It is called a Carrington Event, the cause is a massive solar storm. One occurred in 1859 and it disrupted the only operational electrical system of the day, the telegraph.
The problem is that if it takes years to bring the electrical grid back on-line, many of us won't live long enough to see it. Even the people with six months' worth of food in their pantries will run out before the trains and trucks start running. Gas stations use electrical pumps and the railroads are so based on electronic traffic control and centralized switching systems nowadays that they may be completely disabled for a very long time.
(H/T)
(TEOCAWKI= The End Of Civilization As We Know It)
Maybe.
ReplyDeleteYou can be sure power, communications, computing and military are aware of "space weather" these days. Given the large effect comes with the protons storm .. which have to come 93million miles .. we'd have some time to batten down the hatches, about 8 hours. We could unplug devices, even preemptively shutdown some systems.
I admit I'd kind of like to see the aurora. It would be a spectacular TEOCAWKI.
According to the article, the best warning we could expect would be about 15 minutes. It's possible that we can learn enough about how the Sun works to make accurate predictions, but that's the best we can hope for, I think.
ReplyDeleteThis is another one of those events, like an asteroid hitting Earth, that are low probability but could be devastating. We don't seem to do well at preparing for those. Hopefully, we'll change our ways before it happens.
15 minutes, really? I missed that. The Carrington event didn't really happen until "the next morning" after the visible sunspots if I read correctly.
ReplyDeleteThose would have to be energetic protons, 1/2 c. I guess that's the problem.