disaster we would massively increase the rate of production and it wouldn't be as bad as some make out. Poorer counties, and those without a manufacturing base, would be in much much worse shape though.
  - chatmasta 12y ago
    The power grid where? In every country? Or just one/a few?
    - ars 12y ago
      Probably every country.
      - chatmasta 12y ago
        So why was the 1989 storm localized? Just because it was much smaller? Do those metrics for measuring the six did the storm correspond to geographic spread?
        ars 12y ago
        It was not localized (It affected both the US and the UK), but rather Canada was uniquely sensitive to it because of the very long transmission wires and that there is no conductive soil to earth the power. These days everyone is "uniquely" sensitive to it.
spartanatreyu 12y ago
bullshit headline
myth_buster 12y ago
Warning: Click-bait title.
stretchwithme 12y ago
The state of California spent $500 million on the bike path for the new eastern span of the SF bay bridge. And probably significantly less preparing for threats like this one.
- orthecreedence 12y ago
  Yes, that $500M could have been spent encasing every power line, transformer, and appliance in SF in 2 inches of lead.
ajarmst 12y ago
Sounds like there's a bit of "no one ever got fired/pilloried for claiming that things were going to be worse than they turned out to be!" going on. I remember a lot of that going around in 1995-99. Study the issue, advocate for mitigation strategies, by all means. But let's dial back the "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE LIKE LEMMINGS" a bit, hmmm?
- codezero 12y ago
  This is true, it's also reflected in weather reports where there is a bias to forecast rain. Nobody is mad that they brought an umbrella.
quarterwave 12y ago
In II-1-5 [1] we learn that magnetism is a relativistic effect whose strength is v^2/c^2. This ratio is a very small number for the electron drift velocities associated with typical currents in copper wires, yet we perceive magnetic forces because positive and negative electric charges in the wire are balanced to better than v^2/c^2. Can anyone indicate how + and - charges are distributed in a CME? Are there strong electric fields due to local charge imbalances? For the magnetic field, it's tempting to say that the drift velocity of charges in a CME is high (as much as 0.001c) but then wouldn't charges of both polarities be moving with that (average) speed? Perhaps there is some initial motion when the charges are ejected from the sun? [1] http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_01.html#Ch1-S5 http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_01.html#Ch1-S5
lotsofmangos 12y ago
A big steel box full of batteries and solar panels kept mothballed in the basement sounds like it might be a good idea.
jrockway 12y ago
I guess "destroyed life as we know it" is awfully literal. It means that "life as we know it" is "electricty costs 22 cents a kilowatt hour and GPS exists". Yes, the power grid could have blown up. We would have then paid more for electricity. (It's unclear to me if the effect is global, or Earth shields the nighttime side from the impact.) Satellites would probably stop working. So air traffic would have to use VOR/NDB/DME instead of GPS. Ships would use LORAN. Weather forecasters would use radar instead of satellite (a problem during hurricane season). This headline makes me angry. It's not like we would have been instantly vaporized. Some stuff would be less convenient until we rebuilt it. That's it.
- cperciva 12y ago
  Yes, the power grid could have blown up. We would have then paid more for electricity. Many people wouldn't be able to get electricity at all. Sure, you can buy portable generators, so having the power grid collapse isn't automatically a problem -- but there aren't enough portable generators in the world to power everything, even if we had the necessary quantities of fuel on hand. So air traffic would have to use VOR/NDB/DME instead of GPS Assuming VOR/NDB/DME stations had power and hadn't been set on fire by induced currents during the magnetic storm, sure...
  - kamaal 12y ago
    To think of primary scenarios is a wrong way to think about it. We may not get blown to ash. But production of much of critical stuff[Food/Medicine/Sanitation] requires electricity these days. There is absolutely no way you are going mass produce and sustain food production for the level of population we have on earth, by using old stone age techniques. And this is first secondary effect. Food needs to transported, processed etc. How will all this happen without electricity? Image what would happen if there is no electricity in the military. Which is such critical functions like that will get bulk of the available supply, leaving very little for everything else. We may not go extinct, but given general shortage of food, struggle for resources and break down of law and order. The world will be a very different place.
    - 12y ago
gravity13 12y ago
Bad title jamessun. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nwenzel 12y ago
If the power was out for a period of months, if the internet, cable tv, phones, and all electronic communication were down so on day 2, you only knew that the power was out and you couldn't reach anybody, what would you need to do to survive? Wait it out seems somewhat optimistic. No refrigeration means any fresh food would spoil pretty quickly. Better hope that garden can be scaled up. Clean water would become an issue first though. I don't know where the nearest lake or stream is. Though I imagine several days away on foot. Assuming you made it that long protection would become an issue. You'd want to be sure you had good relationships with your with your neighbors. It really doesn't take much to get pretty far down the doomsdayer path I guess. Lesson learned... optimize for happiness everyday.
- woah 12y ago
  It's still possible to talk to people in person
- zorbo 12y ago
  > Clean water would become an issue first though. I don't know where the nearest lake or stream is Under your feet. :)
  - nextw33k 12y ago
    You are so right, it amazes me that people are focusing on getting guns rather than teaching people to dig a well (few days effort, less if others are helping) or plant crops. Has Minecraft taught this generation nothing? ;-)
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > what would you need to do to survive? Guns. Lots of guns. After the fresh food and water runs out in cities, you'll have masses of people abandoning urban areas in desperate hope to find food. Any settlement nearby will be pillaged. So if you have a garden, better be prepared to defend it.
sidcool 12y ago
It was in 2012. Too close for comfort.
yawz 12y ago
I absolutely hate these exaggerated headlines!!!
nardi 12y ago
> These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), compromised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years. Tsk, Washington Post. I think you mean "comprised."
dba7dba 12y ago
Would the solar storm affect only the side of the Earth facing the Sun or the entire Earth? Thanks in advance.
theaeolist 12y ago
“This double-CME traveled through a region of space that had been cleared out by yet another CME four days earlier,” NASA says. ” As a result, the storm clouds were not decelerated as much as usual by their transit through the interplanetary medium.” Just curious, what exactly was cleared out? I thought the interplanetary medium is just empty space.
- Qantourisc 12y ago
  There are no absolutes in physics (well rarely any naturally curring anyway), space still has stuff in it. Even if it's just a small rock every kilo meter, that's still a lot of rocks. 149,597,870 rocks to be exact. (Assuming the number isn't wrong.) What was exactly cleared out I don't know though.
- thret 12y ago
  It isn't empty, although it has a very low particle density. I assumed that 'clearing out' means the opposite, that the area now had a higher than normal charged particle density, and thus it was easier to pass through? I'm also curious if anyone can give a thorough explanation.
vecter 12y ago
Thank God we live in a 3 dimensional space, where things rarely collide because the space is so "big" compared lower dimensions [0]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk#Higher_dimensions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk#Higher_dimensions
- exo762 12y ago
  And yet: > There is a 12 percent chance of a Carrington-type event on Earth in the next 10 years
ddeck 12y ago
For those interested in an in-depth analysis of the risk, Lloyd's insurance produced a detailed report last year looking at this issue: Solar Storm Risk to the North American Electric Grid [PDF] http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk%20reports/solar%20storm%20risk%20to%20the%20north%20american%20electric%20grid.pdf http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk... Summary here: http://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insight/news-and-features/environment/environment-2013/us-east-coast-at-high-risk-from-solar-storms http://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insight/news-and-features/env... Some key points: Weighted by population, the highest risk of storm-induced power outages in the US is along the Atlantic corridor between Washington D.C. and New York City. The total U.S. population at risk of extended power outage from a Carrington-level [estimated to occur every ~150 years] storm is between 20-40 million, with durations of 16 days to 1-2 years. The wide variation of expected duration is is dependent on the number of transformers destroyed: If spares are readily available, the total transportation and setup time for a large power transformer can range from a few weeks to months depending on distance and logistical issues. If new transformers need to be ordered, the lead-time is estimated to be between 5-12 months for domestic suppliers, and 6-12 months for international suppliers.
- ogrisel 12y ago
  I am wondering: if the large power transformers are the most critical asset, wouldn't it make sense to try to protect them in Faraday cages capable of sustaining high levels of current without melting down? The cost of such cages are likely to be much much smaller than the cost of power outage lasting months or years for millions of people.
  - ddeck 12y ago
    A user (growupkids) from the industry posted on this below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078076 >I work in commercial electrical power. No they don't. Because they aren't required to. It's all about costs. So unless it's about known risks (read PRA), no they don't protect against it. You need to spend money where the risks happen.
  - 12y ago
junto 12y ago
Could such an event be powerful enough to flip the Earth's polarity?
staunch 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_slippers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_slippers
easyname 12y ago
people interested in regular updated on solar flare can look into this youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ
carsonreinke 12y ago
Could some explain technically what happens to transformers with a solar storm? Can they not be repaired in some manner?
- gone35 12y ago
  It's not 100% clear yet and there might be other factors (eg gas leakages or harmonic-induced damages to relays), but it seems the main effect is rapid internal heating caused by stray magnetic flux leakages from the saturated core [1,2]. Hot spots beyond a certain threshold end up severely damaging internal components, rendering the transformer inoperable --or at best sharply reducing its operating lifetime [3]. Repairs in these cases pretty much entail retrofitting the whole damn thing, so the months-long disruption is all the same either way. [1] http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-319.pdf http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliabilit... [2] http://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/spaceweather.pdf http://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/spaceweather.pdf [3] http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk%20reports/solar%20storm%20risk%20to%20the%20north%20american%20electric%20grid.pdf http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk...
- snake_plissken 12y ago
  My E&M is rusty but if I recall correctly, the electric field from the steam of charged particles will induce a voltage change in the transformer's wiring as the stream flows past/through the transformer, and as the transformer works by using a magnetic core to induce voltage changes from one coil to another coil, the voltage output is higher than the components on the output side can handle and the components get fried. I think.
halfcat 12y ago
What happens to everyone's net worth if power goes away for months or years? If I have, say, $1M in the bank (I don't), and the power returns after 2-3 years, do I still have money?

234 points by jamessun 12y ago

As the event lasted only 4 hours, does that mean it would have had different levels of effect on different regions of the planet? Countries on the far side would be better shielded.

ars 12y ago
I don't see mention of 4 hours, but presumably that's how long it took to either erupt or transit through empty space. If it hit the earth it would have slowed down and stayed longer. The charged particles interacting with the magnetic field of the earth would have produced a planet wide EMP (larger than even a nuke could do). The charged particles would have induced electric current in any large wire and would have acted on the whole planet.
- pyre 12y ago
  > I don't see mention of 4 hours, but presumably that's how long it took to either erupt or transit through empty space. It took only 4 hours to get from the Sun to Earth, but then it 'slows down' and hangs about?
- herendin 12y ago
  4 hours was approximately the duration of the CME according to the times under one of the videos. I was thinking of the 1989 CME, which had localised effects in Canada. But that was much smaller

lcusack 12y ago

So basically the Mayans would have been right?

bprater 12y ago
"21 December 2012" was the proposed date of the Mayan Apocalypse. So the end of the world would have been a few month early.
- angersock 12y ago
  Should've used NTP or PTP.

lifeformed 12y ago

How predictable are these storm events?

codezero 12y ago
There are different factors that make some things predictable and some not. Many models use the solar rotation as a baseline, so some structure that was there in one rotation will likely be there in the next one (this is similar to persistence modeling in climate). Sudden, large CMEs are not necessarily predictable, but they may be to some degree, most of the solar wind modeling efforts are aimed at determining the time of arrival of a structure on the Sun at Earth (or whether it will arrive) rather than determining if such a structure will happen or not, though as I said, there are some ways to make educated guesses. Once you think a CME will be Earth directed, the important factors are how strong it is (magnetic field and proton density) and how soon it will arrive. Steady solar wind takes about four days to make the journey but huge solar flares may take less than 24 hours, all told, this is still plenty of time for most satellite operators to prepare their satellites by baffling them or taking other precautionary measures.

js2 12y ago

Other than the breathless headline, WaPo adds nothing to the original reporting. Suggest to change the link to http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/ http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23... and use that article's title (“Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012”).

webXL 12y ago
I agree. Although reading some of the comments on WaPo makes me happy to be on HN.
- ryan_j_naughton 12y ago
  I couldn't agree more. Reading the comments on wapo wherein individuals ridiculed the NASA report as pseudoscience and compared it to global warming (as deniers) utterly depressed me. Then I read the HN comments where there is an evidence driven debate over the extent of the possible impact of such an event (generally concluding utter catastrophe), and my hope is restored.
- ryan_j_naughton 12y ago
  I couldn't agree more. Reading the comments on wapo wherein individuals ridiculed the NASA report as pseudoscience and compared it to global warming (as deniers) utterly depressed me. Then I read the HN comments where there is an evidence driven debate over the extent of the possible impact of such an event (generally concluding utter catastrophe), and my hope is restored.
dang 12y ago
Thanks. We changed to that (from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/07/23/how-a-solar-storm-nearly-destroyed-life-as-we-know-it-two-years-ago http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/...).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

codezero 12y ago

I previously did research forecasting solar storms. original comment: Highly unlikely, they compare it to the Carrington storm of 1859, which didn't destroy any life (or even life as we know it), so even if it were more powerful, it probably wouldn't have destroyed all life. It may have interfered with a lot of satellites and communications systems though. edit: Any damage from a Carrington level event would likely have been localized and temporary. For life as we know it to be destroyed, it would be irrecoverable or permanent, which is why I am arguing against the statement "life as we know it would be destroyed." Many satellites are exposed to the open solar wind all the time, and ones in low Earth orbit, though shielded to some degree by the magnetosphere are designed to deal with large solar flares either by baffling sensitive instruments or shutting down temporarily (some may even change their orbit).

meowface 12y ago
The phrasing is "life as we know it", which is much less severe than actual life. Though I imagine hospitals and other medical facilities might encounter serious issues, including inpatient deaths, were such a big solar storm to occur.
- codezero 12y ago
  I still don't think this is accurate. I say this as someone who used to study solar physics and worked with people on the STEREO team. We've seen lots of powerful solar events strike the Earth and so far, even the ones that have struck in times of modern technology have only caused localized issues, and those localized issues were usually a result of some level of poor design.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > Carrington storm of 1859 Isn't this storm supposed to have set telegraph wires on fire? Why would the magnetic field involved here not do the same to our electric grid? Wouldn't most transformers be overloaded / damaged by the additional electricity induced on the grid? Or is this less likely to happen everywhere? It's been a while since I studied electro-magnetism, but IIRC a magnetic field induced a current orthogonal to it's direction. Does this mean that not all transmission lines would be equally affected?

kjs3 12y ago

I really need to get busy building that Faraday cage in the basement.

ars 12y ago
I know you are joking, but to take you seriously for a moment, a Faraday cage would not help at all. A Faraday cage only shields against high frequency fields, but a CME is a very low frequency event. You need mu-metal, and huge amounts of it. Plus it would knock out the power grid, so all the gear in your basement wouldn't be all that useful.
- skaevola 12y ago
  Can you explain the frequency dependence of the Faraday cage? The only time I can think of them being ineffective is against waves which are above the plasma frequency of the metal the cage is made of.
  - ars 12y ago
    If the wavelength of the EMF is larger than the size of the entire cage it will go through the cage like it wasn't there. (Although it would also have a hard time affecting the small items inside.) A Faraday cage also can not shield against a static, or slowly changing magnetic field.

graycat 12y ago

Let's see: Say that one of these storms arrives at a point in time. Then over time, these storms form a stochastic point process. Now it should be fairly clear intuitively that at least roughly increments, that is, arrivals of points, are stationary in time and independent. Presto: It follows that the stochastic point process is a Poisson process about which we know a lot. So, we'd like the arrival rate of this Poisson process, say, in arrivals per year. Okay, we can get a good estimate just by dividing the number of arrivals we have observed over the number of years we have been observing. Then with this estimate of the arrival rate, we can calculate the probability of an arrival in, say, the next 10 years. Since, when was it, 18?? or some such, we've actually had no arrivals at all that hit Earth, the arrival rate is low and the chances of an arrival in the next 10 years is low. Relax! Good news, right? I mean, the sky is not really falling this time after all!

mturmon 12y ago
Bad news for this model: it's not stationary, due to the 11-year solar cycle, and to other behaviors at longer time scales superimposed on the cycle. But if you average out over at least the solar cycle, you could come up with a rate of superstorms per-cycle. There have been about 15 cycles since the 1859 superstorm, which would mean that perhaps you expect ~ 1 chance in 15 of such a storm in the coming cycle.
- graycat 12y ago
  Of course what I mentioned is also called the 'axiomatic' derivation of the Poisson process. In part it's nice because it starts with 'qualitative' assumptions and ends up with the full algebra of the process and its distribution and independence of times between arrivals. Details are in E. Cinlar, 'Introduction to Stochastic Processes' in his chapter on the Poisson process. There he also touches on the non-stationary case, and what he has may (I'm in hurry this morning) be equivalent to your "average out over ... the cycle". Since a finite sum of independent Poisson processes is a Poisson process, your 1 in 15 over the next cycle may be equivalent to 1 in 2014 - 1859 years over the next year. I do the same for asteroids: We have a good ballpark estimate of the rate of killer asteroids, and the rate is low enough to f'get about it.

chatmasta 12y ago

I wish the article spent some time discussing how we can defend against the effects of storms like this. It mentions a 12% chance of getting hit by one in the next 10 years (and I assume that percentage is much higher for a probability space of the next 50 or 100), but makes no mention of potential mitigation strategies. Can you imagine how disastrous this would be? People would likely wake up without power, and think little of it at first. "Oh, it's a power outage. Better light some candles and wait it out." Then hours, days would pass. There would be no internet, television, or even newspapers to report what happened. We would be reduced to hearing the news from Shakespearian harriers! I wonder if this would cause mass revolt. What happens when you completely disable modern technology on all of earth? If this is as likely as they say it is, there needs to be some serious research into mitigation strategies not only of the immediate technological effects, but also of the sociological effects. Edit: maybe not all of earth, as the NASA page compares this to a localized blackout in Quebec. Can anyone comment on the geographical range of damage?

ars 12y ago
To defend against it you just need a fuse, or a relay. Put one on each transformer that cuts power if it exceeds limits, this would save the transformer and would allow us to restore function pretty quickly.
- chatmasta 12y ago
  That seems like a cheap solution that would protect not only against solar storms, but lightning strikes as well. Are these fuses common in transformers? If not, why?
  - ars 12y ago
    I don't think they have them - just watch any transformer fire fueled by electricity. I say "fuse or relay", but for the power levels involved these are NOT simple components.
    - growupkids 12y ago

mseebach 12y ago

From the linked NASA article: > "... knock modern civilization back to the 18th century ..." and later: > "According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina." Is that figure for the US, or the world? Also, while that's a lot of money, it's not "knock modern civilization back to the 18th century"-money. So which one is it? Neither the NASA or WaPo article seems to give a clear answer.

ars 12y ago
It would have wiped out the power grid, no power to anyone for months. (Unless you had a generator and fuel.) Although we would fix it. Assuming current levels of production it would take years to fully repair, but I assume after a disaster we would massively increase the rate of production and it wouldn't be as bad as some make out. Poorer counties, and those without a manufacturing base, would be in much much worse shape though.
- chatmasta 12y ago
  The power grid where? In every country? Or just one/a few?
  - ars 12y ago
    Probably every country.
    - chatmasta 12y ago
      So why was the 1989 storm localized? Just because it was much smaller? Do those metrics for measuring the six did the storm correspond to geographic spread?
      - ars 12y ago
        It was not localized (It affected both the US and the UK), but rather Canada was uniquely sensitive to it because of the very long transmission wires and that there is no conductive soil to earth the power. These days everyone is "uniquely" sensitive to it.

spartanatreyu 12y ago

bullshit headline

myth_buster 12y ago

Warning: Click-bait title.

stretchwithme 12y ago

The state of California spent $500 million on the bike path for the new eastern span of the SF bay bridge. And probably significantly less preparing for threats like this one.

orthecreedence 12y ago
Yes, that $500M could have been spent encasing every power line, transformer, and appliance in SF in 2 inches of lead.

ajarmst 12y ago

Sounds like there's a bit of "no one ever got fired/pilloried for claiming that things were going to be worse than they turned out to be!" going on. I remember a lot of that going around in 1995-99. Study the issue, advocate for mitigation strategies, by all means. But let's dial back the "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE LIKE LEMMINGS" a bit, hmmm?

codezero 12y ago
This is true, it's also reflected in weather reports where there is a bias to forecast rain. Nobody is mad that they brought an umbrella.

quarterwave 12y ago

In II-1-5 [1] we learn that magnetism is a relativistic effect whose strength is v^2/c^2. This ratio is a very small number for the electron drift velocities associated with typical currents in copper wires, yet we perceive magnetic forces because positive and negative electric charges in the wire are balanced to better than v^2/c^2. Can anyone indicate how + and - charges are distributed in a CME? Are there strong electric fields due to local charge imbalances? For the magnetic field, it's tempting to say that the drift velocity of charges in a CME is high (as much as 0.001c) but then wouldn't charges of both polarities be moving with that (average) speed? Perhaps there is some initial motion when the charges are ejected from the sun? [1] http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_01.html#Ch1-S5 http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_01.html#Ch1-S5

lotsofmangos 12y ago

A big steel box full of batteries and solar panels kept mothballed in the basement sounds like it might be a good idea.

jrockway 12y ago

I guess "destroyed life as we know it" is awfully literal. It means that "life as we know it" is "electricty costs 22 cents a kilowatt hour and GPS exists". Yes, the power grid could have blown up. We would have then paid more for electricity. (It's unclear to me if the effect is global, or Earth shields the nighttime side from the impact.) Satellites would probably stop working. So air traffic would have to use VOR/NDB/DME instead of GPS. Ships would use LORAN. Weather forecasters would use radar instead of satellite (a problem during hurricane season). This headline makes me angry. It's not like we would have been instantly vaporized. Some stuff would be less convenient until we rebuilt it. That's it.

cperciva 12y ago
Yes, the power grid could have blown up. We would have then paid more for electricity. Many people wouldn't be able to get electricity at all. Sure, you can buy portable generators, so having the power grid collapse isn't automatically a problem -- but there aren't enough portable generators in the world to power everything, even if we had the necessary quantities of fuel on hand. So air traffic would have to use VOR/NDB/DME instead of GPS Assuming VOR/NDB/DME stations had power and hadn't been set on fire by induced currents during the magnetic storm, sure...
- kamaal 12y ago
  To think of primary scenarios is a wrong way to think about it. We may not get blown to ash. But production of much of critical stuff[Food/Medicine/Sanitation] requires electricity these days. There is absolutely no way you are going mass produce and sustain food production for the level of population we have on earth, by using old stone age techniques. And this is first secondary effect. Food needs to transported, processed etc. How will all this happen without electricity? Image what would happen if there is no electricity in the military. Which is such critical functions like that will get bulk of the available supply, leaving very little for everything else. We may not go extinct, but given general shortage of food, struggle for resources and break down of law and order. The world will be a very different place.
  - 12y ago

gravity13 12y ago

Bad title jamessun. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

nwenzel 12y ago

If the power was out for a period of months, if the internet, cable tv, phones, and all electronic communication were down so on day 2, you only knew that the power was out and you couldn't reach anybody, what would you need to do to survive? Wait it out seems somewhat optimistic. No refrigeration means any fresh food would spoil pretty quickly. Better hope that garden can be scaled up. Clean water would become an issue first though. I don't know where the nearest lake or stream is. Though I imagine several days away on foot. Assuming you made it that long protection would become an issue. You'd want to be sure you had good relationships with your with your neighbors. It really doesn't take much to get pretty far down the doomsdayer path I guess. Lesson learned... optimize for happiness everyday.

woah 12y ago
It's still possible to talk to people in person
zorbo 12y ago
> Clean water would become an issue first though. I don't know where the nearest lake or stream is Under your feet. :)
- nextw33k 12y ago
  You are so right, it amazes me that people are focusing on getting guns rather than teaching people to dig a well (few days effort, less if others are helping) or plant crops. Has Minecraft taught this generation nothing? ;-)
TeMPOraL 12y ago
> what would you need to do to survive? Guns. Lots of guns. After the fresh food and water runs out in cities, you'll have masses of people abandoning urban areas in desperate hope to find food. Any settlement nearby will be pillaged. So if you have a garden, better be prepared to defend it.

sidcool 12y ago

It was in 2012. Too close for comfort.

yawz 12y ago

I absolutely hate these exaggerated headlines!!!

nardi 12y ago

> These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), compromised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years. Tsk, Washington Post. I think you mean "comprised."

dba7dba 12y ago

Would the solar storm affect only the side of the Earth facing the Sun or the entire Earth? Thanks in advance.

theaeolist 12y ago

“This double-CME traveled through a region of space that had been cleared out by yet another CME four days earlier,” NASA says. ” As a result, the storm clouds were not decelerated as much as usual by their transit through the interplanetary medium.” Just curious, what exactly was cleared out? I thought the interplanetary medium is just empty space.

Qantourisc 12y ago
There are no absolutes in physics (well rarely any naturally curring anyway), space still has stuff in it. Even if it's just a small rock every kilo meter, that's still a lot of rocks. 149,597,870 rocks to be exact. (Assuming the number isn't wrong.) What was exactly cleared out I don't know though.
thret 12y ago
It isn't empty, although it has a very low particle density. I assumed that 'clearing out' means the opposite, that the area now had a higher than normal charged particle density, and thus it was easier to pass through? I'm also curious if anyone can give a thorough explanation.

vecter 12y ago

Thank God we live in a 3 dimensional space, where things rarely collide because the space is so "big" compared lower dimensions [0]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk#Higher_dimensions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk#Higher_dimensions

exo762 12y ago
And yet: > There is a 12 percent chance of a Carrington-type event on Earth in the next 10 years

ddeck 12y ago

For those interested in an in-depth analysis of the risk, Lloyd's insurance produced a detailed report last year looking at this issue: Solar Storm Risk to the North American Electric Grid [PDF] http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk%20reports/solar%20storm%20risk%20to%20the%20north%20american%20electric%20grid.pdf http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk... Summary here: http://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insight/news-and-features/environment/environment-2013/us-east-coast-at-high-risk-from-solar-storms http://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insight/news-and-features/env... Some key points: Weighted by population, the highest risk of storm-induced power outages in the US is along the Atlantic corridor between Washington D.C. and New York City. The total U.S. population at risk of extended power outage from a Carrington-level [estimated to occur every ~150 years] storm is between 20-40 million, with durations of 16 days to 1-2 years. The wide variation of expected duration is is dependent on the number of transformers destroyed: If spares are readily available, the total transportation and setup time for a large power transformer can range from a few weeks to months depending on distance and logistical issues. If new transformers need to be ordered, the lead-time is estimated to be between 5-12 months for domestic suppliers, and 6-12 months for international suppliers.

ogrisel 12y ago
I am wondering: if the large power transformers are the most critical asset, wouldn't it make sense to try to protect them in Faraday cages capable of sustaining high levels of current without melting down? The cost of such cages are likely to be much much smaller than the cost of power outage lasting months or years for millions of people.
- ddeck 12y ago
  A user (growupkids) from the industry posted on this below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078076 >I work in commercial electrical power. No they don't. Because they aren't required to. It's all about costs. So unless it's about known risks (read PRA), no they don't protect against it. You need to spend money where the risks happen.
- 12y ago

junto 12y ago

Could such an event be powerful enough to flip the Earth's polarity?

staunch 12y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_slippers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_slippers

easyname 12y ago

people interested in regular updated on solar flare can look into this youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ

carsonreinke 12y ago

Could some explain technically what happens to transformers with a solar storm? Can they not be repaired in some manner?

gone35 12y ago
It's not 100% clear yet and there might be other factors (eg gas leakages or harmonic-induced damages to relays), but it seems the main effect is rapid internal heating caused by stray magnetic flux leakages from the saturated core [1,2]. Hot spots beyond a certain threshold end up severely damaging internal components, rendering the transformer inoperable --or at best sharply reducing its operating lifetime [3]. Repairs in these cases pretty much entail retrofitting the whole damn thing, so the months-long disruption is all the same either way. [1] http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-319.pdf http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliabilit... [2] http://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/spaceweather.pdf http://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/spaceweather.pdf [3] http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk%20reports/solar%20storm%20risk%20to%20the%20north%20american%20electric%20grid.pdf http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk...
snake_plissken 12y ago
My E&M is rusty but if I recall correctly, the electric field from the steam of charged particles will induce a voltage change in the transformer's wiring as the stream flows past/through the transformer, and as the transformer works by using a magnetic core to induce voltage changes from one coil to another coil, the voltage output is higher than the components on the output side can handle and the components get fried. I think.

halfcat 12y ago

What happens to everyone's net worth if power goes away for months or years? If I have, say, $1M in the bank (I don't), and the power returns after 2-3 years, do I still have money?