Something else to worry about – ejecta from the sun

from NOAA SWPC

Any Port in a Storm
[Via I, Cringely]

Nearly every day I hear from at least one person who thinks I am an idiot. Typically they are complaining about something I wrote months or even years before, so I often confirm my idiocy by not even remembering what has them so upset. This week, however, I was contacted by an upset reader who may well have a good point, so let’s reconsider for a moment the security of GPS.

I wrote more than a year ago that a Government Accountability Office report was overblown, claiming a 20 percent chance of the GPS system going down in the next few years because the U. S. Air Force can’t launch new satellites fast enough to replace those that are dying. I just didn’t see this as a big deal and said so.

This week, however, I heard from a retired communication engineer who lectured me at great length about my various failings as a human being, but in the process made a couple points that I have to concede are correct. The first of these is that the GPS system is vulnerable to a catastrophic solar storm and we have reason to believe such a storm might be coming between now and 2013.

Or not.

That’s the way it is with these thing, you know. A lot could happen, but almost nothing must happen. Still, his argument was sobering. Basically we are headed toward a peak of sunspot activity in 2012 or so that could well trigger a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) that could take out half or more of all geosynchronous satellites, not just GPS. No more satellite navigation, no more cable TV.

Here, simply to infuriate space scientists everywhere, is my simplistic explanation of a CME. Remember how in Ghostbusters they weren’t supposed to allow the beams from their nuclear-powered ghost guns to cross? Well there are similar magnetic beams that emerge from sunspots and solar flares and if two of those with opposite polarities should happen to cross, a magnetic burp follows, ejecting millions of tons of magnetically charged material from the Sun’s corona headed toward the Earth at speeds up to two million miles-per-hour. That’s a Coronal Mass Ejection or CME.

CME’s come in various sizes and velocities. CME’s aren’t intrinsically aimed at the Earth and could just as easily dissipate into empty space. Many CME’s don’t even make it as far as the Earth. But if conditions are right, CME’s can do a lot of damage. A CME hit Quebec in 1989 causing a nine-hour blackout and $4.3 billion in damages to the Canadian power grid. The mother of all CME’s in 1859 took down every telegraph in the world, causing arcing, fires, and melted wires in the equipment. Imagine what something like that would do to your PC or cellphone!

[More]

If something like the 1859 event took place today, I think whether we had GPS would be the least of our worries – unless you happen to be in a plane over the Atlantic at the time. Think no power for months. No computers because they were all fried.

It may not be very likely and NOAA has modeled the next cycle as a lower energy one. But then, the storm from 1859 occurred in a cycle with a similar level of activity so how many sunspots is not as important as how strong the CME is. Here is what NASA has to say:

The 1859 storm–known as the “Carrington Event” after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare–electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society’s high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused “only” $80 to 125 billion in damage.

Just what we need. Although I bet it would create a lot of jobs. Luckily they re supposed to happen about once every 500 years