Slashdot Mirror
An Exercise To Model a "Solar Radiation Katrina"
Hugh Pickens writes in with an update on the warnings we discussed a year back about the dangers of a "solar Katrina." Now NPR is reporting on a tabletop exercise mounted in Boulder, Colorado by government workers attempting to model the effects of a worst-case solar electromagnetic storm. "...an exercise held in Boulder, Colorado, has investigated what might happen if the Earth were struck by a solar storm as intense as the huge storms that occurred in 1921 and 1859 — a sort of solar Katrina — and researchers found that the impact is likely to be far worse than in previous solar storms because of our growing dependence on satellites and other electronic devices that are vulnerable to electromagnetic radiation. 'In many ways, the impact of a major solar storm resembles that of a hurricane or an earthquake,' says FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, except that a solar Katrina would cause damage in a much larger area — power could be knocked out almost simultaneously in countries from Sweden to Canada and the US. In the exercise, the first sign of trouble came when radiation began disrupting radio signals and GPS devices, says Tom Bogdan, who directs the Space Weather Prediction Center. Ten or 20 minutes later electrically charged particles 'basically took out' most of the commercial satellites that transmit telephone conversations, TV shows, and huge amounts of data we depend on in our daily lives. But the worst damage came nearly a day later, when the solar storm began to induce electrical currents in high voltage power lines strong enough to destroy transformers around the globe, leaving millions of people in northern latitudes without power."
I would expect CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs to be reasonably safe (though any reading devices might be temporarily disabled or permanently damaged.) But what about HDDs? Are they sufficiently shielded against this?
Yes, losing power is a serious issue that will cost lives and losing GPS etc. would be very bad, too. But more and more of our cultural and scientific achievements are stored primarily on magnetic drives that may or may not be suitably shielded. How much at risk are those data, or should I invest in lead shielding for my backup storage drive?
As a genuine cyborg, my first concern about such "electrical storm/attack" fears & warnings is their impact on pacemakers and other life-sustaining electronic devices.
Anyone have meaningful commentary thereon?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
You're mixing up two effects. You're correct that the direct EM radiation would affect largely only the sunlit portion of the Earth. However, the "second punch" of these events is the large burst of protons that arrives the next day -- it's the solar wind, but several orders of magnitude larger than usual.
These protons are affected by the geomagnetic field, and (to simplify a lot) rain down in large regions generally centered around the magnetic poles (cf. the auroral ovals), where they induce very large currents in long conductors like power lines, leading to general power failures that could not be easily repaired.
This wouldn't be your garden-variety blackout -- it would require physical replacement of massive equipment for which there are no spares readily available -- at least not in the quantities needed. Large numbers of people -- entire provinces and states in North America, and likely entire nations in northern Europe -- would be without power for months while new equipment was manufactured and installed. This would lead to mass migrations out of these areas, which would lead to social disruption and significant loss of life as critical systems, whose backup generators and other emergency systems were not designed for such an extended outage, failed.
I was in south Florida for Hurricane Wilma, and I can report to you that the social structure of the region almost broke down during the week or two the region was without electricity -- and this was a natural disaster, albeit a severe one, that people understood and had largely prepared for. Power was restored relatively quickly then, because (a) the causes, downed power lines, were easy to find and repair, and (b) there was a massive influx of utility workers from the rest of the country to help out. In a solar flare scenario, the cause would be much harder to fix, and there would be a much larger affected area (and, consequently, a much smaller unaffected area from which to draw support).
the problem is when the induction causes the transformers at the ends of high tensions wires to blow, with no replacement available
you can build circuit breakers into such transformers, but a cost-benefit-risk analysis hasn't sided yet on the side of caution, even though the cost is not great. and no, we don't have a ready supply of the right transformers sitting around
paradoxically, the poorest nations of the world will do fine, because they are less dependent on electricty and electronics, and are closer to the equator. while the electricity and electronics dependent northern hemisphere will experience severe long lasting societal shocks, involving the mass disruption of the internet, other communications, and all the vital uses the northern hemisphere has built into their electrical grid
so we're all screwed when (not if) the next carrington effect is observed, out of simple laziness and complacency. we have had plenty warning, and we have freely chosen not to protect ourselves from this threat with a simple low cost circuit breaker style set up
http://passingstrangeness.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/the-carrington-flare/
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Was about a mysterious EMP that knocked out all electricity networks and computers in the USA and difficulty of returning to pre-1880 lifestyle.
Because the term's already been used for specific types of waves reflected through the sun:
I have reason to believe that this anonymous message in "STEREO Satellites Spot Solar Flare Tsunami" was posted by Joe Gurman, the Project Scientist for NASA's STEREO mission. (and for TRACE, and US Project Scientist for SOHO, and the head of the Solar Data Analysis Center) :
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Yes, I can. I can also choose to live outside tornado alley, or away from the San Andreas fault, or inside a gated community.
But it's naive to think everybody in America has the same options as the average slashdotter. Many of the people who "chose" not to leave NOLA in the time leading up to Katrina couldn't. Some didn't have money for bus tickets, or a way to transport a bed-ridden family member. Disregard them if it lets you sleep better, but those are facts.
People don't "choose" to live in trailer parks or crime-ridden neighborhoods or their car purely out of foolishness; people with less money have fewer options. Blame them for their "choices" if you want, but if they could afford a safer place they'd choose it.
In any natural disaster, the poor will be disproportionately affected. It's just a market reality.
I lived in a suburb of Detroit during the rolling blackout in the northeast. Drives that would normally take 10 minutes took hours, there were lines at the gas stations, people who didn't have cash on hand were scrambling to borrow money because they couldn't get money from the ATM, etc.
It's not a matter of ability, it's a matter of population density. If you have access to enough food and water to live for several months and are reasonably assured there is no meaningful competition for those resources, you'll be fine.
In more rural areas, this is a non-issue. I live on 3 acres of land that include a dug well I can dip from, and I'm used to power outages and have 550 gallons of Kerosene for my furnace that can also be used to keep my KeroSun going for the better part of a year. My house water pipes are designed to be drained to keep them from freezing in an extended outage. I have a deep freeze full of food (I'd have to cook it as it thaws and preserve it that way), and lots of canned vegetables and fruit in the basement. I could probably get through an entire winter in reasonable comfort.
In a microapartment in the middle of the city, dependent on electricity for heat and city lines for water, something like this could turn into a big problem, really fast. They are currently being sustained by water that is treated and pumped to them. If power goes out, so do the treatment plants and the pumps. So you have to find untreated but safe water, and get it to them or them to it.
And keep in mind, power outages caused by geomagnetic storms can be continental in scale, and the damage can take weeks or months to repair. It's not likely, but it is possible, and this article is about a not-unrealistic worst case scenario. So you aren't going to be able to depend on much of anything.
How do you get fresh water every day to a city of 5 million people when there isn't electricity available for 500 miles in any direction? An 18-wheeler can haul about 8000 gallons of water. Assuming each person is limited to 2 quarts a day of water, you need over 300 trips per day. How do you distribute it? Can you sustain that for months? If you can't, where do you evacuate them all to? Is there enough water to sustain them? Is it safe, or does it need to be treated or boiled? Do they know how to get it without fouling it?
Now, say this happens in January. How do you keep them warm?
This article is about preparedness. Your house is fine, no need to grab the tent. Just be prepared for no electricity and no water for a month or so, and food may be hard to come by. Encourage your neighbors to do the same, or arm yourself. No big deal.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."