NASA Warns of Potential "Huge Space Storm" In 2013

Low Ranked Craig writes "Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes 'from a deep slumber' sometime around 2013. In a new warning, NASA said the super storm could hit like 'a bolt of lightning' and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world's health, emergency services, and national security — unless precautions are taken. Scientists believe damage could extend to everyday items such as home computers, iPods, and sat navs. 'We know it is coming but we don't know how bad it is going to be,' said Dr. Richard Fisher, the director of NASA's Heliophysics division. 'I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather.' Fisher concludes. 'We take this very seriously indeed.'"

Comments

Scary

[sonicmerlin]

Like a giant EMP bomb.

Re:Scary

[ThinkWeak]

So would something like an EMP destroy pace makers, artificial hearts, etc.? I know the typical discussion is in regards to someone not being able to listen to their Jason Mraz album on their iPod, but would something like this essentially kill anyone with an artificial/bionic enhancement that controls life support?

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

So would something like an EMP destroy pace makers, artificial hearts, etc.? I know the typical discussion is in regards to someone not being able to listen to their Jason Mraz album on their iPod, but would something like this essentially kill anyone with an artificial/bionic enhancement that controls life support?

No. My titanium ribs act as a Faraday Cage and protect my electronic innards. So after the disaster happens.... I'LL BE BACK.

Re:Scary

[vlm]

So would something like an EMP destroy pace makers

Pacemakers are installed inside a poorly constructed Faraday cage. That being your highly conductive body. Pacemakers historically have occasionally gotten all wound up in high RF fields, but aside from folks working at high power UHF TV station transmitters it has not been a serious issue.

You can "short out" and essentially blow the fuses of a pacemaker. Of course it takes more than enough power to hopelessly electrocute someone, in fact depending on the design you pretty much need to cook them like one of those electric hot dog cookers.

Its pretty much the usual useless scaremongering B.S.

would something like this essentially kill anyone with an artificial/bionic enhancement that controls life support?

Could something worse than we have ever experienced, result in deaths? Just speaking generally, not about any specific threat, and taking a wild guess, I'd say that's a good solid maybe, unless my salary depending on raising money by saying yes, in which case I'd say yes.

Re:Scary

[FTWinston]

Big transformers in the power grids will be the main victims. And all of us that rely on having a power grid, of course.
As long as you keep a spare car battery to recharge any bionics that require that, and provided that the outage doesn't last too long, I'd expect something like a pacemaker to be just fine.
GPS and cars are mentioned because its the satellites themselves that are vulnerable. The "ipods etc" stuff in the telegraph, assuming there's any reasoning behind their inclusion in the article at all, beyond scaring telegraph readers, will be just because they need recharged regularly.

What the actual NASA article boils down to is: if the satellite and power companies (disconnecting transformers, etc) react fast enough, we'll be fine. Otherwise, better make sure you have an exercise bike and a car battery handy. And, potentially, access to locally grown food. I'd rather not see how the urban supply chain holds up without the power grid.

Re:Scary

[angelwolf71885]

thats what im worried about i have a pace maker

Re:Scary

[Arthur Grumbine]

Big transformers in the power grids will be the main victims.

OMG... Won't someone think of the Decepticons!?!

Re:Scary

[FTWinston]

Dood, when decepticons get at a working power grid, it quickly stops being a working power grid.

Re: Scary

[Black Parrot]

So would something like an EMP destroy pace makers, artificial hearts, etc.?

Might be for the best. Anything strong enough to do that is going to kill most of us by starvation. Those who die instantly might be the lucky ones.

Re:Scary

[sortius_nod]

I seem to recall that the 1859 solar storm caused the telegraph (the service not the trashy paper) network to run without batteries for some time after it.

Who knows, maybe this will trigger new science for harnessing solar flares/space storms.

Re:Scary

[FTWinston]

It also caught fire.

Re:Scary

[quenda]

This morning's unprecedented solar eclipse - Is no cause for alarm ... Only Doctor Hans Zarkov formerly at NASA - Has provided any explanation

Flash will save us all. Except for iPhone/Pad users.

Re:Scary

[Bakkster]

Big transformers in the power grids will be the main victims. And all of us that rely on having a power grid, of course. As long as you keep a spare car battery to recharge any bionics that require that, and provided that the outage doesn't last too long, I'd expect something like a pacemaker to be just fine.

The issue you refer is to ground loop currents in the electric grid. The storm creates a difference in the ground voltage between different transformers. This creates a massive current that blows out the transformer.

The real issue is that the devices to prevent this (basically huge resistors) are expensive, rare, and take a long time to manufacture. And when we suddenly have half of the transformers in the US explode at once, the outage will not be brief. There is not a large stock of transformers sitting in warehouses as replacements. Transformers take even longer to produce than those resistors, and we would be waiting months before we could repair most of the grid. That's a huge issue.

Re:Scary

[John Hasler]

> So would something like an EMP destroy pace makers, artificial hearts, etc.?

Sufficiently intense EMP could do that, yes. But this is not EMP. While the energy delivered over a large area is enormous the rate of change of the magnetic field is not high enough to induce damaging currents in small objects. You can think of it in terms of energy density. The field fluctuations can have trillions of joules of energy but they are the size of continents. Thus they can easily destroy continent-sized structures such as electrical distribution networks but not deliver enough power to the few cubic centimeters occupied by a pacemaker or cellphone to damage it.

Alternatively, consider the wavelengths involved. Because of the slow rates of change of the field the energy is all at frequencies such that the wavelengths are many thousands of kilometers. These couple fairly well to thousand kilometer transmission lines but not at all to the one centimeter wires in your 'pod.
.

Re:Scary

[robthebloke]

You must be the oldest person on slashdot!

Re:Scary

[Gerzel]

Pace makers were not mentioned in the article. It's computers and electronics that we're worried about here and those if they go will cost many more lives than any pace maker.

Not just emergency, police, fire and health services. Those are only the small bits. The real worry is the financial and grocery distribution. In other words it could possably take down parts of the internet and disrupt shipping and payment services vital to the everyday, feed people, economy.

Re:Scary

[kimvette]

As long as you keep a spare car battery to recharge any bionics that require that, and provided that the outage doesn't last too long, I'd expect something like a pacemaker to be just fine.

I haven't heard of any rechargeable defibrillators/pacemakers. They usually have lithium ion or nuclear (Pu-238) batteries, don't they?

GPS and cars are mentioned because its the satellites themselves that are vulnerable. The "ipods etc" stuff in the telegraph, assuming there's any reasoning behind their inclusion in the article at all, beyond scaring telegraph readers, will be just because they need recharged regularly.

The problem is that is an unknown. An EMP from a solar storm isn't going to discharge the batteries - the potential energy is going to be there from the oxides, sulfates/sulfites, or other chemical storage type the battery is designed around. The problem is the EMP will induce current and the potential is there for it to fry integrated circuits. Check this out:

From http://oddculture.com/culture/the-solar-super-storm-of-1859/ :

From Rainbow Riders Trading Post:

The auroral current could be used for transmitting and receiving telegraphic dispatches. This was done between 8:30 and 11:00 in the morning, on September 2, 1859, on the wires of the American Telegraph Company between Boston and Portland, and upon the wires of the Old Colony and Fall River Railroad Company between South Braintree and Fall River, among others. The length of time during each positive wave was only, however, 15 to 60 seconds. The following account came from between Boston and Portland.

Boston operator (to Portland operator): “Please cut off your battery [power source] entirely for fifteen minutes.”
Portland operator: “Will do so. It is now disconnected.”
Boston: “Mine is disconnected, and we are working with the auroral current. How do you receive my writing?”
Portland: “Better than with our batteries on. – Current comes and goes gradually.”
Boston: “My current is very strong at times, and we can work better without the batteries, as the aurora seems to neutralize and augment our batteries alternately, making current too strong at times for our relay magnets. Suppose we work without batteries while we are affected by this trouble.”
Portland: “Very well. Shall I go ahead with business?”
Boston: “Yes. Go ahead.”

At which point, the Boston operator began transcribing 19th Century Vintage erotica.

The conversation was carried on for around two hours using no battery power at all and working solely with the current induced by the aurora, and it was said that this was the first time on record that more than a word or two was transmitted in such manner.

Keep in mind that over the long distance (even if it's just Portland, ME and not Portland, OR) it requires more than a few volts to traverse the distance and run those electromagnets due to transmission losses. Any voltage+current strong enough to run the electromagnets in those telegraph stations is probably way more than enough to fry modern integrated circuits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/23oct_superstorm/

Re:Scary

[FTWinston]

And keep in mind that the telegraph wires are really long whereas those on any biomedical implants are not. Length is key when it comes to this sort of thing - I've been saying the effects are proportional to the length of the wire, but I've been corrected and told that its the length of the wire squared, making the difference even more vast.

I've no experience with pacemakers, but I do recall seeing one chap on the news with an artificial heart that had to recharge it daily.

Re:Scary

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Now get off his lawn!

Re:Scary

[vlm]

grocery distribution

You're looking at it from a consumer perspective. The real problem is infrastructure.

I can buy a remarkable quantity and variety of food at my local weekly farmers market direct from the local farmers... I would assume that could scale up quite a bit if necessary.

I'm not belittling the other problems, just saying that is possible to buy food, in fact excellent locally grown food, beyond pizza rolls from a walmart supercenter. I/we can eat quite well indeed without making sam walton's heirs richer, or making the new york banks richer by swiping a VISA card.

I would agree that coasties in the heart of big cities and desert dwellers in AZ would pretty much have to starve to death. But the quality of life is already so low in such areas, can you be surprised at the results if an EMP dropped the QOL even further? Not really.

Most of the population has zero/negative net worth, with only 1% or so having almost all the money. Frankly a financial reboot would probably do a lot of good for the country. This coming from a guy who's doing pretty good although not quite in the 1% yet.

The problem you're not seeing is infrastructure. No electricity rapidly means no plumbed treated tap water. The good news is I live in a river community. The bad news is the communities upstream have no electricity to run their sewage treatment plans. Pestilence and disease is going to be the big problem.

Re:Scary

[kimvette]

The voltage+current surges required to destroy the power grid are enormous. The power required to fry a VSLI is miniscule - especially for modern ICs that run at 1.5V. I'm sure a "perfect storm" could scale down accordingly and cause damage to some smaller devices in regions that are receiving a particularly strong blast. The thing is, it's an unknown and even the "experts" (in quotes because it's all just hypothesis having never truly been observed with modern instrumentation on the scale that is feared in this speculative article) in the field are questioning what the extent of the damage will be if we get the equivalent (or worse) to the storm of 1859.

We rely so much on technology - how could you get by? Coal is hard to come by, most of us do not know how to smelt iron (I sure don't), fireplaces are not present in most homes now, and most of us do not own horses, so just surviving in modern society could prove to be extremely difficult in colder climates in an industrialized region. The Amish will be laughing at us saying "we told you English that modern conveniences are nothing but trouble."

What are the chances of such a major storm hitting, AND the conditions being exactly right to take out the entire power grid and induce enough voltage to fry household and office electronics, and the ECUs in our cars/trucks/SUVs? Probably very slim at best. The paranoid among us might want to run out and vehicles with diesel engines though. ;)

Re:Scary

[Bemopolis]

Ming: Klytus, I'm bored. What play thing can you offer me today?
Klytus: An obscure body in the S-K System, your majesty. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet...Earth.
Ming: I like to play with things while... before annihilation.
Ming: Pathetic Earthlings - who can save you now?

Flash, a-ah, saviour of the universe
Agent: Strange object imaged in the Imperial Vortex.

Flash, a-ah, you saved every one of us
Ming: Remove the Earth woman. Prepare her for our pleasure.

Flash, a-ah
Aura: Don't kill him yet, father. I want him.
He's a miracle

Dale: Go Flash, go
Flash, a-ah

Barin: Flash
Flash, a-ah, king of the impossible
He's for everyone of us Stand for everyone of us He saved with a mighty hand Every man every woman Every child - he's a mighty flash

Flash


Take that, you earworm-planting nerfherder.

Re:Scary

[skuzzlebutt]

It's Apple's own fault for rejecting Flash.

Re:Scary

[skuzzlebutt]

Self-woosh. Signing off. Tip your waitress.

Re:Scary

[JockTroll]

Dispatch war rocket "Ajax" to bring back his body!

Re:Scary

[ThinkWeak]

I can understand they are pointing everyone to the typical things we use on a daily basis. Everyone thinks the world ends if our computers stop working. I don't necessarily think a reset button on the world would be a bad thing.

I was just wondering if anyone had looked into things that might be effected aside from a computer, television, or phone.

Re:Scary

[cusco]

For the large transformers (and relays) the lag time between order and delivery can be anywhere between 3 months and a year since they're all essentially custom-made. Most of the utilities only have one or maybe two spares on hand because they're so bloody expensive. They'll loan spare transformers to each other in case of emergency, but if everyone is down there won't be any to loan.

Since there are so few manufacturers there's no question about ramping up production to repair a trashed grid. Whole new facilities will have to come into being.

Re:Scary

[catmistake]

Just in case, I think the government should dispatch a few archeologists and experts on Mayan religion and culture to determine if the Maya were aware of or could track sunspots and magnetic solar storms, solar minimum and maximum, etc.

I always assumed if the end of the long count was an accurate prediction of the end of the world, then it would have to do with the orbital period of a celestial object we haven't discovered yet, and maybe won't until it's too late, but Dec21,2012, is a little too close to the end of a long solar slumber to be completely ignored.

Re:Scary

[buswolley]

All this smells like money, and economic booms, as everyone replaces their electronics.

Re:Scary

[caubert]

why not just shut the grid down for awhile... less damage done?

Re:Scary

[butlerm]

The government should probably require the utilities to keep a large number of transformers on hand. It would raise rates, but compared to losing power for three to six months...

Re:Scary

[MagikSlinger]

But yet only has a 7-digit user ID. :-)

Re:Scary

[maxwell demon]

He's so old that he has a hugely negative user ID, in fact so negative that it underflowed and rolled over to a large positive ID.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah the narcissism of experts. Think how important they must feel warning the world of impending catastrophe. Look mom despite the H1N1 plaque, global warming and Y2K its amazing I'm still around to write this message.

Re:Scary

[maxwell demon]

Why not instead require the protection resistors?

Re:Scary

[tom17]

Damn, that's on an old KLF single. 808 moody something version of Last Train to Trancentral. Always wondered what it was from.

Re:Scary

[Bakkster]

The article mentions this as the best bet. Of course, it requires advance warning, fast reaction, and the will to shut down the electric grid before a problem occurs (risking there not actually being an issue and pissing everyone off).

Re:Scary

[tom17]

Hmm no, it was from something else. That's my productivity gone while I look for it...

Re:Scary

[butlerm]

Sure, that is probably a better idea. But some extra transformers, just in case.

Re:Scary

[severoon]

Let this be a lesson to all those idiots that were in a tizzy about the end of the Mayan calendar. See, I told you that was nonsense—turns out they were wrong after all. It's 2013, people! The Mayans were off by an entire year.

When will we learn not to be so gullible!

Re:Scary

[sleeping143]

...but Dec21,2012, is a little too close to the end of a long solar slumber to be completely ignored.

I disagree, I'm not having any trouble ignoring it at all.

Re:Scary

[Danse]

Just in case, I think the government should dispatch a few archeologists and experts on Mayan religion and culture to determine if the Maya were aware of or could track sunspots and magnetic solar storms, solar minimum and maximum, etc.

And what would they have known about such things that we don't know now? What could they predict about the effects such an event would have on the electronics and computer systems of today? If they find illustrations of an iPad in some temple, then maybe I'll start taking you more seriously...

Re:Scary

[h4rr4r]

Coal is easy to get I can buy it a mile from my house. Iron smelting will not be an issue, we can reform metal we have already smelted.

Re:Scary

[imakemusic]

Weapons of Mass Destruction by Hive? Here you go.

Re:Scary

[PDX]

Time for us to wrap our boxes in tin foil. Another option is underground cities.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

It.
took.
some.
time.
to.
get.
signed.
up.

Re:Scary

[dave562]

Orbital, the original "Orbital" album. It also has such great quotes as, "Son, it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done. And if you see your mother this weekend, be sure to tell her..... SATAN, SATAN, SATAN"

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire is a clear sign of science at work!

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

No, like an EMP bomb that goes off for 8 days (more or less) as in the Carrington event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859).

Re:Scary

[tom17]

Not that, but I like it. It's prolly the Orbital one below :)

Re:Scary

[tom17]

Weird, why have I not checked out this album before? Chime is one of my fave tunes yet I never checked out the album it came on? really?

Anyway, I can't find which track has the FG quote above....

Re:Scary

[dave562]

I'm 95% certain it is somewhere on this album

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(green_album)

It has been a good decade since I last listened to that album. I lost the CD when I moved a while ago. I should probably go find a torrent. I'm sure someone else was kind enough to make a backup copy of it for me.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, Flash will use unnecessary resources causing everything to warm up only exacerbating the problem. HTML5 is the Space Storm shield you are looking for. HTML5 is also an open spec, meaning everyone can use it, saving the world for all.

Re:Scary

[tom17]

You were close. The Orb - Earth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6OMqERztXA

Thanks though, I wouldn't have gotten there without you, my music collection is at home and too big to find these tunes sometimes lol.

Re:Scary

[tom17]

Not sure if you saw my post below. It's The Orb - Earth...

Re:Scary

[tsm_sf]

I've got bad news for you.

My calendar ends this december!

Re:Scary

[marcosdumay]

Is "huge resistors" some layperson's translation of varistor? Or do they really use (ohmic) resistors to protected against that? I couldn't yet imagine how.

Re:Scary

[Bakkster]

But 'some' extra won't do you any significant good. We're not talking a solar storm knocking 1% of transformers out, and having spares for the ones at critical nodes. We're talking about 50+% of the transformers all across the country being destroyed simultaneously. To be effective, we would need to require they keep hundreds (or many more) transformers in reserve, which is not practical or effective.

Really, the only effective solution is 100% coverage with protection resistors.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll happen if you fill out the web forms in Old Ent.

Re:Scary

[dwywit]

I'm interested in the effects it might have on my solar PV panels. They're basically a simple semiconductor circuit - fairly robust physically, but will increased insolation energy levels cause problems, I wonder?

Re:Scary

[cusco]

Actually the electrical utilities were looking at stockpiling backup transformers, worried about roving bands of Al Qaeda or Neo-Nazi terrorists shooting up substations with deer rifles. The powers-that-be took one look at the price tag, saw their quarterly bonuses and yearly stock options evaporating, and nixed any sort of actual anti-terrorist preparation that went beyond window dressing. The reasoning seemed to be that if an attack caught them unprepared they'd just be fired and take their millions with them, but if they spent enough money to put a dent in the stock price they'd be out some serious money.

Disaster preparedness; just another victim of the MBA disease.

Re:Scary

[John Hasler]

> I'm sure a "perfect storm" could scale down accordingly and cause damage to
> some smaller devices in regions that are receiving a particularly strong
> blast.

I'm not. In fact, I'm fairly sure it couldn't.

> Coal is hard to come by...

Charcoal is easy to make.

> ...most of us do not know how to smelt iron (I sure don't)...

I do.

> fireplaces are not present in most homes now...

You wouldn't want one. You'd want a wood or coal furnace.

> ...and most of us do not own horses...

I do.

> The voltage+current surges required to destroy the power grid are enormous.

Fortunately, no one is predicting such a thing. The sort of event under discussion (similar to the 1859 event) would not destroy power grids. What it might do is severely damage the transformers connected to the ends of long transmission lines if they are not provided with proper protection. This could result in long outages over large areas, but it would not involve destruction of the grid.

Re:Scary

[shadowbearer]

  Parent should be modded informative, that's exactly what the real problem is.

  I'll add that it's nearly impossible for utilities to get any sort of damage insurance for this problem.

SB

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for FEMA to make a stock of that transformers. It's jobs, contracts, money and security.

Re:Scary

[realcoolguy425]

Please avoid the broken window economic fallacy, in that breaking things does not benefit an economy.

Re:Scary

[dugeen]

A repeat of the 1859 event is a truly frightening prospect. Carrington was supposedly able to see the final part of the flares without instruments, so powerful were they.

Re:Scary

[dogzdik]

Horse shit - resistors expensive?

BIG water resistors are dirt cheap to make.

You can dump enormous amounts of power through them.

Re:Scary

[Bakkster]

I appologize, I misremembered the values, and finally found the article again.

There are 5,000 transformers that need the resistors, and they would cost about $40k each. In the grand scheme of things, pretty cheap.

Re:Scary

[Bakkster]

Nope (I'm an EE), I really do mean dishwasher-sized ohmic resistor.

The power transmission is three-phase power. So, at the common terminal of the transformer on each end of a long transmission line there should be zero net current. Under all normal circumstances there is.

In the event of a solar storm, there is a DC current flowing through the wire, which usually isn't present. This resistor would go between the common terminal and earth ground, and both reduce the current present in the line and dissipate the power. See this picture.

Re:Scary

[Keith Henson]

What happens is that the induced current from magnetic storms is extremely low frequency, close enough to DC for transformers. The current, even if it isn't very much, saturates the cores. Then the 60 Hz AC current to the transformer goes sky high and boils the oil in the transformers. Not good. There are technical ways to get around this, but for rare events, the least complicated is to just shut down the parts of the grid where the transformers are saturating.

Re:Scary

[Bakkster]

Well to be fair, a large organized terrorist attack that is distributed enough to require this number of spares wouldn't be mitigated much by having spares (terrorists can/would destroy spares). Alternatively, if the companies end up making so many spares to protect against terrorist attack, then they don't even need to attack to cause economic damage (and 'the terrorists win').

Re:Scary

[IndustrialComplex]

It also caught fire.

All the better to illuminate the night!

It's a feature.

Re:Scary

[marcosdumay]

Thanks, that explains it.

Re:Scary

[riverat1]

It's like stronger cockpit doors or remotely activated blow out preventers. The industry will say it's too expensive to do that until it's shown that it's too expensive not to. No regulation until it's too late.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Many places have natural gas distribution in addition to their connection to the electrical grid. Natural Gas generators aren't exotic technology...

Around 2013

[Anonymous Coward]

Around 2013? So what, maybe December 2012...

Re:Around 2013

[MacDork]

Has the sun even come out of its extended hibernation yet? And what scientific basis do they have to expect large storms? Just because the down time was unusually long? The articles had a serious lack of specifics. I'm beginning to think the solar scientists are taking a page from James Hansen's playbook.

Re:Around 2013

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Protip: If TFA is found on the "telegraph.co.uk" domain, it almost certainly represents the state of knowledge of someone who majored in "journalism", after surviving an editor, rather than the state of knowledge of the actual scientists involved with the question...

Re:Around 2013

[PopeRatzo]

after the Sun wakes 'from a deep slumber' sometime around 2013

I think they're saying exactly December 21, 2012, the Winter Solstice and end of the thirteenth b'ak'tun, the ending of the Great Year, the Age of Pisces, the Platonic Cycle, Barack Obama's first term.

I'm convinced that there are a lot of powerful (and not so powerful) interests are using "2012" as a tabula rasa onto which to draw their agendas. And I'm not just talking about crazy new agers.

The US intelligence service has been toying with manipulating belief systems since the end of WWII. They've looked at (and maybe used) the UFO phenomena, Egyptian mysticism, Christianity, parapsychology and of course, psychotropic drugs as ways to influence events around the world and here at home. I'm not saying they believe in these things, but that they believe they can use these things, or rather, that they can manipulate other peoples' belief in these things. MK-ULTRA, Project Monarch, astrology, Andrija Puharich and the "Council of Nine" (involving Arthur M. Young of Bell Helicopters and Lee Harvey Oswald's wife by the way) were some nascent efforts in this area, and "2012" may be their pièce de résistance.

There's just something that feels to me really manipulative about all this "2012" mishegas.

[I just realized I quoted Latin, French and Yiddish in this post, which while not my record, is pretty good for 8 o'clock on a tuesday morning.]

Re:Around 2013

[LingNoi]

It does explain why the world is in such massive debt. Our governments wanted to fool us into thinking it was the banks that drained all the money but now we all know the truth. They used the money to build massive boats in China to save the select few!

Quick the sky is falling!

Re:Around 2013

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. It's called Hollywood.

Re:Around 2013

[vtcodger]

More likely a result of bad journalism than bad science, but I suppose it could be both.

Anyway, here's the link to spaceweather.com for anyone who wants to learn a little about the sun, sunspots, etc. http://www.spaceweather.com/

Here's a link to the latest from NASA published about two weeks ago. Their take on sunspot cycle 24 as best I can translate it? They haven't a clue and won't for several years -- after they have a decent sampling of cycle 24 sunspots to work with. Right now the cycle is late to start and may be fairly weak ... or not. http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml

Re:Around 2013

[blair1q]

So the Mayans were predicting the end of iPhones.

Re:Around 2013

[maxwell demon]

Has the sun even come out of its extended hibernation yet?

They are currently preparing the wake-up LAN packet.

Re:Around 2013

[hercubus]

[I just realized I quoted Latin, French and Yiddish in this post, which while not my record, is pretty good for 8 o'clock on a tuesday morning.]

Exempli gratia, mon Dieu, what a shmendrik Schweinehund

Or, I see your four languages and raise one, with allotta alliteration thrown in. Top that, ya polyglot.

Re:Around 2013

[Anonymous Coward]

... it almost certainly represents the state of knowledge of someone who majored in "journalism" ...

I'd say you are an optimist.

Re:Around 2013

[whassaname]

" The US intelligence service has been toying with manipulating belief systems since the end of WWII "

The Bene Gesserit have been doing it for even longer.

Mayans only off by a few months.

[DigitalReverend]

That IS impressive.

Re:Mayans only off by a few months.

[Splab]

Technically they can still be proven correct, no one knows when the suns next big fart is coming up (the shiny one, not the paper version, they shit crap out all the time :D - and are probably an even greater danger to society)

Re:Mayans only off by a few months.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is too early to make that comment.

Re:Mayans only off by a few months.

[Anonymous Coward]

Vlad farted.

*paaaaaarrrrrp*

Re:Mayans only off by a few months.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean NASA is off by a few months.

Re:Mayans only off by a few months.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mayan calender does not end in 2012.

It starts a new cycle - claiming that because of this the Mayans predicted the end of the world would be like saying at the end of every year that the world is about to end.

Re:Mayans only off by a few months.

[Psaakyrn]

Technically they're still correct, our calendars started counting from 1 instead of 0 for no apparent reason.

Re:Mayans only off by a few months.

[focoma]

It starts a new cycle - claiming that because of this the Mayans predicted the end of the world would be like saying at the end of every year that the world is about to end.

Yeah, it's also like saying at the end of every millennium that the world is about to end. Haha!

We might never know if some Mayans ascribed eschatological significance to their own calendar cycles. But if they did, they certainly weren't the last people to do it.

2013

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that movie is gonna be so awesome!

Re:2013

[Cryacin]

2013 is the new 2012.

Re:2013

[aplusjimages]

I always thought 2012 needed a sequel.

Invest in FRDY!

[noidentity]

I seriously wonder whether I should purchase a few crate-sized Farady cages in preparation, and ensure I have non-magnetic backups of everything.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[capnchicken]

Non-magnetic? Like what? Writable CD-R's are only good for about two years. (not snarky, just curious)

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[daid303]

Flash disks are non-magnetic. But if you want something that survives better then I suggest something like engravings on stone tablets.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Vectormatic]

if we only have large activity in 2013, a single set of optical media would survive this, to be read in again in 2014

Also, my computer is pretty much a large steel cage, with the magnetic platters encased in another thick layer of metal, how vulnerable would a regular tower be?

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD-RAMs supposedly last 30 years.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[DrugCheese]

They sell gold plated CD/DVD that claim they are rated for 20 years if properly stored.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Number-memorizing Chinese people have been known to survive well. Unless they work for Foxconn, that is.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you have a punchcard to jtag writer, documentation on your cd-rom drive, and of course backups of your bios, you're screwed anyways. Every electronic component you'd use to recover those backups probably has either an eeprom or flash part in it containing the device specific code. In the event of any sort of serious EM pulse that could damage hardware or wipe software you would either have lost or best case had minimally corrupted every device along the chain you'd use for recovery. This actually falls in under 'reasons to have blueprints for your hardware'... if the software were to disappear tomorrow, who would be able to reimplement it in order to help recover all that now-dead hardware?

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[AHuxley]

Dust of your parents tempest computers.
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/mac1891T/candes-pix/page_01.htm
Make notes and sell 2013 ready Macs/Linux/Windows units to the preppers.
Its like a next gen Y2K.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[bill_mcgonigle]

non-magnetic backups of everything

Does anybody know how the advent of GMR hard drive heads influences the EMP scenarios? They're resistant to change enough that regular high-power drive de-gaussers don't work anymore.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

aren't these kind of solar storms the kind ruin electrical systems on the scale of power grids not small electronics?

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[gox]

I had some data in heavily scratched CD-R's from 1996 I had tossed in a box, which I was able to recover in 2007 -- I'm quite sure they still work. OTOH I have CD-R's from 2009 that are barely readable. I guess if you have a well-thought error correction strategy (e.g. distributing recovery data to different types of media), you'd be safe.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[morgan_greywolf]

Good quality CD-Rs and DVD-Rs can as long as 20-30 years if stored and handled properly; you get what you pay for. If you want real archive longevity, invest in one of these.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, get one of those blue lasers and rig it up a disc writer.
Burn (literally) the data in to some plastic disc.
Then put some render over the disc and store it safely.

Or print encoded data with a few copies of how to decode it.
I forgot the link to a recentish good one, but i'm sure someone will come along with it at some point.
This is useful if all computers got wiped.

Of course, still put some computers in cages just to be safe.
Just have an entire room or closet dedicated to it. (just make sure to have a 2 door system so nothing leaks through when you are entering)
100% safe room... unless the sun blew up.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[vlm]

Also, my computer is pretty much a large steel cage, with the magnetic platters encased in another thick layer of metal, how vulnerable would a regular tower be?

Simultaneously plugged into a multi-thousand mile grid of copper electrical power wiring and miles of aluminum hardline for the cablemodem, not so good.

Unplugged in a box, excellent chance of survival.

Also, electrical fields have no direct effect on magnetic material, you can completely vaporize the electronic of a computer in a lightning strike and a cleanroom service can install new circuit boards and recover most/all of the data off the drive. Now, heat the platters above the curie temperature, like in a fire, and you're screwed.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[ae1294]

I seriously wonder whether I should purchase a few crate-sized Farady cages in preparation, and ensure I have non-magnetic backups of everything.

You could build your own cheaply but it won't protect you from the power fluctuations, loss of communications and looting(tm)... Not to mention high energy particles chewing up your ipad and dna if it was a really real problem and not mostly bullshit...

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have backup CD's that are 8+ years old and they work just fine.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[FTWinston]

Your computer will be fine. Really. Provided, of course, that your mains connection is properly fused.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[FTWinston]

Yes, definately. This is just a bit of /. exaggeration based off of uninformed telegraph exaggeration. We're not talking about setting off a nuke next to your PC. We are, however, talking about a problem that will require significant coordination to mitigate some potentially very nasty effects on a global / continental / national level.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[sznupi]

Laptop and/or surge protectors?

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

A metal box with plenty of holes in it and several antennas (cables) hanging off it. You would be vulnerable to EMP but dont worry about solar flares. They are more likely to impact your electricity service than your PC directly.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[moosesocks]

CD-Rs have a short lifespan, but there's no need to be sensationalistic about it. They last a lot longer than 2 years.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

a cleanroom service can install new circuit boards

You don't need a clean room to change the boards on a harddrive, they are usually attached with easy to open plugs and contacts with springs. The biggest problem is to find a board that is actually compatible.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[dkleinsc]

Or maybe some sort of chemical coloring in a pattern on a mesh of dyed wood fibers. Possibly collected together with a lot of other pieces of this mesh and sewn or glued together.

Oh, and most engravings were done on clay rather than stone, because it's a lot faster to write, and once the clay dries out is still quite readable.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[sw155kn1f3]

Dude! great idea.. going to create some more tinfoil hats just in case

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[joeyblades]

I call bullshit. Most CDRs are spec'ed at 50 to 200 years readable life (depending on storage conditions) - reference ISO 18927:2008. I have CDRs that are more than 10 years old and are perfectly readable... in fact, I just used one last night.

Of course, if you leave that CDR you burned of favorite Beach Boys tunes out in direct sunlight on the dashboard of your car... then maybe 2 years is all you can expect.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[mysidia]

Punch cards

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[DerekLyons]

And even if you have all that stuff - what about the tools to make the tools? Having all the documentation/drawings/plans/specifications/whatever to rebuild the reader for the media you've stored away is pretty much meaningless unless you can actually use all that data to actually build the reader.... And that equipment isn't trivial either.
 
And it goes like that right down the technological chain. As I told a misguided survivalist type friend of mine back during the run-up to Y2k: "Living off the grid is easy, living without FedEx is the real bitch".

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize how much p0rn I have to engrave??!! Not to mention the extreme loss of quality

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[tibit]

What point is to have a medium that does not survive everyday common conditions, but is specified for something that is impractical?

People leave their CDs in the sun all the time, there's nothing unusual or outrageous about. Heck, direct sunlight on the CD only adds little to the damage since the CD is already inside the car -- a glasshouse, full of hot air. Any temperature rise of a CD due to the heating in direct sunlight is probably small compared to the temperature rise due to heat exchange with hot air. Unless your CD has black silkscreen, that is.

I haven't looked closely at a CDR in a few years, but they used to have the data layer on top of the disc, and it was very easy to damage -- compared to pressed CDs, where the data layer is laminated between two plastic discs. Just a stupid design; I doubt that environmental conditions have much to do with it -- maybe they accelerate delamination/flaking of the data layer, but it wouldn't be a problem had the data layer been protected by substantial plastic on both sides.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any Idea how much p0rn we have to engrave. Not to mention the terrible loss of quality

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[swb]

Heh, I call triple bullshit.

I have 5+ year old CDRs in my car that work fine. They have never left my car, have never been in a case (at best in a sunvisor CD holder, at worse, on the floor) and in the summer regularly see 120F (or however hot a black car gets in the sun on black asphalt for 8 hours) and in the winter see 20F regularly and -5 to -30F for good stretches.

They only seem to crap out when badly scratched and then I chuck them and make something else.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[joeyblades]

I think you're being disingenuous. Even a pressed CD can become unreadable if you leave it unprotected in the sunlight. Every technology has some environmental constraints.

You would have a valid complaint if, to get better than 2 year life out of a CDR, you had to keep it in a dark, temperature controlled, nitrogen atmosphere. However, since photons and heat are what are required to program a CDR in the first place, I don't think it unreasonable to ask you to keep it out of direct sunlight if you want your data preserved.

However, more to the point, the question was what is a reliable, non magnetic backup medium. I don't know about you, but I don't rouitinely drive around with my backups hanging out on the dashboard of my car. In light of this, I think CDRs fit the bill.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Jaysyn]

I have normal Memorex CD-Rs that I burned in *1999* that still work just fine.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any Idea how much p0rn we have to engrave. Not to mention the terrible loss of quality

I always engrave my porn in a lossless format.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[bds1986]

I doubt that environmental conditions have much to do with it -- maybe they accelerate delamination/flaking of the data layer, but it wouldn't be a problem had the data layer been protected by substantial plastic on both sides.

I think the issue is less one of delamination and more one of degradation of the organic dyes that compose the "data layer" in CD-Rs.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Ozmodium]

My new favorite phrase is now 'Number-memorizing Chinese people.' I may even add it to my list of potential band names. Thank you.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[dferrantino]

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say if a nuke went off next to my PC, the EMP would be the least of my problems.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[daveime]

At least you understand about data redundancy. Seems you make two copies of everything (see below).

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[catmistake]

I use pi to store all my data. Rather, a complex algorithm, that I have memorized, when applied to pi , spits out all my data (school essays, hobby research, iTunes Library, family photos, home videos (mostly of cats), and a modest soft porn collection). I also have this backed up, using the same algorithm applied to the difference of pi and e, plus e.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Lodragandraoidh]

I was thinking a sealed 30 gallon drum would make an excellent Faraday cage - as the static discharge would be along the surface of the metal.

Anyone have a better expedient method of keeping small things safe?

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[capnchicken]

All I know is that storage experts almost always praise tape, disk drives, then optical media in that order and quote the lifetime of organic dye based optical media being 2 to 5 years.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/107607/Storage_expert_warns_of_short_life_span_for_burned_CDs

I have used disks that are still good 10 years later, and some that lasted maybe a year (cheap, get what you pay for stuff) and but manufacturers usually don't use longevity as a price point, so it can be hard to tell what you're getting unless you just shell out money for it.

And the price of something is not a good metric for something else if that is the only metric you can effectively use.

Either way if all magnetic storage is gone tomorrow, we're pretty screwed anyway.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[demonbug]

Non-magnetic? Like what? Writable CD-R's are only good for about two years. (not snarky, just curious)

Sssh! Don't tell that to my still-working 13-year-old CD-Rs!

Actually I haven't checked my oldest ones recently, but as of a year or two ago the oldest writeables in my collection were still working fine (of course being music CDs they could be pretty significantly screwed up and I wouldn't necessarily notice).

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

I encode my data into solar flares. It's still magnetic, and quite the opposite of efficient encoding, but at least it will survive solar maximum. Unfortunately, restoring from backup tends to destroy not only my own, but everyone else's hardware as well. But since when has anyone ever successfully restored from backup? Tell me that!

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[noidentity]

OK, I should have said non-magnetic non-electronic, because an EMP-type event would wipe out flash memory as well.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[noidentity]

Also, electrical fields have no direct effect on magnetic material, you can completely vaporize the electronic of a computer in a lightning strike and a cleanroom service can install new circuit boards and recover most/all of the data off the drive. Now, heat the platters above the curie temperature, like in a fire, and you're screwed.

I'd think a direct lightning strike to anything would result in one hell of a magentic field.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[AK Marc]

Though they may offer guarantees against lightning strikes, most surge protectors won't actually stop one. I'd be interested if someone ever tested the expensive ones to see if any really could stop a lightning strike.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[sznupi]

I would expect at least those integrated in UPS of good class might - after all the device is already wired for practically instant switchover?

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Maybe something like this?

Slashdot already disscused this awhile back.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[RichiH]

You guys use alumin(i)um for your TV cable networks? Seriously?

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[RichiH]

Also, itym "affect" not "effect"

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[marcosdumay]

The surge protectors don't need to resist the lightning. They only need to survive longer than your fuse.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[John Hasler]

Aluminium is a better conductor than copper per unit weight and is much cheaper. Cable tv distribution cable typically has a copper center conductor and a aluminium shield.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[John Hasler]

> Simultaneously plugged into a multi-thousand mile grid of copper electrical > power wiring and miles of aluminum hardline for the cablemodem, not so good.

The cable distribution network is too small to be affected by this, as is the portion of the electrical grid your computer is directly connected to.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[AK Marc]

Lightning will arc over your blown fuse and fry equipment on the other side.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[RichiH]

> Aluminium is a better conductor than copper per unit weight and is much cheaper.

It's still a worse conductor overall.

> Cable tv distribution cable typically has a copper center conductor and a aluminium shield.

Now _that_ makes sense. We have the same.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[shadowbearer]

  I feel much safer now, I'd only need to send my hard drive to someone who can do direct data recovery off of the platters. That doesn't cost much ;-)

  Sarcasm aside, I've seen hard drive electronics get cooked by power supply failures. It's expensive as hell to recover data off a hard drive if the drive electronics are cooked. If this happened to a lot of people at once, the companies that do such work would be massively overwhelmed - assuming they weren't dealing with their own failures.

SB

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[tibit]

I have never had a CD become unreadable in spite of being exposed to unprotected sunlight. I presume the only mechanism would be permanent warping of the plastic at high enough temperatures. Probably I don't live in the zone where there's enough solar flux, then.

But back to the original issue, I'd like to look at it from the underlying assumption: do we really care that there's a magnetic storm? Today's media have quite high coercivity -- I'd expect you may get significant damage of steel structures before the magnetic media start being affected?

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[tibit]

The dyes I haven't thought about, admittedly. I've never had what looked to be the effects of low SNR due to a fading dye. It was always flaking of the data layer...

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[sznupi]

Yet, for some reason, I don't know anybody who had any kind of failure due to storm. Several people with whom I talked about it - also can't remember anything (as in, nobody of the people they know). For quite some time I pretty much ignore storms, as far as this factor goes - no failures, despite several very close hits & few power outages apparently due to lightning (and buzz of FM radio when it hits)

Yeah, "personal anegdote"; but I stronly suspect the risk, despite being there of course, is way overblown. At least with semi-modern power installations.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[AK Marc]

Yet, for some reason, I don't know anybody who had any kind of failure due to storm.

I won't disagree with your personal experience, but you don't address the technical merits of it at all. The last time I had lightning strike my power lines, I had already unplugged everything. And the comment was that a fuse will protect from a lightning strike. I may protect from a small surge as the result of an indirect lightning strike or a strike on well-grounded outside equipment, but a full strike can't be stopped with a fuse, and needs different protection, which exists and is deployed for that reason. If it never happened, as you hint, then there wouldn't be a demand for such protection.

Re:Invest in FRDY!

[sznupi]

Note I didn't say this means it never happens - I wrote that the risk is there. Just probably overblown, especially with semi-modern power installations. Which, hey, might just as well include protections you mention, I wouldn't know (I do know that between the outside and the outlet by which I am there are certainly 4 stages of fuses/etc., perhaps 5). Would certainly seem well-grounded - I imaagine it's an easy and nice bonus when it's very hard to find any overhead cables at my place by now.

Plus, from what I see, people have often weird habits in regards to unplugging, if they do it (proper unplugging itself would also explain failures being extremelly rare, of course). Not only caring mostly about the TV (plus PC if it's there; while for example the kitchen stuff, by now with similarly delicate electronics, is typically forgotten) - a bit too often simply turning it off; with the "more physical" switch, yeah...but this still isn't complete of course. Yet everything seems to be working fine afterwards, typically.

Michael Bay it!

[Drakkenmensch]

Send a rag-tag bunch of misfit ex-astronauts in space with an atomic bomb to place at the center of the storm, to create "a sort of firecracker in closed fist effect", YEEEEEEE-HAW!!!

Re:Michael Bay it!

[Anonymous Coward]

"a sort of firecracker in closed fist effect"

An atomic bomb vs. the sun sounds more like "throwing a water balloon at a tsunami".

Re:Michael Bay it!

[Drakkenmensch]

That hasn't stopped Michael Bay movies so far!

Re:Michael Bay it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just let Michael Bay direct a movie depicting events as predicted. That will save us, as you can be pretty safe nothing is going to play out as depicted in a Michael Bay movie.

Re:Michael Bay it!

[kaini]

shhhhh! he's quite litigous, y'know.

Re:Michael Bay it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Colbert called, he wants his joke back.

Re:Michael Bay it!

[steelfood]

By "misfit ex-astronauts," you must mean the CEO of BP.

Re:Michael Bay it!

[Anonymous Coward]

You would need a big stark slack fist!

You're fucking with me, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're fucking with me, right? Please tell me you're fucking with me.

Re:You're fucking with me, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we're fucking against you.

They should hire better PR.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had said it was coming in 2012 it would have generated way more publicity!

Re:They should hire better PR.

[dominious]

deliberately not saying exactly 2012 makes it more interesting and suspicious, otherwise it would seem like the same old FUD for 2012.

this builds up further journalism in the future.

Re:They should hire better PR.

[SiliconSlick]

"Sometime around 2013" which sounds pretty close to December 21, 2012 to me... I imagine, if anything, their PR people were trying to _avoid_ mentioning 2012.

I still have my Y2K food

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, good... I was worried that I'd have to throw out all that canned Y2K food that I have in my basement bunker. (actually, it's technically my mom's basement)

Re:I still have my Y2K food

[stupidsocialscientis]

don't you mean your bedroom in your mom's basement?

Re:I still have my Y2K food

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, good... I was worried that I'd have to throw out all that canned Y2K food that I have in my basement bunker. (actually, it's technically my mom's basement)

My emergency rations had a ten year shelf life. You better go check yours no one wants to be stuck eating moldy food after the apocalypse.

Re:I still have my Y2K food

[Anonymous Coward]

a.k.a. your bedroom

hmm

[davidmcg]

Doesn't worry me seeing as we won't survive 2012 anyway.

Re:hmm

[Noam.of.Doom]

It would be kinda like getting knocked down, and then spat upon.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

'I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather.' Fisher concludes.

That's the problem with their mouse and hole way of looking at things. It is technically all space weather. All our weather ultimately roots back to the sun - from air pressure to hurricanes. or the moon. The sun and the moon and the earth itself regulate all our weather. Our weather is in effect part of and directly influenced by the whole solar system.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

December 21 2012...pretty close to 2013. This spacestorm is probably what the mayan's predicted.

2012 called...

[Anonymous Coward]

...they want their end of the world back!

In unrelated news...

[j-b0y]

NASA seeks more funding for their Solar Sentinels program

Re:In unrelated news...

[Chris Mattern]

NASA seeks more funding for their Solar Sentinels program

They're powered by the sun *and* destroy mutants!

We're important!

[Thanshin]

Let other people push further in space travel, we're too busy predicting space weather a year in advance.

It does sound important.

Article summary:

[characterZer0]

Give us more money so we can do more research.

Re:Article summary:

[mokeyboy]

mod insightful. Space weather events only strongly couple with the Earth in geomagnetic high latitudes (Alaska, parts of the Canadian peninsulas etc - you know, missile sub launching areas). Most of the Earth's population lives in equatorial (subject to tropospheric {rainstorms} more than space weather {ionospheric}) or mid-latitude regions. Yeah, there is a really low risk of a high energy electron embedding in satellites and other terrestrial electronic systems - every day risk largely independent of solar cycle activity. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_weather. I was at the Hitachi, Japan conference where the term "space weather" was coined. Talk about a media piece trying to conjoin disparate instances of geophysical systems :-(. 2012, you are kidding me right? Who is going to get a satellite program up in an early warning emplacement in time? USA, you have _got_ to be joking. This is a money grab, nothing more. Is there a risk, for sure there is. Beating a drum and sounding the end of the world? I think cry wolf has been sounded a couple of times already and the effort on the cry wolf at least is doomed (may be not misguided, to note, ipad generation).

Re:Article summary:

[mokeyboy]

Once upon a time, in another career ... http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/sp/sp.html

Re:Article summary:

[Shotgun]

Yeah, but say that after the solar storm has re-arranged the continents.

TFA.

[bbqsrc]

If you RTFA, it's not a world ending event. It's just gonna mess up some transformers if they don't turn them off in time.

Re:TFA.

[Culture20]

If you RTFA, it's not a world ending event. It's just gonna mess up some transformers if they don't turn them off in time.

But will it be more likely to turn Autobots into Decepticons or the other way around? It's an important distinction!

Re:TFA.

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely to turn cars into autobots and planes into decepticons.

Re:TFA.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you RTFA, it's not a world ending event. It's just gonna mess up some transformers if they don't turn them off in time.

But will it be more likely to turn Autobots into Decepticons or the other way around? It's an important distinction!

Nonono... It'll just make Number 5 Alive

Re:TFA.

[delinear]

I'm just glad we partially anticipated this and replaced walkmans/cassettes with digital music players. That was a major blow against the Decepticon's intel gathering arm, right there. And Europe should be reasonably safe against flying Decepticons - we'll just deploy our secret volcano weapon and ground them.

Re:TFA.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you really think would happen to the usa (or any large modern country) if it lost power for a week or a month...

Personally i suggest stocking up on guns and ammo. With guns and ammo you CAN get food water and shelter. But having any of the others wont get you the rest.

Re:TFA.

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

I eagerly await your proposed failure mechanism which could possibly lead to a week long power outage across the entire nation of the United States.

Is your hat ready ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to reinforce your tin foil hats!

home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[Anonymous Coward]

"home computers, iPods, and sat navs"
Why not "Macs, iPods and Garmins"?

Re:home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[Vectormatic]

because apparently the only PMP's affected will be ipods..

No EMP resistance, less space then a nomad, lame

Re:home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[ProppaT]

You people laugh at my Zune now....but, you'll see!

Re:home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[gladish]

Considering the current price, the NASA folks just assumed that Macs included "Space Storm Resiliency". (Unibody models only).

Re:home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[crow5599]

No EMP resistance, less space then a nomad, lame

I wish I could mod this +infinity. Funniest thing I've seen on here in a long time. Well done, sir/ma'am.

Re:home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[Anonymous Coward]

"because apparently the only PMP's affected will be ipods.."

So actually, this possible huge space storm is actually a good thing.

Re:home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[instagib]

I wish I could mod this +infinity.

Please don't. The JavaScript on this page is slow enough already.

Re:home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[silanea]

It will be just as useful after the storm as it is now, I give you that.

Re:home computers, iPods, and sat navs

[Krau Ming]

what the? Zune still exists???

sure, sure.

[Banichi]

You can't plot the weather here on Earth more than 3 days from now accurately, but you expect us to believe you can plot the sun's weather 2 years from now?

I call BS.

Re:sure, sure.

[TheKidWho]

Are you an astrophysicist?

I'm going to assume you aren't. If so, wtf makes you think anyone is going to take your BS accusation seriously?

I call BS on your BS.

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Space doesnt have air, it doesnt have a careful balance of chemicals.

The sun is 98% hydrogen, and 2% helium.

When you put probablities and odds on a larger scale, such as the sun, then predicting things that usually fallow the Chaos Theory (like the weather), seem to be logical.

Hence, predicting the space weather.

tl;dr: Flip a coin once, who knows? Flip it 100 times, you get 48 heads and 52 tails.

Re:sure, sure.

[Mr_Plattz]

Calling BS on BS doesn't make the initial statement true.

Re:sure, sure.

[nadaou]

... two mods who think this post is insightful, and two posts showing it is wrong, and still no one has figured out that this is a joke making fun of the global warming deniers ... sigh, yup, which ever of these groups you side with the answer is the same: no one gets it and at this point we're pretty much screwed.

Re:sure, sure.

[Heed00]

Are you a BSologist?

I'm going to assume you aren't. If so, wtf makes you think anyone is going to take your BS accusation seriously? I call BS on your BS on his BS.

Re:sure, sure.

[color 0e echo Thilo]

this comment was mine, but expanding on it, even if PR was joking, still; you can predict space event fairly easily and accuratly compared to eath events.

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling BS on BS doesn't make the initial statement true.

I call BS on that!

Re:sure, sure.

[__aarvde6843]

It is common knowledge the sun has seasons, like the hearth. But they take 11 years to cycle.

With statistical analysis and observations, it is very well possible to make an educated guess...

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a Bull?
Because us human being types know bullshit when we can see it. Ofcourse, no one is saying they are 100% wrong... just not 100% accurate... give or take 80%

Re:sure, sure.

[mrsquid0]

Just because you do not understand how something is done does not mean that it cannot be done.

Re:sure, sure.

[kangsterizer]

Apple and orange, both fruits, yet different.

Re:sure, sure.

[Fess_Longhair]

You can't plot the weather here on Earth more than 3 days from now accurately, but you expect us to believe you can plot the sun's weather 2 years from now?

I call BS.

We know arbitrarily far in advance that winter is colder on average than summer. Similarly, we can forecast the timing of solar-cycle peaks pretty well out into the future. I.e, this forecast based on climatology, not an initial value problem (weather; chaotic).

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, whether it happens 2 years or 20 or 50 years from now, we know IT WILL HAPPEN and we're NOT prepared.

It's like we have oil drilling platforms in the Gulf, we know OIL SPILLS WILL HAPPEN and we weren't prepared.

It's like New Orleans is on the Gulf coast, half of it being below sea level, they knew HURRICANES WILL HAPPEN, but were they prepared? No.

Everyone would rather play the Blame Game afterwards.

Re:sure, sure.

[virg_mattes]

You're comparing apples and oranges here. Let me plot the weather here on Earth with the same level of granularity as the predictions made in TFA:

"For the next few months, temps in the Northern Hemisphere will tend to remain warm, after which they'l begin a downward trend, which will probably level out about six to seven months from now. Then they'll trend upward again, reaching an average temperature right around current temperatures by the end of a year. The cycle will likely repeat over the year following that."

See, that was easy. They're not trying to say, "On Tuesday, a solar storm giving off X energy will cause degradation over Europe", which would be equivalent to trying to plot the weather for one locality accurately enough to judge whether it's going to rain.

Virg

Re: sure, sure.

[Black Parrot]

You can't plot the weather here on Earth more than 3 days from now accurately

But you can easily predict that next summer will be warmer than next winter.

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

These are the most absurd comments I've seen. Shorter time scale does NOT mean easier to predict. I predict it will get cooler during fall, then even cooler during winter. That's one and two months away respectively. I bet those predictions are more accurate than ones you can make about the weather over the next two days or weeks.

Re:sure, sure.

[moosesocks]

Physicist here (not an astro-, but good enough for these purposes).

Solar activity generally occurs in cycles. As far as we know and have observed, these cycles are fairly regular and predictable in a "big-picture" sort of way.

Although I might not trust the weatherman's forecast for this Friday, I will trust his assertion that it's going to start getting cold around November.

Re:sure, sure.

[schmu_20mol]

Oh, please let me introduce you to a common problem. Assume you have a nice hot pot of coffee. Now you stir it and at the end you put a shot of milk in. Now, I really can't tell you how hot any given point inside the mug is within the next 5 minutes. But, let me share a long term prediction it'll be within a degree of room temperature in 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Re:sure, sure.

[mea37]

That hardly seems applicable since they're predicting something contrary to the normal cycle.

My knowledge of solar "weather" is too limited to evaluate the reasoning behind this claim - and from what you wrote here, I think yours is, too. I guess the question is: is NASA's?

Re:sure, sure.

[captainpanic]

Physicist here (not an astro-, but good enough for these purposes).

Solar activity generally occurs in cycles. As far as we know and have observed, these cycles are fairly regular and predictable in a "big-picture" sort of way.

Although I might not trust the weatherman's forecast for this Friday, I will trust his assertion that it's going to start getting cold around November.

This is more a case of the weatherman saying that "January is the coldest month".

They say that in 2013 the solar 11 year cycle coincides with the 22 year cycle, (which I think it does every 22 years, always, but nevermind). That simply makes the year 2013 the most likely year for a big solar storm. To me, it seems to be a matter of statistics - which was then taken out of context by some stupid journalist.

Some other comments in the article (although far more subjective) seem to suggest that the Solar Super Storm is going to be extra super heavy because the sun is sleeping a little longer now. ... and that seems to me like predicting that November will be extra cold because September and October are quite warm.

Re:sure, sure.

[John Hasler]

> You can't plot the weather here on Earth more than 3 days from now
> accurately...

No, I can't. The Weather Service, however, does a damn good job with their five-day forecasts. They don't always get it exactly right but they do well enough that I can confidently plan when to cut my hay.

It isn't 1965 any more. Weather forcasting works. Even the ten-day forecasts are accurate enough to be useful.

Re:sure, sure.

[toygeek]

Although I might not trust the weatherman's forecast for this Friday, I will trust his assertion that it's going to start getting cold around November.

This is only true if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. For a conversion to the Southern Hemisphere just take the temperature C or F and swap it with F or C. So if the weather forecast for Australia says 35 degrees, and you live in the US, in November, its likely to be right. And in July, when its 35F here, it'll be about right for Australia.

So give the weather man some credit. He might be full of crap most of the time, but how many news people do you know that can do two hemispheres at once?

I rest my case.

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Al Gore, you insensitive clod!!

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar activity generally occurs in cycles. As far as we know and have observed, these cycles are fairly regular and predictable in a "big-picture" sort of way.

Although I might not trust the weatherman's forecast for this Friday, I will trust his assertion that it's going to start getting cold around November.

I have a slight problem with predictions that "unprecedented" events will occur when the justification for those predictions is "these cycles are fairly regular and predictable." Fairly regular and predictable would mean, "we've seen this before, more or less, so we know it's going to happen." This is more like "it generally starts getting cold in November, but two years from now it's going to be un-fricken-believably cold on a scale we've never seen before, because we've seen this before." I'm not saying it won't happen, just that the logic fails.

Re:sure, sure.

[oh_my_080980980]

I call stupid on you.

Read the article and learn

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then you are in for a hot suprise, mate.

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, we do this with the terrestrial weather all the time. For example, we expect the winters to be cold and the summers hot, with showers in the spring. The difference is that normally when we think of terrestrial weather forecasting, we want to know what the weather will be like this afternoon, or for the big BBQ planned for Saturday. It is much more difficult to determine the weather when we start applying more specific constraints like these. Predicting solar storms is a bit more like predicting a volcano erupting, although probably a bit more precise because the periodic cycles are shorter and more regular. We can determine probabilities of occurrence and expected range of intensity based on past cycles and current measurements of activity.

Re:sure, sure.

[CharlieG]

and how overdue are we for coming out of Solar Min - and how off has Nasa's predictions of when Solar Max would be been off?

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

But I knew you'd call BS on my BS, so I already BS'ed my BS!

Re:sure, sure.

[dwillden]

But we can't plot specific storms or how serious they will be three weeks out let alone three years. And we can measure the factors of earthly weather systems much ore accurately.

Sure we know the Solar cycles, but did we suffer catastrophic solar storms two or three years into the last cycle, and the one before that, or before that?

This scientist may be 100% correct and accurate, he's studied this, I haven't. But I agree with the GP post in wondering exactly how they can predict this three years in advance, when they're still trying to figure out why the current minimum lasted so long.

The solar cycle is well established, we haven't suffered these catastrophic storms in prior cycles. Why should this one be so much worse?

p.s. I seem to recall the largest solar flare ever recorded was recorded in 07 just before the last cycle ended, not just as it began. And we didn't have many problems with that flare either. Of course like the vast majority of flares that one wasn't aimed at our tiny sphere called Earth.

Re:sure, sure.

[catmistake]

You can't plot the weather here on Earth more than 3 days from now accurately, but you expect us to believe you can plot the sun's weather 2 years from now?

I call BS.

Actually, even if we had enough weather sensors to surround the Earth, spaced a meter apart, and took a single reading, the predictions based off that reading would begin to diverge with the actual weather within the hour (so forget 3 days).

However, that being understood, that chaotic systems have chaos, we're still pretty sure that it's going to be darker tonight than it will be tomorrow afternoon.

I think it should be noted, even with their built in inaccuracies, due to the complexity of the system and the incompleteness of the data, computer weather modelling has gotten phenomenal (The Storm of the Century (that the right name? Blizzard of the Spring of '93) was predicted A FRIGGEN WEEK in advance, and no meteorologist believed it, so the prediction was dismissed)).

Re:sure, sure.

[blair1q]

The current lull in sunspot activity is caused by Global Warming.

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Australia, you insensitive clod!

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

The linked article *is* BS. The consensus among solar physicists (to the extent one exists) is that the coming solar max will be one of the weakest of the past 100 years. There is a minority opinion that we may be approaching another multi-decade period with few or no sunspots, like the Maunder Minimum. I guarantee you the NASA guy was quoted out of context.

For a good summary, refer to this article from last week:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the-sun.html

Re: sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

But aren't they essentially saying next summer will be much hotter than last summer? These periods of high solar activity happen fairly regularly and have not brought down the electrical grid in the past, but for some reason they're saying the next one will.

Re:sure, sure.

[lawpoop]

It is common knowledge the sun has seasons, like the hearth. But they take 11 years to cycle.

Yeah. my hearth is cold in the summer, and warm in the winter.

Re:sure, sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it doesn't get cold in November when they predict won't mean that when it does get cold that there will be severe blizzards. Those kind of predictions must be based on something.

Re:sure, sure.

[jafac]

We've observed sunspots for hundreds of years.
We have data on the cyclical effects of solar radiation on isotope balance in polar ice-core samples for hundreds of thousands of years.

2-3 decades of space-radiation storms is about right, but, I think we can be reasonably certain that the theory that they're closely associated with sunspots and isotopes, is pretty sound.

Re:sure, sure.

[John Hasler]

> But I agree with the GP post in wondering exactly how they can predict this
> three years in advance...

The scientists aren't predicting. They are merely noting that the Sun is behaving strangely and speculating a bit. It is the "journalists" who are predicting.

Re:sure, sure.

[aqk]

No. It's caused by pollution.
WHEN will man learn..?

Like we are not scared enough

[dragisha]

With influenza pandemy, Maya's calendar doomsday, $|€ crisis, oil spills, earthquakes...

Or NASa just saw the light and how public fear can me made into profit, using for example big pharma recipes...?

Whatever, only reasonable thing to do about it is to cool down and ignore as much as we can.

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[cpaalman]

It is reasonable to ignore as much as we can. That line of thinking worked out well in the Gulf.

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[jamesh]

public fear can me made into profit

Definitely. The plan is to build a ship made out of unobtanium and fly it into the sun. Once it reaches the core some nukes will be detonated which will reverse the spin of the sun and avert this catastrophe.

That's gotta be worth a few billion at least in feasibility dollars!

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever, only reasonable thing to do about it is to cool down and ignore as much as we can.

You mean, bury your head in the sand? http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/80800.html

Not sure about that one.

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[dominious]

Really? you mod this insightful?? Modders, read the replies.

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[diewlasing]

With influenza pandemy, Maya's calendar doomsday, $|€ crisis, oil spills, earthquakes...

Or NASa just saw the light and how public fear can me made into profit, using for example big pharma recipes...?

Whatever, only reasonable thing to do about it is to cool down and ignore as much as we can.

I don't get it. I mean I don't get why you were modded up. I myself might get modded down for saying this, but the quality of modding has gone down here on /.

Are you suggesting NASA is trying to scare us for profit? Are you bloody serious? If you took the time to read the literature, solar storms happen with a roughly well determined periodicity. No one is suggesting this is a world-ender but electronics are at risk; to just ignore it as a NASA conspiracy is amazingly irresponsible and completely ignorant.

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[KovaaK]

I think it's this story in particular that has surprisingly bad mods. I bet someone saw a flashy looking E (€) and went "holy shit, that's cool! [mods insightful]". ... *hopes for an insightful mod*

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[dragisha]

Solar storms happened many times during my lifetime, not once I remember my TV|fridge|transistor radio|electronic tube radio (yes, I've used that one also)|PC|laptop|PDA|mobile went dead because of some of these storms. And I think everybody can agree 40-something is fine time to draw conclusions on.

Exactly how NASA can profit from public fear is obvious to me, and should be to you - in time when their funding is being cut at vicious pace, when many projects are mothballed or cut for good - they really need to find some way to get money.

As for scientific side of this predicament... Isn't it usual for scientists to sign under their findings? Or it's customary to hide behind "senior scientists"? If only for this phrase, whole story stinks up to ISS!

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[bjk002]

or setup a derivatives market based on the Sun's seasonal influence on production.

Re:Like we are not scared enough

[dragisha]

Maybe, or maybe not. But it worked excellent with influenza scare.

Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Culture20]

I'd hate to see what would happen if all our energy usage was electric instead of burning stuff.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[L4t3r4lu5]

Got fuel injection? That's controlled by a computer.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'd hate to see what would happen if all our energy usage was electric instead of burning stuff.

It doesn't matter, we have electronic controls everywhere. If there's an EMP-level event from the Sun, any cars made since about 1970 will be rendered inoperable.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[electrosoccertux]

Got fuel injection? That's controlled by a computer.

good thing it's surrounded by a Faraday cage.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Bearhouse]

I have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_fuel_injection, you insensitive clod!

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's an EMP-level event from the Sun, any cars made since about 1970 will be rendered inoperable.

Good, my 1968 muscle car will still work. And since everyone else's cars will be dead, there'll be plenty of cheap gas and I won't care that it only gets 9MPG.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[init100]

I'd hate to see what would happen if all our energy usage was electric instead of burning stuff.

So you think your car doesn't use electricity? Ever heard of spark plugs, starter motors, instruments, electric fuel pumps, electric cooling fans, lights, not to mention electronic engine control units? There are hundreds of electrical systems in a car.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[vlm]

It doesn't matter, we have electronic controls everywhere. If there's an EMP-level event from the Sun, any cars made since about 1970 will be rendered inoperable.

Why? The electronics are buried in fully enclosed little steel boxes, installed in big car sized fully enclosed steel boxes, with short wires designed not just to survive electrical sparks, but to control those electrical sparks. And none of the electrical wires are longer than a couple meters at most, and none of them connect outside the vehicle (the occasional winter time engine block heater excepted). The only things tougher than automotive electronics are diesel electric locomotive electronics and military electronics.

I suppose you're referring to the way high power broadcast transmitter antennas, military search radars, and airport radars are always surrounded by dead cars with blown computers. Oh wait, that never happens.

Also, what was added to cars in 1970? Tailfins? My old '87 plymouth horizon would "run" without its ECU computer, of course it would never take the computerized choke off and the engine timing advance would not "advance" so performance was remarkably poor, but for a young kid, it got me around. That was manufactured about 17 years after your arbitrary cutoff date.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[vlm]

There are hundreds of electrical systems in a car.

All installed in sealed Faraday cages bolted to the inside of a big car shaped Faraday cage, and designed to work in very close proximity to spark plugs (unless your car is a diesel)

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Gordonjcp]

Neither of my cars have any electronics. I've driven one of them with no functioning electrical system at all, for about 30 miles until I got home where I could repair it. I hope the lack of brake lights didn't spook the drivers behind me.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Gordonjcp]

So you think your car doesn't use electricity? Ever heard of spark plugs, starter motors, instruments, electric fuel pumps, electric cooling fans, lights, not to mention electronic engine control units? There are hundreds of electrical systems in a car.
... and none of them are particularly relevant to diesel engines.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[FrozenFOXX]

Got fuel injection? That's controlled by a computer.

Nah, I got a real vehicle. Carb for the win.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[DigiShaman]

In the program Future Weapons: EMP Bomb. They debunked that myth with a test. The host drove his car under an EMP device. When the technician flipped the switch, the car died (fried gates in the IC chips of the ECU). Only thing working were hardwired equipment to the battery (windows, lights, etc).

If an EMP of that strength is unleashed, almost everyone will be stepping out of their car, and WALKING off the freeway! It could take months of not years to tow the dead machines off public roadways.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why?

It seems anything with small wires, including microprocessors, gets fried.

I don't think it's worth obsessing about date approximations when > 95% of the fleet is affected and we're approaching a time when only 'antique' cars are not vulnerable.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[bill_mcgonigle]

Good, my 1968 muscle car will still work. And since everyone else's cars will be dead, there'll be plenty of cheap gas and I won't care that it only gets 9MPG.

That and you'll get more 'muscle' by pumping the gas out of the station's underground tank by hand. Bring cash.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[xenoc_1]

This is why I miss my decades-old pre-TDI Jetta Diesel with mechanical fuel injection, mechanical fuel pump, and a manual transmission. Other than the generator and battery, nothing electric of any importance. And you could get by without them. Push-start or roll it down a hill, pop the clutch, and you're driving the next 800 miles passing all the cooked cars.

Newer Diesels are all computerized to the extent that if your alternator dies and your battery goes flat, the car shuts down. Even though it's a compression ignition engine and shouldn't need any stinkin' electricity. Guess how I know this.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[dreadlord76]

>> It could take months of not years to tow the dead machines off public roadways. If something like that happens, there wouldn't be enough people to start towing the dead machines. Also, we would need a fleet of Maters to start towing them, and there ain't no fleet of Mater's left anywhere, except maybe in Cuba. Hmmm, the Cubans, running their old cars, would fare much better than the US. The average supermarket will sell out in 3 days. Imagine what would happen if all food supplies stops across the country. The C-130s and the C-17s will likely be grounded indefinitely as well, with spare parts either not accessible, or cannot be manufactured.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[GungaDan]

Everything listed with the exception of spark plugs is perfectly relevant to most modern diesels. Jesus, these days most of those things are relevant to diesel-powered John Deere tractors...

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Culture20]

Got fuel injection? That's controlled by a computer.

good thing it's surrounded by a Faraday cage.

But the transmission lines to recharge an electric car/truck/bus/train aren't. We'll have to hand-crank-pump gasoline or diesel, but it's better than having _all_ transportation except horses down for the count. And that's only considering cars. Think of all the folks who use electricity to cook or heat their homes (even gas heat requires an electric blower-fan).

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Anonymous Coward]

resistor based spark plugs. Try running non-resistor based, you'll get a shit load of noise in the system (you'll hear it in the radio like when you tune to an open spot on AM in the lower section and drive).

Also, the car is a horrid Faraday cage. I'm pretty sure Faraday cages don't have gaping holes like the windows, and you're forgetting the fact the whole underside of the engine bay is exposed, so all the harnesses there will pick up the EMP. Not only that, most modern cars have so many parts that are plastic or fiberglass which won't do you much good (IE> The grill, bumper, some fenders, trunk lids, hoods, etc.)

I think you need to step away from the keyboard and actually get outside and look at a car :-)

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[tibit]

A rudimentary electric car motor controller can be made with things that are relatively EMP-safe. Some relays, dump resistors, motor(s), some wiring and a lead-acid battery. Just the way they did electric cars 100 years ago (yes, they had them back then). Many of the small components could be probably crafted with a foot-powered lathe/mill. For bigger stuff, you'd need a couple horses.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[tibit]

Whoa, whoa, the efficiency of a radiator is proportional to the loop area enclosed by the flowing current, right?

Modern cars don't use distributors, and spark plug current loops are quite small compared to what they used to be. A typical ignition module sits directly over the spark plug, buried in a hole within the aluminum head, and the area of the current loop is a square inch or two. When done correctly, you can't hear it on the AM radio band. I could compare it over 3 different Volvo models, when listening to a local AM station and driving into a concrete parking garage:

- 940: the station starts to fade after you're ~5-10m into the garage, and right then you could hear ignition harmonics (this car had a distributor and humongous spark current loop areas -- on the order of a square meter).
- '00 S40: the ignition harmonics appear after the station completely fades out and you'd hear nothing but static + harmonics (this car has ignition modules that drive two spark plugs -- the loop area is maybe 10-15 square inches due to the wire going to adjacent spark plug)
- '00 S80: you can't hear ignition harmonics at all, although perhaps you could measure them in the output using a sensitive instrument (loop area is 2-3 square inches)

IOW, the only things on a modern car designed to work in close proximity to ignition currents are the ignition modules, and maybe an occasional sensor somewhere on the head of the engine -- perhaps the camshaft position sensor.

Of course, the ignition modules can be polluting the supply rail with broadband spikes at ignition frequency, but that's just bad design or a sign of component failure, and not a fundamental limitation.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[vlm]

In the program Future Weapons: EMP Bomb

Pure info-tainment. Like those TV people that strap bombs to the gas tank of cars to make better explosion videos, or those TV people that rig tires to detonate to make the SUV flip. Try a real information source summarizing results from real scientific experiments like:

http://www.empcommission.org/

Then check out the "Critical National Infrastructures Report"

Look for this around page 115. The idea that some cars stalling, coasting to a stop, and needing to be restarted will create a crisis is fairly unbelievable from the perspective of a daily rush hour driver like myself whom is used to crazy stop and go traffic, but I guess that was the most terrifying scenario they could produce, so they had to run with what they had.

We tested a sample of 37 cars in an EMP simulation laboratory, with automobile vintages
ranging from 1986 through 2002. Automobiles of these vintages include extensive
electronics and represent a significant fraction of automobiles on the road today. The
testing was conducted by exposing running and nonrunning automobiles to sequentially
increasing EMP field intensities. If anomalous response (either temporary or permanent)
was observed, the testing of that particular automobile was stopped. If no anomalous
response was observed, the testing was continued up to the field intensity limits of the
simulation capability (approximately 50 kV/m).

Automobiles were subjected to EMP environments under both engine turned off and
engine turned on conditions. No effects were subsequently observed in those automobiles
that were not turned on during EMP exposure. The most serious effect observed on running
automobiles was that the motors in three cars stopped at field strengths of approximately
30 kV/m or above. In an actual EMP exposure, these vehicles would glide to a
stop and require the driver to restart them. Electronics in the dashboard of one automobile
were damaged and required repair. Other effects were relatively minor. Twenty-five
automobiles exhibited malfunctions that could be considered only a nuisance (e.g.,
blinking dashboard lights) and did not require driver intervention to correct. Eight of the
37 cars tested did not exhibit any anomalous response.

Based on these test results, we expect few automobile effects at EMP field levels below
25 kV/m. Approximately 10 percent or more of the automobiles exposed to higher field
levels may experience serious EMP effects, including engine stall, that require driver
intervention to correct. We further expect that at least two out of three automobiles on the
road will manifest some nuisance response at these higher field levels. The serious malfunctions
could trigger car crashes on U.S. highways; the nuisance malfunctions could
exacerbate this condition. The ultimate result of automobile EMP exposure could be triggered
crashes that damage many more vehicles than are damaged by the EMP, the consequent
loss of life, and multiple injuries.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, my 1968 muscle car will still work. And since everyone else's cars will be dead, there'll be plenty of cheap gas and I won't care that it only gets 9MPG.

That and you'll get more 'muscle' by pumping the gas out of the station's underground tank by hand. Bring cash.

Pumping by hand is not such a big deal. In 1972 my family took a driving vacation to Victoria Falls in (then) Rhodesia. The petrol station between Bulawayo and the falls had no electricity. In an otherwise state of the art (for the time) gas station the pumps were powered by a hand crank. It wasn't hard work, nor was it any slower than the pumps powered by electricity back in civilization.

Cash? You think if a solar EMP wipes out tech that anyone will care about green bits of paper?

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[danlip]

This type of event is generally predicted to only affect things attached to very long antennas - our power grid is unfortunately one such antenna - but unless your electric car is actually plugged in when it hits it will be fine, as will all the gas burning cars controlled by computers. Satellites may be destroyed since they are not protected by the atmosphere - at the very least they will be temporarily inoperable.

An EMP from a nuclear blast has a different profile and may be worse - more localized but a much faster spike, so more likely to affect small electronics even if not on the grid.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[bill_mcgonigle]

Pure info-tainment.

Are you claiming the result was faked? Was the White Sands researcher in on the deception?

The idea that some cars stalling, coasting to a stop, and needing to be restarted

Except the video shows the car can't be restarted.

http://www.empcommission.org/

Which isn't a peer-reviewed scientific paper, it's a government committee report. Those aren't always 100% truthful, or they at least tend to massage the truth to come up with politically convenient answers (e.g. Warren Commission, 9/11 Commission, etc.) Yet sometimes they're right on, the trick is knowing which is which.

A company is developing an EMP weapon to disable vehicles for law enforcement. It's been shown that interruption vs. damage is a matter of power levels.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Anonymous Coward]

But there are currently devices that will allow police to disable an auto during a chase using a microwave emp pulse. If that can fry the electronics in a car, then the Sun surely could do the same.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[vlm]

Right, but other than spark plug wires, what critical sensors and cabling are unshielded/ungrounded? Like you say, you can't hear anything coming out, so not much can get in either.

Crankshaft position sensor buried deep inside the aluminum block by the flywheel...

O2 exhaust sensor, not critical to operation, buried deep inside the SS exhaust manifold

Fuel pump, inside an enclosed literally gas tight pressurized steel fuel tank.

Fuel injectors, inside an enclosed aluminum intake manifold.

I'll give you the heavy gauge cables to the battery and starter, but those laugh at 1K amp starting current and the internal resistance of the battery is obviously low enough to eat any voltage spike for dinner.

Everything else is as stated before, steel boxes mounted on the inside of a steel cage.

So, I'm thinking the most sensitive wiring is the spark plugs, and we agree they are pretty bullet proof from an EMP perspective.

My wife's Prius, not that might have a problem based on the RF noise it radiates. But my old Saturn, not really.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[bill_mcgonigle]

An EMP from a nuclear blast has a different profile and may be worse - more localized but a much faster spike, so more likely to affect small electronics even if not on the grid.

Ah, thanks - I was wondering about the spike time vs. power.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[halltk1983]

I assume it's diesel, so you didn't need spark plugs?

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Gordonjcp]

Yes, diesel with all-mechanical injection in a Citroen CX 25DTR. All-mechanical and not an electronic bit in site (well, the boost gauge and heater temperature control, but that's about it). Bump-starting was entertaining because there was no hydraulic pressure, so the car was about 1" off the ground and had no brakes or steering for about ten seconds after starting...

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[molo]

Example of high power broadcast transmitters surrounded by dead cars:

http://wcbstv.com/watercooler/empire.state.building.2.641521.html

The good news is that they tow them a few blocks and it works again.

-molo

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Why tow the cars off? Just swap in a new ECU (and TCU if that is separate) and drive off.

It's a $200 part and a 15 minute swap.

Just hope that they have foresight to keep ECUs and other needed ICs stockpiled. I'm sure the Department of Homeland Security has though of it (well they know of it now ;) )

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[vlm]

Which isn't a peer-reviewed scientific paper, it's a government committee report. Those aren't always 100% truthful, or they at least tend to massage the truth to come up with politically convenient answers (e.g. Warren Commission, 9/11 Commission, etc.) Yet sometimes they're right on, the trick is knowing which is which.

To figure how likely it was to be true, look at this individual scenario. The report came out in 2005 and was written roughly in the middle of an administration that was more that willing to outright lie to the public to start multi-front wars, using a preferred propaganda technique of fear and intimidation to scare people into submission. I don't think this is a controversial opinion. To some extent the current administration does the same thing, just not as blatantly.

Given the govt at that time, I'd expect the report to lean more towards a conclusion that the arabs will destroy all our all american pickup trucks and big iron muscle cars unless we launch a new crusade in the middle east for the sake of spreading the gospel of christianity, and bomb every brown skinned nation on earth just because they hate our freedoms, and also all true patriotic americans should be proud to give up our civil rights, and nazi style torture/concentration/death camps are a great idea as long as they're only for brown skinned people. Because nothings more important to us Americans than driving our cars. Personally I find that all rather repulsive, but thats the kind of writing I'd expect to read in a "Bush-era post-9/11 world".

However, the way it actually turned out, the best they could terrify us into submission with, was less than 1 in 10 cars stalled but started right back up again, and one dude needed a new radio? That's not exactly worthy of a presentation to the UN to open a third front in the middle eastern wars, and a presentation like that is in extremely high demand.

So, I think the report was accurate, honest, truthful, at least in part because it didn't meet the governments needs.

As for the video, there's a fine line between making a visually impressive marketing video where you control all the variables for all aspects of the single demonstration, and outright faking. Is it true that one specially selected car year and model with a certain maintenance history under utterly ideal conditions could be damaged in some manner? Maybe. Would I trust an obvious PR video just slightly above the level of a late night infomercial? Heck no.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[maxwell demon]

What about the starter motor (OK, not electronic, but electric - as would be the main engine in an electric car)? Do you have a crank to start your car?

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[RichiH]

Most of the equipment in a diesel will be designed & tested with gas engines as well. In most cases it's cheaper to manufacture one kind of $commodity_foo and use that for all models.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[init100]

Other than the generator and battery, nothing electric of any importance.

I'd call running lights pretty important, especially where I live (see below).

Push-start or roll it down a hill, pop the clutch, and you're driving the next 800 miles passing all the cooked cars.

Only in daylight, which in December/January lasts roughly from 9 am to 3 pm here in Stockholm, Sweden. When it is dark 18 hours each day, you need lights.

Of course, in the summer the reverse happens. In June/July, dawn is roughly 3 am and dusk is roughly at 10 pm, and the sky isn't completely black even in the middle of the night.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[John Hasler]

> ...unless your electric car is actually plugged in when it hits it will be
> fine...

It'll be fine even if it is plugged in. These sorts of events induce large, very low frequency (effectively DC) common-mode currents into long-distance transmission lines. These currents can damage the transformers at the ends of the line but are not coupled into the local distribution system.

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[shadowbearer]

  Bring tradeable items. Paper money won't be worth anything if the computer systems that keep track of the country's financial system aren't operational.

SB

Re:Good thing we dont have Electric Cars yet

[Gordonjcp]

Not on that one, no. If you look at my reply to the other post, you'll see I bump-started it - it's manual rather than slugomatic.

EOTW?

[BrokenHalo]

Since the headline of TFA describes this as a once-in-a-generation "space storm", I'd say this is umlikely to be a problem. There were lots of electronic gadgets around a generation ago (or two, for that matter), and the world didn't come to an end.

Re:EOTW?

[Eraesr]

While I agree with your conclusions, we do have to factor in that modern day electronics are a lot more sensitive to electromagnetic disturbances than electronic devices of 70 years ago were.

Re:EOTW?

[yotto]

Actually a "Generation" is typically 20-25 years. However, today's electronics are a pretty big advance from those of the late 80s.

I just had a thought, wouldn't it be odd if the only space ships that weathered the space storm were the Shuttles? :o

Re:EOTW?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Working on the assumption that, in the contemporary west, "generation" means ~25 years, there have been pretty enormous changes in that time. In '85, a 386 fabbed on a 1.5 micrometer process was seriously exciting stuff. In 1960, the transistor was only 13 years old, and seriously retro(but electromagnetically robust) stuff like magnetic core memory was still standard. There were plenty of electric gadgets, though.

Re:EOTW?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Also, two other things I just thought of:)

1. Because infrastructure is expensive, a lot of critical/core infrastructure is technologically a bit behind the curve. If it ain't broke, etc. So, while loss of personal gadgets would likely make consumers into sad pandas, things like power grids and industrial control systems are likely built more like the consumer tech of some time before the present(or of no time at all, in the case of stuff that was too pricey to ever hit the consumer market before it became obsolete). However, the contemporary "COTS" push, and the proliferation of x86 boxes, as probably weakened this effect a bit recently.

2. The Cold War: As long as being nuked by Ruskies was a serious consideration, there would be a greater likelihood that electromagnetic robustness would be a design consideration for critical systems. Now that concern has largely abated on that score, and other issues have taken center stage, it is less likely that people are paying extra for electromagnetic durability(cheap consumer junk certainly only cares about that enough to survive FCC scrutiny, and I'm guessing that the substantial replacement of ground-based radio beacons with GPS for military applications hasn't made them any better of in that regard either. GPS satellites are probably better made; but space isn't a nice neighborhood).

Re:EOTW?

[shadowbearer]

  A "generation" seems to be whatever the popular media defines it as.

  Technically a "generation" is born every (second/minute/hour/day/month/year insert your own definition here).

  It's not like people are born in cycles*!

  Sorry, but this is one of the completely silly social/cultural assumptions that make me wonder about the intelligence of humans en masse. "Generations" as applied to cycles of birth and death really only applies to lab cultures or completely closed and/or controlled systems of organisms, and even that becomes meaningless after a few iterations. Even within the same controlled set of the same species not all the members will reproduce at the same rate or the same times, variation ensues.

  * The term "baby boomers" is bandied around a lot. Sure, there was an increase in births during/after WWII. As a measure of social and cultural memes a half a century later it's rather meaningless, especially given the non-linear increase in population even in the US. Economists go on and on about it, especially wrt Social Security, but the reality is that the birth rate in this country has been decreasing steadily since then. 20-25 years? Who says? It's a silly, meaningless definition.

SB

 

Re:EOTW?

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Actually, not. Trace paths are much, MUCH shorter than they used to be. Although I can't recall the last phone I owned which had a 200km long antenna. Which is how long a wire you'd likely need to see any effect from a solar storm (Pro tip: this means being plugged in to the wall socket at the time, so keep that in mind ).

Spacecraft live different lives than ground based gear, so your GPS/satellite calls may fail. But your phone will be fine, as will anything else not plugged in to the wall.

Countermesures anyone?

[gorg1]

From one of the links we learn that "..powergrids will temporary switch off some transformers, to save them from the effects..".
What about our computers? Anyone here able to confirm that powered off electronics would not be damaged by the blast?

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[FTWinston]

The effect is proportional to length of wire. We're talking about a hypothetical major solar event, potentially comparable to the one in 1859. As the effect will be proportional to the length of the conductor in question, the effect on your ~1m PC will be ~1000 times less than the effect on a ~1km power cable.

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[John Hasler]

> The effect is proportional to length of wire.

More like the square of the length of wire.

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[robot256]

...the effect on your ~1m PC will be ~1000 times less than the effect on a ~1km power cable.

That doesn't help if your computer is a million times more sensitive than the power transformers.

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[John Hasler]

> That doesn't help if your computer is a million times more sensitive than
> the power transformers.

The power transformers aren't sensitive at all. It's the 1000 km transmission lines connecting to them that are. Your pc is not connected to those lines.

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[nametaken]

Yeah or my servers, which stay online when the grid fails.

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[robot256]

The transmission line is an antenna that absorbs the magnetic energy, but after it is absorbed it causes a power surge on the lines that makes some common types of transformers explode.

My post was intended to convey the fact that your computer will be damaged by a much smaller energy spike than one that would destroy a transformer. Therefore, the shorter wires near a computer may be able to absorb enough energy to damage the computer even though they are not kilometers long.

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[John Hasler]

> Therefore, the shorter wires near a computer may be able to absorb enough
> energy to damage the computer even though they are not kilometers long.

But they aren't. They are much, much too short.

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[robot256]

I only say this because beating dead horses is one of my hobbies, but do you have numbers to back that up? I don't, which is why I want to know if your unsupported claims are more valid than my unsupported claims.

Re:Countermesures anyone?

[MightyDrunken]

I tried to find numbers for you but I was out of luck :(

From what I can gather the actual directly induced current is pretty small so unless you wire is 10 miles long you probably won't notice anything. In fact most of the problems are not caused by a changing magnetic field directly effecting the wire but by the ring current. Therefore the problems seen in telephone lines and the electric grid is due to current in the ground finding a better path through the wire instead.

In regard to the power lines the problem is not caused by massive currents overheating the wire but the relatively small direct current interfering in the magnetic field within the transformer. This sets up harmonics which cause the core to heat up due to increased resistance. As these effects will not be present in a small device they will be unaffected unless a power surge through the electric grid takes them out.

British acronyms

[Anonymous Coward]

In some deep and primal way it infuriates me that the British only capitalize the first letter of acronyms. Consider this due warning England: change your ways or we will have to invent our own version of your language, with different spellings and everything.

Re:British acronyms

[imakemusic]

Only when the word is pronounced as a word, not a series of letters, i.e. USA, FBI, CIA are all caps but Nasa and Nato are not because you don't pronounce the letters. You're welcome to make your own version of our language just please don't call it English - it just leads to confusion and arguments. At the very least call it American English.

Re:British acronyms

[Tim C]

Not to mention GPS, which is in the article had our anonymous coward only bothered to read the whole thing before complaining...

Re:British acronyms

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you! You didn't invent the language dipshit. The british did!! We can do what we want to OUR language!

from wikipedia "English is a West Germanic language that arose in England and south-eastern Scotland in the time of the Anglo-Saxons." - doesnt say USA does it? No so fuck you!

Re:British acronyms

[Aqualung812]

Your sarcasm detector is broken.

Re:British acronyms

[Anonymous Coward]

You Brits may have invented it, but Americans represent the vast majority of native English speakers.

Re:British acronyms

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, yes. That was exactly my point. I am British. We invented it (by stealing lots of other languages' words and mashing them together). The USA is welcome to make their own derivative work - I just think they should give it a different title to avoid confusion and arguments.

Re:British acronyms

[imakemusic]

Actually I've got an inflamed Pedant Gland. It's causing all sorts of problems.

Re:British acronyms

[Inda]

I propose Yankish. It seems a fitting name.

Re:British acronyms

[malcomhfc]

Sounds good! :) Maybe the USA can invent something by themselves for a change. I mean i hate when they say oh we are so great. You wish you where great. Did they invent anything major. Ya know, the tv, lightbulb, the computer? NOPE nope and nope! You didn't even invent the nuke. It was just planned and built on US soil. Fuck the Americans. British all the way! :) Back on topic now. We are all going to die. RUNNNN

Re:British acronyms

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for the record acronyms always pronounceable. If you can't pronounce it, it is an initialism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym_and_initialism#Nomenclature

Re:British acronyms

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Fbi isn't pronounced feebee?

EVERYBODY PANIC!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Run in circles outside before collapsing in tears.

Re:EVERYBODY PANIC!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like prom night. Ahhh, the memories...

Re:EVERYBODY PANIC!!

[Narcocide]

Let me just take a moment to promote a site I just found online that mixes tasteless humor with actually serious disaster preparedness. Video content such as the Bug Out Bag, for example, is educational and fun. Thanks for listening and ... don't be eaten by zombies!

P.S. Anyone know the shelf life of shotgun shells?

Tin Foil Hats?

[anexkahn]

Time to make another tiny Tinfoil hat for my Phone, and a Great Big one for my Computer!

Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[CdXiminez]

Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum than previous maxima?
Nowhere in the two linked articles does it say anything about why it would be worse than 2006.
They don't even talk about the unusually long sun spot miminum we've had.
I was hoping for some science about how that might affect the coming maximum...

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[vlm]

Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum than previous maxima?

Because the folks studying it want more money. Hence the prediction of it being worse.

No different than Ms Cleo saying something terrible will happen unless you send her money to learn about it in advance.

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

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[FTWinston]

Frankly, none of the modellers really expected the magnitude of this minimum. We're in "unknown territory" with regard to solar behaviour right now, so based on our very-limited understanding, a major solar event is probably about as likely as any other outcome.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause the Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person’s life.

Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.

Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I was hoping for some science about how that might affect the coming maximum..."

With that kind of crazy hyperbole in the summary? Yeah, right. Don't bother. It's a bunch of the usual journalist sensationalism. Look elsewhere.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[starfishsystems]

From the article:

Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.

If you read the article, you may have noticed that the quality of writing leaves much to be desired. For example, "The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.”

The article goes on to claim that these two cycles will "combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation." This claim implies that the two cycles are independent.

My understanding is that these are simply different manifestations of the same cycle. So I agree with you, there's no credible explanation here.

See here for a more credible treatment.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[Yvanhoe]

It is also worth noting that so far NASA's prevision on solar activity evolution have been pretty bad (hey, this is a young science !). Take this more as a bet than an assured prevision. Discoveries are made every month in the field of solar climatology.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[Abcd1234]

Ugh, ignore the fucking Telegraph article, it's a piece of shit.

The NASA article makes no claim that this solar maximum will be any worse than previous ones. Their point is that, due to the deep penetration of technology in our lives, our society is more sensitive than ever to peak solar activity, and so solar weather forecasting is now more important than ever.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[natehoy]

As I understand it from previous articles I've read, the last minimum WAS unusually long and unusually quiet. Based on what little data mankind has, this is associated with a much stronger and longer maximum when the minimum finally ends. I think it's also well worth noting that this article appears to be based on NASA's 2006 predictions, and NOAA did a prediction in 2009 that calls for a much lighter maximum. Of course, they are all predictions. The next cycle will give us better data about what to expect after a long and extreme minimum. Or it will give us some anomalous data that will be disproved long after we're all dead. Isn't prediction fun?????

But just as important as the magnitude, we've added a lot of new stuff since the last cycle in 2001, and a lot of our newest technology (3G, 4G, the very latest high density memory, etc) is all too new to have been subjected to a real-life maximum. I think it's very reasonable to expect some disruption of electric power, almost certainly some interruption of wireless communications, and maybe some corruption of some small amount of storage is even possible though probably not likely.

No one can claim to know for sure, of course, so being prepared is always a good idea. Even if you don't want to throw more research money at it, backing up your data to multiple media, shielding your backups, and maybe keeping a few extra cans of your favorite soup or whatever you like for preserved food and particularly some fresh water on hand wouldn't hurt anything. No need to panic or run screaming for the hills, but it's inexpensive, convenient, and very rational to be prepared for a possible increase in power and communication outages over the next few years. If nothing happens, hey, you've got soup!

Plus, a little extra food and water tucked away could come in handy for a lot of other reasons. Hurricanes, snowstorms, some asshole running a 747 into a major power line by accident, temporarily out of work, or of course the impending zombie invasion (you may want to find some canned brains, just in case zombies will settle for that for a while).

http://www.spaceweather.com/ is an interesting resource for further reading.

Not on the zombie invasion, though. Sorry. That's all hushed up now. Just be ready.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[hypergreatthing]

the cycle is out of whack currently. It extended a ultra low minimum when it was supposed to be maximum back a few years ago. Now it's awakening and there are a lot of signs that this cycle will be quite different. Combine that with the earth's magnetic field that's overdue in reversing, if both happened at the same time there's a chance of widespread damage.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[delinear]

Even if the two cycles were independent, the fact that one occurs every 11 years and one every 22 would surely mean they're in sync once every 22 years (if they're going to sync up in 2013 they either don't occur with that exact frequency, or the majority of us have already lived through at least one of these cycles in 1991 and just never noticed).

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[starfishsystems]

I don't think anyone would suppose that two solar cycles would both be an exact multiple of the Earth's orbital period.

Follow the Wikipedia link I supplied and you'll see that these cycles are in fact quite variable. Oh, and in fact it's just once cycle. Solar flares don't care about the sign of the magenetic flux, just the magnitude.

Anyway, the point is that the article quite badly misrepresents the magnitude of this big event as being due to a momentary synchronization between the two cycles, whereas the synchronization is constant. What would cause an especially large heliomagnetic storm in 2013? We're not told.

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[Anonymous Coward]

As per others - check out the 1859 solar flare - biggest on record. Melted telegraph wire, the dead walked the earth - the whole nine-yards

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bracing-for-a-solar-superstorm

The next time one that size hits us, we'll probably lose every satellite for starters...

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they're not saying it will be worse than the previous (forcast is for a less severe maximum than 2006). It seems that they are pointing to our increased sensitivity instead. I sure agree that the article is misleading...

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

There's also a chance that the earths oceans will suddenly turn into gold.

How about something less weasel-worded? I suggest:

"If you get in a car wreck in the next 20 thousand years, maybe it was because the Earth's magnetic poles were in the process of reversing."

Re:Why should we expect a worse sun spot maximum?

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Probably not on the satellites. Trace paths are pretty short, so induced currents are less of a problem than you'd expect. Still, I'd rather we not test it.

Government thinking writ large:

[Rogerborg]

The National Risk Register, established in 2008 to identify different dangers to Britain, also has "comprehensive" plans on how to handle a complete outage of electricity supplies.

Yes, secret plans. Don't worry, when we need to know, they'll be disseminated, presumably by a network of tin cans and bits of string, with a smoke signal backup system.

Re:Government thinking writ large:

[eth1]

ha... They're probably secret because "handle" just means "keep the gov't safe and operating." And fsck the rest of you.

Can't Touch This

[Sponge Bath]

My iPod has a Monster Cable brand cover!

"He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely."

It could be really bad, or not. Plan accordingly.

NASA is on the 2012 Band wagon?

[curmudgeon99]

How ironic that we can add even NASA to the crowd saying that 2012 or thereabouts will lead to huge destruction...

creators' big flash already happening everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

there's plenty of doubt nowadays when ANY prognostication issued by a member of man'kind' leaves out EVERYTHING of any spiritual nature. it's like trying to solve an equation without 99% of the components/variables available to consider.

the corepirate nazi illuminati is always hunting that patch of red on almost everyones' neck. if they cannot find yours (greed, fear ego etc...) then you can go starve. that's their platform now. they do pull A LOT of major strings.

never a better time for all of us to consult with/trust in our creators. the lights are coming up rapidly all over now. see you there?

greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one, & the terminal damage to our atmosphere (see also: manufactured 'weather', hot etc...). see you on the other side of it? the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be your guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

"The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)

"I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," added Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general. "We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out many of our closest relatives."--

"The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me .... I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born." --emerson

no need to confuse 'religion' with being a spiritual being. our soul purpose here is to care for one another. failing that, we're simply passing through (excess baggage) being distracted/consumed by the guaranteed to fail illusionary trappings of man'kind'. & recently (about 10,000 years ago) it was determined that hoarding & excess by a few, resulted in negative consequences for all.

consult with/trust in your creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." )one does not need not to agree whois in charge to grasp the notion that there may be some assistance available to us(

boeing, boeing, gone.

'We take this very seriously indeed.'"

[Rooked_One]

But the rest of the world doesn't! Silly scientists with you wacky microscopes.

Re:'We take this very seriously indeed.'"

[John Hasler]

> But the rest of the world doesn't!

That's exactly right. Most of the world takes only two things seriously: sex and murder.

Re:'We take this very seriously indeed.'"

[Rooked_One]

Don't forget "Staying up with the Kardashians"!!!

Geez... I thought I was out of the loop! :P

Vacuum Tubes

[Carpal Tunnel]

Damnit... i KNEW i should have requested the vacuum tube version of my new Android phone! With this new information, i think the extra weight would have been worth it!

Ah, the 'quality' press

[Bearhouse]

Just a few snippets from the wonderful Telegraph article...they say that;

"While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher’s comments are the most comprehensive warnings from Nasa to date."

Indeed they are! For example:

“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”

Ah, OK...but there's more!

"He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely. "

Eh?

"Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids".

Great idea! Damn, why did we not think of that before?

Re:Ah, the 'quality' press

[starfishsystems]

My favorite has gotta be:

"The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect."

I'm seriously surprised that the writer didn't spell that as "lightening".

Telegraph sensationalized stories

[Fractal Dice]

Does it seem to anyone else that the telegraph routinely confuses "Something up to size X could hypothetically happen some day" with "X IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!!!!"?

I'm not saying this is a bad topic to have a conversation about (in fact it's one of my favorite disaster scenarios to rant about), it's just that if slashdot is going to reference the telegraph, it should frame it as though a new Hollywood disaster movie has been released, not as though it was an actual news item was printed.

Re:Telegraph sensationalized stories

[ghostlibrary]

I worry about "Chicken Little" syndrome with space weather alerts. "GPS will die, sending airplanes crashing and sinking boats. Cell phones will fail, stranding travelers and resulting in people in remote areas dying due to exposure. Worse of all, our TV may go out for a few hours."

Jay Reich from the Dept. of Commerce talked about 'overwarning' versus 'need for science', covered at http://www.scientificblogging.com/daytime_astronomer/why_sky_falling_space_weather_communications but here's the summary:

Science is rigorous, slow, based on data and challenge. This means politically it's horrible, and the media overstates it. So we have to balance warning with overhyping and risking people tune us out. Solution? Unknown.

Re:Telegraph sensationalized stories

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174

Re:Telegraph sensationalized stories

[natehoy]

One possible solution: Just tell people that in a modern technological society we depend on a lot of tech to work continuously for our comfort and convenience and the delivery of our necessities, and the more interconnected and complex that technology gets, the higher the chances that someone or something can interfere with it. The more we become dependent on that technology, the higher the changes that an interruption to it could cause loss of comfort, convenience, and even reductions in necessities.

We don't need to be screamed at about specific threats, just made aware of the complexity of the infrastructure that makes it possible for each of us to live where we do.

If you live in the city and use a public utility for heat and cooking, go to the corner market every day for your daily vittles and use city-supplied tapwater, you may want to think about what happens if there's a 3 or 4 day interruption that could cause that store to run out of stuff and the tapwater to be contaminated or stop, and the utilitiues to stop working. How will you stay warm? How will you get enough food and water? Got some space in a closet? Throw a few good blankets in there. Buy some extra canned food, and keep a few gallons of water in containers that you cycle through frequently so it's fresh. That's all it really takes.

Suburbanite? Basically the same deal, except you probably have more food on hand (but are probably more remote from your water and power supply, so the chances of contamination or failure increase). Same basic advice, though.

Rural? Well, most of us get power outages all the time anyway. My house is rigged specifically to drain all the water out of the pipes if needed, and I've got a dug shallow well I can dip for water if I get thirsty. I've got backup heat, and lots of preserved food because I can stuff from the garden each fall. In the winter, I keep a few spare cans of gasoline for the truck, some extra water in the house to save the hassle of dipping the well, and my propane grill has a burner so I can cook food and heat up water if I need to.

I could also get a small generator to keep the furnace going, but it just seems silly for the 5-10 days a year we are usually without power. Of course, when those days happen in the middle of the winter and the temps get down well below freezing with a wind, I frequently reconsider that decision. :)

The point is, if you're prepared for a week of complete loss of services, you're done. It doesn't matter WHY the services go away, it only matters that you have food, water, and warmth so you can muddle through until help can be organized and sent your way. Might be a good idea to keep a good quality backpack around in case you need to make that food and water supply mobile in a hurry (flooding, incoming hurricane, etc).

Re:Telegraph sensationalized stories

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it seem to anyone else that the telegraph routinely confuses "Something up to size X could hypothetically happen some day" with "X IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!!!!"?

No, they never do anything like that.

Titan: Nasa scientists discover evidence 'that alien life exists on Saturn's moon'

Time to deploy TCP/IP Over Carrier Pidgin!

[Silly Man]

Looks like RFC1149 is needed after all!

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

Re:Time to deploy TCP/IP Over Carrier Pidgin!

[Drakkenmensch]

It's the original PPPoE - Pigeon to Pigeon over Europe!

Re:Time to deploy TCP/IP Over Carrier Pidgin!

[Errol backfiring]

But don't use metal containers for the packets...

Re:Time to deploy TCP/IP Over Carrier Pidgin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two Pigeons, One Protocol?

Re:Time to deploy TCP/IP Over Carrier Pidgin!

[Silly Man]

But don't use metal containers for the packets...

Don't think that is in the RFC (ROFL!)

"Frame Format

      The IP datagram is printed, on a small scroll of paper, in hexadecimal, with each octet separated by whitestuff and blackstuff.
      The scroll of paper is wrapped around one leg of the avian carrier.
      A band of duct tape is used to secure the datagram's edges. The bandwidth is limited to the leg length. The MTU is variable, and
      paradoxically, generally increases with increased carrier age. A typical MTU is 256 milligrams. Some datagram padding may be needed.

      Upon receipt, the duct tape is removed and the paper copy of the datagram is optically scanned into a electronically transmittable form."

Re:Can't Touch This

[dragisha]

My iPod has a Monster Cable brand cover!

I am still undecided would iPod problems be bigger than number of people dead once their pacemakers stop
working.

Makes one think just how people can be irresponsible in their quest for funding. One's fear for iPod is nothing compared to, possibly, milions of people whose lives depend on piece of electronic.

Your (EMP) resistance is futile.

[retech]

It had to be said.

Fantastic Four?

[dsvick]

Will anyone staying on the ISS at the time turn into the Fantastic Four?

Re:Fantastic Four?

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't be having 4 astronauts there at the time since the only way down is via soyuz now that the shuttle is retiring and there will be no replacement.
We will have to settle for a dynamic duo.

Cult Anyone?

[pinkushun]

Rites include worshiping the sun and wrapping copious amounts of copper wire around your body, making a huge human electromagnet for nuking organs from the inside. Our holy sun-god will feast so well that night!

"The sky is falling"

[Ichido]

It seems that most "Scientists" like to try to scare the population so they can Get more money just to feather their nests.

Doomed!

[dandart]

Oh, no! We're all doomed! We must build massive underground lead chambers to live in to prevent all our shiny gadgets from dying!! Oh, the over-the-top-ness!

Once-per-century event affecting out daily lives?

[Anonymous Coward]

'I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather.' Fisher concludes.

How is this the conclusion? Since when is a once-per-century event affecting our _daily_ lives?

Understanding the spaceweather or not, its effect on our daily lives will not be any greater than it does today.

budgets

[Anonymous Coward]

so this coes at a time when NASA are seeing their budgets cut/completely removed... deeply suspicious.

Calling Larry NIven...

[Temkin]

Time republish "Inconstant Moon"...

stupid shit

[alobar72]

when this thing happens just after I finally got my iPad - just to have it rendered useless immediately... I will be _very_ pissed

Re:stupid shit

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPad doesn't need to be *rendered* useless...

Re:stupid shit

[ironicsky]

Buying the iPad rendered it useless :-) The solar storm will just put it in to an grave...
Plus, your iPad won't last that long anyway... My bets are on it falling in 8-12 months and smashing the fragile glass screen..

The end of the world is nigh!!!

[flyingfsck]

Oh woe begot us. The end of the world is nigh.

The earth survived the previous 4 billion years just fine.

Sigh...

Hollywood to the rescue !!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's call Will Smith ... He'll know what to do !!!!

Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

The weather man can not even accurate predict what the weather will be like in an hour. How can I put any trust in a prediction that is out of this world!

Carrington Event, 1859

[sonnejw0]

Anything that includes circuitry would be affected (destroyed) by magnetic storms from the sun. In 1859, telegraph wires visibly sparked across the United States due to a geomagnetic solar storm, the largest recorded in history. I just hope my phone in my pocket doesn't take my leg off.

Re: Carrington Event, 1859

[Black Parrot]

Anything that includes circuitry would be affected (destroyed) by magnetic storms from the sun. In 1859, telegraph wires visibly sparked across the United States due to a geomagnetic solar storm, the largest recorded in history.

I wonder whether anyone has simulated what would happen if such a storm hit today. It's hard to rebuild civilization when you've got not food, and most of us wouldn't have much food after a few days of grocery stores not being able to place orders and motor vehicles not being able to deliver.

Would it put us back into the Stone Age? Is such a simple thing the explanation for the Fermi Paradox?

Re:Carrington Event, 1859

[daid303]

I know that flash won't survive a good electric storm (A good EMP blast can destroy a lot of electronics) and I kinda assumed everyone knew, and thus aimed for a funny, not an informative...

Re: Carrington Event, 1859

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it put us back into the Stone Age? Is such a simple thing the explanation for the Fermi Paradox?

It is doubtful it would put us back to the Stone Age, at worst mid Iron Age maybe but not Stone Age. First, while a lot of people would might starve to death if some type of transportation infrastructure is not in place within a couple of weeks, but there are still farmers who could adapt to the loss of modern implements and even people that know a thing or two about blacksmithing. People with these skills (as well as other valuable pre-industrial skills) live in both urban and rural settings so the knowledge on how to make most Iron Age technology is likely to survive even in industrialized nations. As mentioned by somebody else above, recycling iron and steel only requires enough heat to melt the metals, thus high technology is not necessary to get more than enough iron for survivors to start rebuilding civilization.

I can personally attest to this, earlier this spring I took a hands-on course in basic blacksmithing from the IHEA. No, that doesn't mean I'm now an expert blacksmith, but my instructors certainly were. Of course, none of what I posted makes this scenario anything I'd want anyone I cared about to experience... :/

Oh and in regards to your other question, I don't know if this is a credible explanation of the Fermi Paradox. While huge solar induced EMP events could set-back vulnerable civilizations several hundreds of years, it wouldn't destroy the intelligent species completely. After a few iterations through surviving written records (which are likely), oral traditions (even more likely but distorted), or just dumb luck, a species would eventually find a way to avoid this trap. For example, even if we have our electronic infrastructure wiped-out, that doesn't mean that our great-great-great-great-grandchildren can't avoid repeating our mistakes.

Re: Carrington Event, 1859

[John Hasler]

> Would it put us back into the Stone Age?

No. It might do a few tens of billions of dollars damage.

BOfH #6 - Solar Flares

[snugge]

http://bofh.ch/bofh/bofh6.html

ahhh... finally!
the solar flares excuse comes true. sweet.

This is good, I can finally justify buying

[polaris20]

A Blu Ray burner and a couple SSD's to the wife. Too bad it took getting a Dutch Oven from the Sun to finally be able to do it though.

Awesome.

[DarrenBaker]

Can't wait until this story gets picked up by my local stations and reported as FACT!

Aluminum foil ftw

[Junior J. Junior III]

I am going to coat my entire house in aluminum foil when I get home from work today. I wish I didn't have vinyl siding, I'd just have to cover the roof if that were the case. Sigh.

OH NO!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It "could cause catastrophic consequences for the world's health, emergency services, and national security" AND I could possible lose all the music on my IPod? Oh, the humanity!

2013? Don't worry about it.

[tekrat]

After all, the world is ending in 2012 !!!
Duh, stupid scientists, don't they know anything?

When I see them taking action

[petes_PoV]

then I'll get interested.

Talk is cheap. Scare stories even cheaper. In fact, if you want one try this

There is a possibility that a change in the Sun sometime in the next few years could potentially put some people at risk

Totally non-specific. risk of what (sunspots? x-rays? sunburn? supernova?) How much risk? When - next week? this year? tomorrow? Who - me? my family? everyone? a group of foreign people I've never met?

Unless a pronouncement can provide specific, actionable and geographically relevant information that a person can use to mitigate any harm to themselves or people they care about, all this sort of thing does is raise the level of anxiety, which is already too high due to all the other dumb and dire warnings that we see everywhere, every day. To the point where they all just blur together and we become inured to danger signals..

So when I see NASA putting metalised blankets over its satellites, hardening its computers and issuing staff with factor 1million sun cream, I'll think about what I need to do. Until that time, I have every intention of ignoring this useless press release.

lead paint = savior

[Anonymous Coward]

See, if only we had left the lead based paint on our homes our electronics would have been shielded from this pending doom...

Re:lead paint = savior

[Aphoxema]

Lead paint is far from a perfect Faraday cage.

some high dollar HF -Two-Way Radios

[FudRucker]

what is a good way to protect them (big desktop radio)? unplug antenna & power cord, and put in a metal box kept away from electrical outlets and any wiring?

Re:some high dollar HF -Two-Way Radios

[John Hasler]

> what is a good way to protect them

Give them to me. I'll see to it that they are ok (by doing nothing in particular: they are not at risk anyway).

Re:some high dollar HF -Two-Way Radios

[butlerm]

I seriously doubt you are going to need a metal box. But unplugging them from the power grid and any (large) antennas is good idea.

An Original Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

All we need to do is shoot Red Matter into the Sun, causing it to become a black hole. That way, my iPod won't get messed up!

Radiation resistant iPhone, anyone ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This just gives enough time for Apple to release its next generation iPhone, this time with solar flare protection.

There will be an app for predicting the storm as it gets closer.

Wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Jokes on them! The world ends in 2012. Idiots...

Moot Point

[Ashcrow]

The storm won't be a problem. Quetzalcoatl will be here.

Oh the por^w humanity!

[Black Parrot]

At least you've got three years' lead time to print all your favorite files.

My hat

[Anonymous Coward]

How about my tinfoil hat? Will it protect my brain from the solar storm?

Government tested cars for EMP vulnerability

[Comboman]

The US government has tested relatively modern cars (1986-2002) and found EMP had very little effect (full report can be read here):

The potential EMP vulnerability of automobiles derives from the use of built-in electronics that support multiple automotive functions. Electronic components were first introduced into automobiles in the late 1960s. As time passed and electronics technologies evolved, electronic applications in automobiles proliferated. Modern automobiles have as many as 100 microprocessors that control virtually all functions. While electronic applications have proliferated within automobiles, so too have application standards and electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility (EMI/EMC) practices. Thus, while it might be expected that increased EMP vulnerability would accompany the proliferated electronics applications, this trend, at least in part, is mitigated by the increased application of EMI/EMC practices. We tested a sample of 37 cars in an EMP simulation laboratory, with automobile vintages ranging from 1986 through 2002. Automobiles of these vintages include extensive electronics and represent a significant fraction of automobiles on the road today. The testing was conducted by exposing running and nonrunning automobiles to sequentially increasing EMP field intensities. If anomalous response (either temporary or permanent) was observed, the testing of that particular automobile was stopped. If no anomalous response was observed, the testing was continued up to the field intensity limits of the simulation capability (approximately 50 kV/m). Automobiles were subjected to EMP environments under both engine turned off and engine turned on conditions. No effects were subsequently observed in those automobiles that were not turned on during EMP exposure. The most serious effect observed on running automobiles was that the motors in three cars stopped at field strengths of approximately 30 kV/m or above. In an actual EMP exposure, these vehicles would glide to a stop and require the driver to restart them. Electronics in the dashboard of one automobile were damaged and required repair. Other effects were relatively minor. Twenty-five automobiles exhibited malfunctions that could be considered only a nuisance (e.g., blinking dashboard lights) and did not require driver intervention to correct. Eight of the 37 cars tested did not exhibit any anomalous response.

Re:Government tested cars for EMP vulnerability

[Culture20]

What about the power grid? If there's no electrical grid, how do you charge your Prius?

Re:Government tested cars for EMP vulnerability

[bill_mcgonigle]

Interesting. So, I'm let wondering:

Did the Discovery special at White Sands purposely chose the only vulnerable car?
Did White Sands properly represent the situation and Discovery mis-represented it?
Is the White Sands HEMP simulator a higher power (or different in another signal characteristic) than this report used?
Was this report's methodology correct? (I tend to believe what I see on video over what I read on paper)
Could this report be misrepresenting?

There's also a video here of a device being developer for law enforcement to use a small EMP to disable a car. This would tend to suggest that most cars are vulnerable to shutdown. I think this means most cars have parts that will take an induced signal, so shutdown vs. disablement is probably just a matter of power levels.

Which then gets to the question of correct power levels. A White Sands reports highlights 50KV/m as typical for a HEMP blast, which the report you cite indicates they tested.

I haven't been able to find much information on the White Sands simulator, though.

Re:Government tested cars for EMP vulnerability

[toygeek]

You get the Prius to Shake Flashlight adapter kit. DUH.

Solar Crisis (1990)

[starglider29a]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100649/

A huge solar flare is predicted to fry the Earth. Astronauts must go to the Sun to drop a talking bomb (Freddy) at the right time so the flare will point somewhere else...

The government is doomed no matter what.

[EWAdams]

If the government does nothing to prevent this, it'll get blamed.

If the government takes action to prevent it and fails, it'll get blamed.

If the government takes action to prevent it and is successful, it'll get blamed for overreacting (see what happened to Obama after swine flu didn't kill everybody).

Given that the government gets blamed no matter what, if I were in power I'd just do nothing and save the money. You're on your own, kids.

Re:The government is doomed no matter what.

[cyn1c77]

Given that the government gets blamed no matter what, if I were in power I'd just do nothing and save the money. You're on your own, kids.

Fuck that. When you are taking 30% of my paycheck upfront and then another 5-10% in secondary taxes, I EXPECT you to solve all my problems, take all my blame, and be happy about it.

Re:The government is doomed no matter what.

[John Hasler]

> Given that the government gets blamed no matter what, if I were in power I'd
> just do nothing and save the money.

Why, when you can use the problem as justification for collecting more money?

Re:The government is doomed no matter what.

[EWAdams]

In case you haven't noticed, there's a deficit. You're not paying your share as it is. Sun-proofing the nation's electrical infrastructure will be extra. Or you can just do without.

Re:The government is doomed no matter what.

[Antisyzygy]

We would be paying our share if they used the money they get from us responsibly.

Buy your solar telescope now!

[cyn1c77]

You can use it to look at the flares while you wait for the electricity to be fixed.

Phonglish

[Anonymous Coward]

Only when the word is pronounced as a word, not a series of letters, i.e. USA, FBI, CIA are all caps but Nasa and Nato are not because you don't pronounce the letters.

USA, "you sah"
FBI, "efbee"
CIA, "see ya"

This story must be incorrect

[jvillain]

A consensus of environmental scientists have been assuring us for years that the sun has no effect on the earth only oil. There for there can be no damage from the sun. There for the story must be incorrect.

Damn those Mayans

[slagell]

Aren't we going to die from solar activity in the 2012 apocalypse anyway.

dude

[circletimessquare]

hysterical weirdness has a life of its own. it requires no manipulation by dark forces. unless the hysterical weirdness in question is the huge dose of paranoid schizophrenia you manifest above, in which case I AM YOUR MASTER, OBEY

Re:dude

[delinear]

Seriously, though, if your calculations suggested there would be massive solar storms towards the very end of December 2012, wouldn't you be tempted to just add a couple of weeks on and push it into 2013 just so you could keep your scientific credentials and not sound like a nutjob?

Tin foil hats

[Anonymous Coward]

My tin foil hat will protect me.
 

It's a good thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

most Slashdoters live in their parents basement. Hate to see all of that electronic equipment destroyed.

Related article

[bagermesoftly]

Well that's disconcerting. Here's a related article. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the-sun.html

Stone tablets

[toygeek]

Dang it, now I need to get into my storage shed and get my dot matrix printer. Its probably housing a small family of elves by now.

Re:Stone tablets

[SpaceCadets]

Either that, or a family of small elves. Just sayin'.

you would think that...

[Anonymous Coward]

just the magnitude of these events and their impact on humanity would make me think the brightest minds on earth would discuss this issue with the utmost importance with the sole goal of finding a solution to this.
so I click on the slashdot story...
I skip to the header of the first comment, find it is rated "funny"...
oh no, we're doomed

Re:Can't Touch This

[silanea]

One's fear for iPod is nothing compared to, possibly, milions of people whose lives depend on piece of electronic.

Corpses do not harass the support dept. Millions of angry iPaperweight owners on the other hand could make Night of the Living Dead look like Disney's version of reality.

order now!

[AffidavitDonda]

get yourself a nifty pyramid hat and be safe... sorry, my pre-order site broke down after this message but you can order one in your reply. don't wait till it's too late!

It's got to be ...

[hargrand]

George Bush's fault.

Tin foil hat time

[Anonymous Coward]

No wait. Forget the hat, I need a tin foil house!

Re:Tin foil hat time

[Bryansix]

Yep. Yet another reason I installed a Radiant Barrier in my house's attic.

The stars are right!

[Anonymous Coward]

after the Sun wakes 'from a deep slumber' sometime around 2013

ia! ia!

I find this interesting....

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this interesting as this is the very scenario played out in Battle Angel Alita: Last Order. Anyone working on a quantum computer named Merlin?

the REAL article is at nasa

[scbomber]

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/29may_noaaprediction/

this article actually predicts a QUIETER sunspot cycle than the last one.

the article at telegraph is the usual sensationalist BS.

Aztecs

[AnAdventurer]

Didn't the Aztecs say it was going to be 2012? Now I have to wait one more year.

Re:Aztecs

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't the Aztecs say it was going to be 2012? Now I have to wait one more year.

No, joking aside it was the Mayans that had their current calendar cycle that will end in 2012. Yet the Aztecs did believe in solar related catastrophes though, only on a different time scale than either the sunspot cycle or the Mayan calendar. To whit they believed that if their Gods didn't get enough living sacrifices (including humans) in a 52-year cycle the Sun would die thus plunging the world into darkness and death. While this belief was not unique to the Aztecs, unlike their neighbors the Aztecs seemed to draw an extreme sense of purpose and importance from making more frequent sacrifices (both animal and human) to sustain the Sun.

The Earth's Magnetic Field will save the. . oh.

[Fantastic Lad]

While silly scare stories of this nature are.., well what they are, it does raise a point.

Solar maximums do spit out a lot of radiation, and they have been known to cause power outages. My question is this, (because I can't seem to find a straight answer), we know that the Earth's magnetic field which protects us from solar wind is decreasing.

I'm not actually very concerned about this; the platitudes are well in place and I don't really have any reason to doubt them (other than I don't trust any government or large media promises ever), but whatever. In any case, it is an interesting and relevant point which you'd think SOMEBODY might have taken a moment to mention.

Here's NASA's website which has some details about the shifting magnetic field. Apparently it's picked up speed; magnetic North is moving at about 40 Km every year now.

-FL

Hey...

[tcarlson]

I thought the Mayans said we'd all be goners by then anyway.

"One Second After" scifi book about super-EMP

[peter303]

Pretty much your stock apocalyptic book about world suddenly without electricity, computers, cellphones, post-1980 automobiles, internet, etc. The most shocking aspect is the total lack of news without electricity.

We had a total power failure in a large part of Denver two weeks ago. Took out a lot of cell phone towers and radio stations too. It was interesting to listen to rumors about what might have happened. A common reaction was for people to get into their cars and seek a location where there might be electricity, so there was more driving than normal. I just went to a local park and enjoyed an undistracted sunset. Lots of people milled around the park too because its was almost a hundred degrees with no fans or A/C. A few smart bar and liquor store owners were doing great business - all cash and in the dark before the booze got too warm. A lot of young people were walking around tinkering with their useless smartphones. It was possibly the first time in many years they were off-the-grid while conscious. And clueless what to do.

Re:Can't Touch This

[delinear]

One's fear for iPod is nothing compared to, possibly, milions of people whose lives depend on piece of electronic.

Wait, I'm confused, aren't those the same thing?

Space missions

[Cyclloid]

At least there won't be any humans outside of the Earth's protective magnitic field since there will be no more missions to the moon.

Damn, Nature!

[dsinc]

You scary!

Science vs. Reporting

[Kelson]

Wow...the contrast between the NASA article and the Telegraph article is amazing. Is anyone else reminded of SMBC's cartoon on science reporting?

Re:Science vs. Reporting

[blair1q]

The contrast between the NASA article and the Telegraph article and the /. article and your post and mine are all amazing. Less and less information and more and more sensationalism and judgmentalism.

To put it another way

[ThatsNotPudding]

"In a world..."

Re:To put it another way

[mavasplode]

"One man..."

Re: handheld devices

[butlerm]

The level of magnetic storm that could disable the power grid is much lower than anything that will damage on a handheld device. As in a couple of orders of magnitude. It is simply a matter of size - the power grid is a much bigger "antenna". A handheld device may be useless for a while, but after that it should be just fine.

Fun with Math

[AdamThor]

for those who aren't interested in performing the actual caluculations:

2013 - 1859 = 154 = 22 * 7

So 1859 and 2013 are both at the same point of the 22 yr cycle. 2013 -> 1991 -> 1969 -> 1947 are the most recent peaks.

The scam of History.

[Cr0vv]

Ah, NASA's at it again. Asking us to believe that Earth changes are because of the Sun. If that were so, why is not Earth just a cloud of gravel by now, being it's own meteor shower to a non-existent Earth? Chris Thomas.

Huge storms...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEMZgTEdG5Q

I've seen this predicted for a few years now...

[Anonymous Coward]

The scientists were originally thinking it would occur around the end of 2012. I thought it odd that as hysteria about 2012 ramped up, they changed their predictions to the summer of 2013.

Non redundant humourous tinfoil comment.

[w0mprat]

I only have enough tin foil to cover one of:

Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, pr0n NAS, P2P server, desktop rig, iPad, vintage amiga, vintage commodorre 64 !

How ever will I decide which vintage game console to save??

Cue - Movie Scenes (Knowing)

[warchildx]

hmm. if only there was a movie that would show us the effect so we could prepare:

Solar Flare simulation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8SG59R65e8&feature=related

Final scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQEh5_pSbd4

I wake up bad also

[Nyder]

Man, I know how that is, waking up from a deep slumber, pisses me off also.

Maybe if we just be extra quiet, it will sleep for a few more years and not be so angry?

2013?

[Jimbob The Mighty]

I'm predicting it will be a little early, as in 21/12/2012.

Mod Parent +Funny

[handy_vandal]

Made me laugh! Thanks!

Jesus H Christ

[bartyboy]

Who's the retard modding this as "informative"? It wouldn't be informative even if the poster's name was CrystalBall.

It's happened before.

[CaptainChuck]

Another solar event as strong as the 1859 Carrington Event, or stronger, could happen at any time. Apparently these events happen about once per several 100s of years. If that's not soon enough, a crude atom bomb in a crude ICBM could do the job in a few years. What's really scary is that engineers at electric utilities are generally clueless on the subject. I suspect executives know even less. Is EMP physics part of EE education yet?

It is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

It is amazing to watch how moronic slashdot has become over time.

uh oh

[shiftless]

after the Sun wakes 'from a deep slumber'

I really don't like the sound of this.

A day not to work the call center at APC

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow when the storm comes, it will be a day not to be working in the call center of apc destroyed equipment claims. Your either going to go insane with no calls or be flooded with calls.

Translation: We need more money!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why must people who rely on government funding continually resort to scaremongering?

  - The Population Bomb! (1968)
  - The Coming Ice Age! (1975)
  - Nuclear Armageddon with Reagon! (1980s)
  - Global Warming! (1980s to present)
  - Y2K! (1999)

And that's just a few off the top of my head. Con artists (especially the True Believers) love planting images in our minds that make us part with our wallets.