- Power systems: Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid.
- Spacecraft operations: May experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems.
- Other systems: Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded for hours, low-frequency radio navigation disrupted, and aurora has been seen as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.).
Yeah, there's usually no ill effects reported even from pretty strong ones, but lights in Stockholm, Sweden (which is itself pretty far south for an aurora in the first place) were reported to flicker earlier this evening. That's pretty remarkable.
I'm not sure if Sweden has similar data, but on one of the UK grid data sites [0] it shows large fluctuations in demand and gas generation supply in the late evening hours. However it's easy to say "that looks odd" while being naive on anything else going on with the grid such as planned maintenance, demands or other issues.
It's funny. Had one halogen lamp flicker around 9pm but even though I knew about the eminent events, my first thoughts were 'power failure or lamp at end of life?'
There's reports of Aurora's in Puerto Rico. Last time they were seen this far south was 103 years ago.
This is a new excerpt from the news station "Primera Hora"
> "Por Primera Hora. 11 de mayo de 2024 • 7:53am. Las aurora borales que decoraron el cielo anoche se lograron ver en Puerto Rico, fenómeno que no se veía en la Isla desde hace 103 años"
English Translation:
>"For First Hour. May 11, 2024 • 7:53am. The northern lights that decorated the sky last night were seen in Puerto Rico, a phenomenon that had not been seen on the Island for 103 years"
According to the SWPC[0], the "SPACE WEATHER CONDITIONS" section displays the pertinent information: as of 5/10/2024 at 6:00 CST, the "24-Hour Observed Maximums" list "R3 S2 G4". The "Latest Observed" section shows "R1 S1 G4".
According to NOAA Space Weather Scales [1], the effects of those events, their levels, and the corresponding hazards (including biological risks for the "S" category) are listed.
It is unclear to me what "high-flying" and "high latitudes"
mean in these cases, and I would think that they would depend on the severity and location of the space weather event.
Nothing consequential for a single flight. Even crew really don't have to worry about it until it gets to very high levels, according to the NOAA scales
Are we not prepared though? Given other posts in this thread it seems to me that the effects are all calculated, expected and accounted for.
I mean if it's strong enough to fry off-grid electronics then it's a different matter entirely, but consumer electronics has some protections against that, right?
I'd like to see an actual investigation of the effects on (computing) hardware like processors and memory. Can these be damaged/interfered with irreversibly? Measurements and actionable information.
PJM (the US east coast power grid) has issued a warning:
104202 Warning
Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning
05.10.2024 13:48
PJM-RTO
A Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning has been issued for 13:48 on 05.10.2024
through 21:00 on 05.10.2024. A GMD warning of K8 or greater is in effect
for this period.
Times are US EDT.
This is a warning only. No actions are listed yet.
While the photos of the auroras which have been circulating are certainly impressive, this has got me thinking about the Carrington Event [1], as well as a possible future event of equal or greater magnitude.
I'm not an electronics expert, but I'm guessing that the reason we're so vulnerable to such an event today is because our infrastructure was originally built without such an event in mind, and now the upgrade cost is prohibitively expensive. But hypothetically, if a sufficiently-damaging coronal mass ejection occurred, such that we were forced to rebuild Earth's electronics infrastructure and electrical grids from scratch, what design changes would we make the 2nd time around? For example:
-adding built-in shielding to protect against electromagnetic interference
-implementing redundancy in critical systems to maintain functionality
-adding early warning systems so that we can take preventative measures like shutting down vulnerable systems
-building a more decentralized electrical grid with smaller, interconnected systems to limit the extent of disruptions
Would taking these steps be sufficient to protect us from major CMEs, or would it be like throwing pebbles at a giant?
There is no worry with electronics and Carrington Event or high-altitude EMP. The wavelengths are too long and electronics are too small. The main risk is induced current in long wires. I read article recently that long-distance fiber optic cables are vulnerable even under the sea.
My understanding is that it is fairly easy to protect the electrical grid from solar storms. It requires adding grounding at all of the vulnerable equipment. My impression is that the cables won't be hurt but the transformers can be destroyed. It sounds feasible to do but requires the government to regulate the utilities and provide money.
That would be a lot cheaper than implementing distributed grids. It is much more efficient to put lots of solar panels in sunny areas than enough panels and batteries in each house.
We have early warning system. This notice is from space weather tracking that detects flares and predicts if and when they will hit Earth. I don't know if anyone is thinking about how to decide and shut down the grid temporarily, but it should be something they are thinking about.
> There is no worry with electronics ... high-altitude EMP. The wavelengths are too long and electronics are too small.
This is true for the E3 (second-scale) pulse and CMEs, but the E1 (nanosecond-scale) and E2 (millisecond-scale) EMP pulses are broadband and can indeed damage small electronics.
As you say, carrington events are likely only to damage grids - however miyake events are so intense that cosmic rays penetrate deep into the atmosphere, and cosmic rays can cause electronics to have a very bad time indeed.
> But hypothetically, if a sufficiently-damaging coronal mass ejection occurred, such that we were forced to rebuild Earth's electronics infrastructure and electrical grids from scratch, what design changes would we make the 2nd time around?
I'd guess the goal would be to get things going again as fast as possible so no, I doubt there would be much time & effort put into some of the points you mention, at least in the short term. Decentralization might come not so much by design in an event like that, but out of necessity.
No one would be willing to spend for an extreme level black swan event that is not proven to have ever happen. That said, the magnetic field is down 15% since the carrington event. Magnetic poles are moving fast (north to siberia, south outside antartica already) to meet around indonesia.
When the sun will go micronova there's little chance electrical systems and the like will survive. Anyway the CME is the least of the worries, consider the earth reacts to such an event in unexepected ways...
The K-index for this is an 8 which is one less than an extreme G5 geomagnetic storm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-index). I haven't been able to find it, so I'm curious what the Carrington event K-index was?
He's correct on some stuff but I stopped watching after he got debunked for showing random research papers + misinterpreting most of them. https://youtu.be/3fTLZTEE7mU
This winter has been abyssmal for auroras in north Sweden. Usually we get to see them pretty often but this year it was either cloudy or snowstorm every time. And now it's too bright in the night, the sun never properly sets. Sigh. Happy for you though, it's a very beautiful experience!
Readit News
- Power systems: Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid.
- Spacecraft operations: May experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems.
- Other systems: Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded for hours, low-frequency radio navigation disrupted, and aurora has been seen as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.).
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
[0] https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
This is a new excerpt from the news station "Primera Hora"
> "Por Primera Hora. 11 de mayo de 2024 • 7:53am. Las aurora borales que decoraron el cielo anoche se lograron ver en Puerto Rico, fenómeno que no se veía en la Isla desde hace 103 años"
English Translation:
>"For First Hour. May 11, 2024 • 7:53am. The northern lights that decorated the sky last night were seen in Puerto Rico, a phenomenon that had not been seen on the Island for 103 years"
Demonstrably false. Did you even look at the map linked in what you responded to?
According to NOAA Space Weather Scales [1], the effects of those events, their levels, and the corresponding hazards (including biological risks for the "S" category) are listed.
It is unclear to me what "high-flying" and "high latitudes" mean in these cases, and I would think that they would depend on the severity and location of the space weather event.
[0] https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusia...
[1] https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/NOAAsca...
Discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40196820
I mean if it's strong enough to fry off-grid electronics then it's a different matter entirely, but consumer electronics has some protections against that, right?
This is a warning only. No actions are listed yet.
https://emergencyprocedures.pjm.com/ep/pages/dashboard.jsf
I found this after looking up what "A GMD warning of K7 or greater" means.
I'm not an electronics expert, but I'm guessing that the reason we're so vulnerable to such an event today is because our infrastructure was originally built without such an event in mind, and now the upgrade cost is prohibitively expensive. But hypothetically, if a sufficiently-damaging coronal mass ejection occurred, such that we were forced to rebuild Earth's electronics infrastructure and electrical grids from scratch, what design changes would we make the 2nd time around? For example:
-adding built-in shielding to protect against electromagnetic interference
-implementing redundancy in critical systems to maintain functionality
-adding early warning systems so that we can take preventative measures like shutting down vulnerable systems
-building a more decentralized electrical grid with smaller, interconnected systems to limit the extent of disruptions
Would taking these steps be sufficient to protect us from major CMEs, or would it be like throwing pebbles at a giant?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
My understanding is that it is fairly easy to protect the electrical grid from solar storms. It requires adding grounding at all of the vulnerable equipment. My impression is that the cables won't be hurt but the transformers can be destroyed. It sounds feasible to do but requires the government to regulate the utilities and provide money.
That would be a lot cheaper than implementing distributed grids. It is much more efficient to put lots of solar panels in sunny areas than enough panels and batteries in each house.
We have early warning system. This notice is from space weather tracking that detects flares and predicts if and when they will hit Earth. I don't know if anyone is thinking about how to decide and shut down the grid temporarily, but it should be something they are thinking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQwv02RP8F4&t=8s
I'd guess the goal would be to get things going again as fast as possible so no, I doubt there would be much time & effort put into some of the points you mention, at least in the short term. Decentralization might come not so much by design in an event like that, but out of necessity.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/asna.2022007...
That puts us .2 (logarithmically) under the known upper bound for the Carrington event (from above in the thread)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm
This guy has done solar weather reports every morning for years at this point.