How A Solar Storm Two Years Ago Nearly Caused A Catastrophe On Earth -- Washington Post
On July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely missed a catastrophic encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere. These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), comprised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years.
“If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado tells NASA.
Fortunately, the blast site of the CMEs was not directed at Earth. Had this event occurred a week earlier when the point of eruption was Earth-facing, a potentially disastrous outcome would have unfolded.
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My Comment: Life will be tough for a few years .... but we will survive. But the geopolitical and economic impact of such an incident will be felt for decades.
8 comments:
"tough for a few years."
Essentially you would see the complete collapse of all of civilization. The power generation would be GONE. All of the just-in-time shipping would be GONE.
And there would be no way to even begin to rebuild in any meaningful way. Once the folks in the cities realized that they had no water, no climate control, no food, no gas, and no cops, they would destroy their cities and fan out.
There wouldn't be anyone left to rebuild - even if everything went as smoothly and wonderfully as possible, you're still looking at no electricity for about 2-3 years.
That also means no aluminum, no plastics, no etc. etc. etc.
Orion
And people in general call survivalists stupid.
The better survivalists are building networks and communities.
One guy in Canada was building and stocking a bunker with enough stuff for his small town. the school kids visit it on a school trip.
Now it is a race to see how much is hardened both in the grid and in electronics.
The American congress is pathetic. there are some very large transformers needing to be hardened or replaced with better ones and nothing is done. I thought the count was 23 very large transformers, but I could be wrong.
These transformers have a lead time of 18 months give or take to replace.
I lived in Montreal during the ice storm of 1998
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Ice_Storm_of_1998
I had no power in my home for a week, and since it was January (the middle of winter) ... the temperature in our home went down to 5 Celsius. We survived .... but it was not easy. My mother and her family lived in a cave during the winter of 1942-1943 .... on the Russian front. Again .... as she says .... it was rough but they survived.
On a personal note .... and I am proud to say it .... I am a survivalist. My chalet in the Laurentians has enough provisions to last 6 months for a family of four. I have a generator and fuel, artesian well, a lot of firewood, and living beside Mont Tremblant national park means deer and moose. I also have great neighbors who are far but not too close. And yes .... I have my licensed A-Bolt Browning shotgun.
I doubt that the worse case scenario for society will ever arise in my life time .... but I do feel good that I have options in the event that it does.
From what I've read, and understand as a Master Electrician, a Carrington Event would have spotty results. The impact bounces our normally stable magnetic fields and they oscillate for a few days. The magnetic fields cut across long wires or pipelines and induce voltage in the same way a magnet cutting a copper coil induces voltage in a dynamo. The interconnected power grid serves as a massive coil of wire and our own magnetic field cutting across at high frequency fries everything connected.
The blow from the sun is like a shove and it can shove anywhere facing the sun particularly hard and not be as effective in other areas, meaning that it could shut down massive parts of Russia or shut down the US west coast and leave New York relatively unscathed. If a CME causes massive outages in the U.S, Russia and Mexico might still be up and running. Or North Korea. Might be an interesting affair when some part of the world comes over in mass to "check in" on another part of the world that has been in the iron age for a few months.
Being a science fiction fan I would love to read such a story.
WNU,
You Russians are tough bunch alright. Growing up and living in the dangerous Celsius areas is a hard business, those of us who live in the balmier Fahrenheit climes I'm afraid would suffer greatly in any disaster.
Ahhh .... James .... to hell with the cold .... the GF and I want to move to Hawaii. :)
Yes, I can see it now. WNU with GF taking a spin along Wakiki beach in his troika, wearing lei's of course.
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