[HN Gopher] The Geomagnetic Storm Continues
___________________________________________________________________
The Geomagnetic Storm Continues
Author : uticus
Score : 186 points
Date : 2023-04-24 09:51 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.swpc.noaa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.swpc.noaa.gov)
| clockworkhavoc wrote:
| The early stages of a solar micronova?
| tgz wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| IanCal wrote:
| Feels very sci-fi that I can go to a site and see a forecast of
| the space weather alongside handy graph of the current proton
| flux (on the homepage here https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/)
| state_less wrote:
| Sure is beautiful when earth puts on her electric crown.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Your comment made me think of the images of Jupiter like this
| one:
|
| https://i0.wp.com/planetaria.ca/wp-
| content/uploads/2017/09/J...
| 34679 wrote:
| Spaceweather.com is also worth checking out, for people into
| this sort of thing.
| FredPret wrote:
| There's also spaceweatherlive.com which is a dashboard. Feels
| like you're in Star Trek
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Another website worth watching for this kind of thing is
| https://spaceweather.com/
| pgen wrote:
| https://www.solarham.net
| SirMaster wrote:
| I've read stuff that a big solar flare could take out the whole
| electric grid and that it would take so long to restore it with
| parts we don't even have that things would basically devolve into
| chaos.
|
| https://emptaskforce.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/A-Call-to...
| once_inc wrote:
| It could, but it is quite unlikely to happen. More plausible is
| a NEMP, in which an adversarial foreign state uses a nuclear
| explosion in the upper layers of the atmosphere to create a
| similar effect. A good fiction book in this regard is "One
| Second After" by William R. Forstchen.
|
| All governments of note have taken some precautionary measures;
| hardening critical machinery/infrastructure, but you can't
| plausibly do that for every bit of hardware in your country.
| Imagine the effect of seeing most cars dead on the street
| because the EMP took them out. Imagine not being able to call
| home, or having refrigerated foods.
| generalizations wrote:
| IIRC, it's likely to happen about once every hundred years.
| Don't think it's actually that unlikely.
| Animats wrote:
| Sigh. Here's the word from the people in the PJM east coast grid
| control room.
|
| Event 103876 -- 04.23.2023 15:29 PJM-RTO
|
| Warning: Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning
|
| A Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning has been issued for 15:29 on
| 04.23.2023 through 08:00 on 04.24.2023. A GMD warning of K7 or
| greater is in effect for this period.
|
| Ended: 04.24.2023 08:00 (Eastern time)
|
| This was a non-problem. It never got above the "Warning" level.
|
| You can read the grid status live if you look through the PJM web
| site and figure out how to access the dashboard. There's also a
| long PJM training document on this that I linked the last time
| people got wound up about this.[1]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15201912
| j1mr10rd4n wrote:
| some amazing auroral displays seen from tasmania over the last
| couple of nights https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-24/strong-
| naked-eye-auro...
| brabel wrote:
| I could swear the sky was reddish as I went to bed last night,
| in Stockholm... it was rainy, but as I turned off all lights I
| noticed an unfamiliar, slight red tint. I thought that maybe it
| was some neighbour's light reflecting (probably was) but seeing
| the Tasmanian skies in the photos made me think it might've
| been Aurora as the color is very similar!
|
| I haven't seen anything in the news, but apparently some cities
| in Russia also reported Aurora sightings pretty far south.
| jve wrote:
| Aunty sent me pictures of this night aurora in Latvia... it
| is more southwards than Stockholm. I was amazed. And sorry
| that I didn't know I had to be up to see it too for the first
| time in my life... eh
|
| Color was Green/Purple
| rbanffy wrote:
| It never gets to Ireland though. Very disappointing.
| badcppdev wrote:
| It gets there but it's always raining.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Can confirm. Cloudy last night.
| rbanffy wrote:
| And, unlike daytime, weather doesn't do 180's during the
| night.
| darkstar_16 wrote:
| There were sightings in Denmark last night.
| flangola7 wrote:
| How bad could this get?
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Not really bad per-say. More like a passing space weather
| event. They are common events, especially when coronal holes
| turn to face Earth every 27 days or so. It can interfere with
| GPS timing. My neighbor had a GPS tracked geo-fence dog collar
| and it was behaving oddly yesterday.
| hnarn wrote:
| It's "per se", not "per say".
|
| https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/per_se
| VLM wrote:
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/NOAAsca...
|
| Its just a G3/G4 even we long term average about one a month.
|
| Get a couple G5 per decade, mildly more impressive.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| <30 mhz is still somewhat of a mess. Most time stations are weak
| or unreadable. Ham bands are quiet. USAF rtty at 5mhz is loud but
| they have stations everywhere. At peak yesterday you could hear
| the curtains of ionized gas scatter radio signals on 3.330, 15.0
| and 17 mhz. It sounds like a tremolo effect.
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| What's the actual impact on life, society and tech?
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Potential of speedruns: https://hackaday.com/2021/02/17/cosmic-
| ray-flips-bit-assists...
| fartsucker69 wrote:
| cant find the article anymore, but this was debunked
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I would be curious how you debunk this. It's evident that a
| bit flipped, cosmic rays are a known source of bit flips
| and a quite likely one compared to other factors. How do
| you debunk this?
| Giorgi wrote:
| Power goes out, so no protection from lasers and can't build
| new units.
| gumballindie wrote:
| None.
| weberer wrote:
| >life
|
| No impact
|
| >society
|
| You get to see the northern lights
|
| >tech
|
| For a G4 storm, there may be some HF radio blackouts and power
| grid errors.
|
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation
| syockit wrote:
| That'd better be the real northern lights, and not someone
| forgetting to turn off the stove after realizing the lunch is
| ruined.
| tonetheman wrote:
| [dead]
| SadWebDeveloper wrote:
| This is interesting around my area, there was a blackout at 7am
| to 7.30 am UTC-6 so could these be related?
| fortenforge wrote:
| Is it actually feasible to see the Northern Lights within driving
| distance of the bay area or should I not bother?
| weberer wrote:
| >Warning continues until 8:00AM EDT
|
| That's the current time. Looks like its ending now.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| > Published: Monday, April 24, 2023 17:26 UTC
|
| The forecast was updated at 1:00PM EDT so I believe it ends
| Tuesday at 8:00AM EDT
| vedosity wrote:
| There's a conflicting forecast here[0], that says it's
| decaying. The graphic for the "decaying" forecast says it's a
| forecast for 10am EDT. The forecast linked in OP says it's
| for 2am EDT, which is before the publish date for that
| forecast. So something's weird with the publish date listed
| on the forecast, I'm not sure I would trust that date.
|
| Seems like it's decaying, the decaying forecast is linked on
| their homepage and other space weather sites are forecasting
| it decaying as well.
|
| [0]: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/geomagnetic-storm-
| continues-d...
| kaivi wrote:
| I've always been hearing that solar flares and the resulting
| geomagnetic storms pose danger to hard drives and electronics. Is
| there any truth to it?
|
| Recently I've been building a server room, and naturally a
| question of EM insulation came up. If I were to protect my
| servers from this, I needed to wrap the room in a grounded mesh
| with holes of l in diameter. What wavelengths am I protecting
| against? I couldn't find an answer online, perhaps because there
| isn't a mechanism which could flip bits or otherwise cause
| potential difference across my electronics, after a coronal
| ejecta reaches Earth. I can imagine how charged solar wind can
| interact with our atmosphere and cause voltage on long stretches
| of cable like telegraph or electricity lines, and consumers have
| surge protectors for this in multiple parts of the grid.
|
| Is there something that I've missed?
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| I'm concerned that the repetitive, sensationalized news
| coverage will encourage apathy.
|
| Again and again, headlines blare doom narratives about flares,
| but I am unaware of major impacts recently.
| rrock wrote:
| Bit flips from cosmic rays. Earth's magnetic field helps to
| shield us, but is disrupted now. I work with a CCD camera in a
| sub basement lab. On a normal day we see a stray cosmic ray
| every couple of minutes (as a hot pixel). On a day like today,
| might be every couple of seconds.
| cshimmin wrote:
| True, but the hot pixels you see in the CCD isn't from bit
| flips. Rather the CCD is properly doing its job of collecting
| electrons. It's just that spurious electrons are being
| produced by the cosmic rays' ionization trail (as opposed to
| photoelectron in normal operation).
| anamexis wrote:
| What's the difference? Aren't bit flips also just spurious
| electrons being produced by the cosmic rays' ionization
| trail?
| godelski wrote:
| Bitflip is when a high energy particle changes the state
| of a memory address or signal in a wire.
|
| Hot pixels are when the CCD (camera sensor) achieves its
| max level and becomes bright. Pixel overloaded (should
| also result in spillover).
|
| Difference is really just what part of the system
| receives the energy. For example, you can overload a
| pixel with a laser, but you also should get spillover.
| Bit flips tend to be more localized, affecting only one
| part. In reality, the difference doesn't matter too much,
| as long as we're keeping our discussion to cosmic events.
| But also note that images experience a lot of (non-
| gaussian) noise and plenty of this is from cosmic
| excitation as well as from other natural and man made
| sources. Just the levels are a lot lower and unlikely to
| result in a bitflip (which is a pretty high energy
| event).
| akiselev wrote:
| It's an excitation of the sensor. It may be interpreted
| somewhat like a bit flip when converted to an image, but
| it's normal for image sensors to experience a lot of
| noise, going back to the days of film. It may just be
| eliminated by the denoising algorithm like most spurious
| electrons/photons.
| exitb wrote:
| That's cool, is that some sort of specialized equipment, or
| could that observation be replicated by an amateur with a
| RAW-capable camera?
| csdvrx wrote:
| Put a lid on. Continuously take pictures. Look for deltas
| in the pixel values
| _joel wrote:
| Would make an interesting increase in RNG entropy ;)
| tivert wrote:
| >> I've always been hearing that solar flares and the
| resulting geomagnetic storms pose danger to hard drives and
| electronics. Is there any truth to it?
|
| > Bit flips from cosmic rays.
|
| I don't think that's it. IIRC, if a geomagnetic storm/coronal
| mass ejection is big enough, it can cause certain effects
| that are similar to an EMP. What the OP is talking about
| sounds like a distorted version of that danger: a _nuclear_
| EMP could directly fry microelectronics, a solar storm is a
| _kind_ of EMP (solar EMP), but is missing most of the effects
| that could directly damage microelectronics, and many people
| conflate the two.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse#Types
| cronix wrote:
| Yes, but during the Carrington Event, electrical wires
| became overloaded and blowing out equipment attached to
| "the grid."
|
| I've had a computer blow out (sparks, smoke and everything)
| due to a power surge when the main power went out and then
| back on, rapidly.
|
| So while the "direct" causes might be different between EMP
| and CME, the end results are basically the same. I could
| only imagine what our current (very power sensitive)
| electronics would do in that scenario.
|
| From the wikipedia Carrington Event you posted:
|
| > Because of the geomagnetically induced current from the
| electromagnetic field, telegraph systems all over Europe
| and North America failed, in some cases giving their
| operators electric shocks.[22] Telegraph pylons threw
| sparks.
| tivert wrote:
| > I've had a computer blow out (sparks, smoke and
| everything) due to a power surge when the main power went
| out and then back on, rapidly.
|
| > So while the "direct" causes might be different between
| EMP and CME, the end results are basically the same.
|
| Not necessarily. My understanding is a CME solar EMP
| would take out grid-connected devices (via power surges
| over the grid), but leave most unconnected devices
| unharmed (e.g. laptops running on battery), but a nuclear
| EMP would take out both.
| cronix wrote:
| But it would also likely take out the grid itself. If all
| of the massive power cables strewn all over, connected to
| very large expensive power station transformers, become
| overloaded at the same time from a CME, I don't predict
| good things for those transformers and a lot of other
| things. The laptop would not be able to be recharged
| without solar or something. It takes a long time (1-2
| years is my understanding) to get one single transformer
| at a power station, under ideal conditions. They are
| basically made to order, and backlogged.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I like to put "Cosmic ray flipped a bit" into bug reports.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I used to work as a contractor for John Deere and one of
| the engineers there would capriciously insist on adding
| runtime consistency checks in code review because "you
| never know if lightning might strike or a cosmic ray flips
| a bit in RAM". This was not for any life-or-death software,
| it was for the infotainment stuff which was already
| insanely buggy beginning with the Bosch radio we had
| sourced and carrying into the ambiguous protocol John Deere
| designed to speak with the radio and the application code
| the lowest-bidder contractors wrote before hiring me to fix
| it (lightning strikes and cosmic rays were the least of
| their worries).
|
| So the radio would fail to connect to many bluetooth
| devices at the time (because Bosch), the application had no
| way of telling what state the radio (that it was meant to
| speak to) was in (because of the faulty protocol), and the
| application was riddled with other bugs (because lowest-
| bidder contractors), but by god it was safe from lightning
| and cosmic rays (except not really because they could just
| as easily alter the program as the state the program was
| operating on).
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| I don't get the example, it sounds flat out better then
| doing nothing otherwise.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Well, the alternative was to invest the time into the
| many glaring concrete bugs rather than hypothetical
| 'cosmic ray' bit flips. I don't have a fundamental
| problem with runtime consistency checks if there's some
| compelling concern and a clear up-front policy for
| when/where to add them (as opposed to dealing with the
| whims of a capricious code reviewer).
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I remember hearing about this (not sure if there's a better
| article; this is literally the first one I found):
| https://www.thegamer.com/how-ionizing-particle-outer-
| space-h....
|
| The story goes that Mario 64 speedrunner accidentally
| triggered a glitch which was thought to require that a
| particular value is "true" (Mario is touching a ceiling)
| which was not in this case. The following glitch hunt had
| many people concluding that the most likely thing that
| happened was a bit-flip via cosmic radiation which caused
| the exact distance change which could have otherwise been
| caused by a different but similar glitch.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| There was a famous story how Google couldn't produce a
| working index for months because they used non ecc memory
| for their servers. This was like 20 years ago.
| tudorw wrote:
| annoying, but kind of awesome :)
| godelski wrote:
| > Recently I've been building a server room, and naturally a
| question of EM insulation came up. If I were to protect my
| servers from this, I needed to wrap the room in a grounded mesh
| with holes of l in diameter. What wavelengths am I protecting
| against?
|
| I used to build space radiation shields. I'll give you three
| answers.
|
| What you should do:
|
| Throw up a few sheets of metalized mylar or some aluminum foil.
| Make sure everything (including the foil) is electrically
| isolated and grounded. Be more worried about the grid more than
| the air. Don't let the grid kill your components, because it
| WILL be overloaded.
|
| You want to be very secure:
|
| Do the above, but be in a concrete building. Better if under
| ground. Idk, add some chicken-wire or other mesh? Don't ground
| to the grid, ground to the ground (use a grounding rod and bury
| it deep).
|
| The overkill (an explanation):
|
| Ground based radiation shields tend to be different than space
| based as you don't care about weight on earth. How to stop
| radiation? Mass. Even still, the two follow a pattern: layers
| of differing material. Plastics (sometimes doped with boron,
| titanium, or other materials) are good insulation and protect
| well against neutrons (not much of a worry for you unless we're
| talking nuclear weapons), but you'll still want some because
| these are layered with conductors (copper or aluminum).
| Conductors pick up charged particles (the majority of
| radiation).
|
| There is a lot of confusion about radiation and it took me
| awhile to actually learn this. People will talk about
| attenuation distances and {alpha,beta,neutron}-cross-sections,
| but if we're talking about high energy particles, then a lot of
| this doesn't actually matter. Mass does. So don't worry about
| optimizing materials or any of that, just put mass in the way.
| Reading told me one thing but testing and simulation told me
| another thing. These cross-sections and attenuation depths are
| mostly for lower energy particles (like you'd find in a
| reactor). Your mass doesn't have to include any metal, but that
| will help because the biggest component is that you'll want
| some grounding. Also, use ECC memory and other such server
| grade components.
| korse wrote:
| You haven't missed too much. The cosmic ray bit-flip guys have
| a point, but that is very hard to shield against and probably
| won't kill your servers. See this paper for a deeper dive.
| https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
|
| In regards to the Faraday cage (grounded mesh), assuming you
| have a very good path to ground and a sufficiently robust mesh
| material, you are shielding against any emissions with a
| wavelength larger than l. You will have better results versus
| wavelengths that are much larger however. If you want a deeper
| dive on that, you can actually read Faraday, or Wikipedia or
| just ask your search engine about a basic dipole antennae and
| work up from there.
|
| Many computer components are somewhat shielded/tolerant of
| standard levels of RF interference in the environment so you
| might not even need to bother (depending on application).
| Normally (in my experience) you see problems arise with
| sensors, digital control lines and some human interface devices
| in very noisy environments (industrial facilities with a lot of
| high power variable speed electric motors).
|
| Regarding aperture size l, figure out what source of RF you're
| most concerned about, determine the range of wavelengths
| emitted, concentrate on the most powerful bands and then make
| your aperture smaller than that. Examples are 'the sun', cosmic
| rays, north korean nukes, the welding robots on the other side
| of the wall etc.
|
| Finally, if you're going to shield, don't half ass it or you
| waste money. Gaps around doors, or anywhere you poke cable
| through a wall can cause problems if not handled correctly.
| joshspankit wrote:
| You can mitigate most of it by using ECC memory, a good line-
| filtering UPS, and some type of error-checking for
| reads/writes/at-rest.
|
| The last of the risk can be functionally eliminated by your
| off-site backup.
| egeozcan wrote:
| > off-site backup
|
| Underground or at the other side of the planet or both?
| shagie wrote:
| Not powered, but the next room over is acceptable for a
| solar flare.
|
| The issue would be that wires start getting induced current
| in them ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetically_ind
| uced_curren... ) that arcs and shorts out the device.
|
| However, if you've got a backup tape there's nothing from
| the current that will flip the bits on the tape itself.
|
| There are good reasons to have the backup be off site
| (other physical calamities) - but the aurora isn't going to
| flip any bits on a backup. At worst, it will destroy the
| machinery from a surge from the grid and an extremely
| powerful one may destroy the machinery from arcing in the
| device itself (this would be _extremely_ powerful)... but
| the media itself is fine.
| joshspankit wrote:
| I suspect you're trying to be sarcastic and/or facetious,
| but:
|
| Both ideally sure. The more backups and more locations the
| better. Diminishing returns pretty quickly but why not if
| the data is important.
|
| Electromagnetic energy from the sun only has a chance of
| damaging equipment and only some of the bits of that
| equipment will be affected. You could have two servers in
| the same datacenter where one gets hit and the other does
| not. Or even two drives in the same chassis. And even then,
| it might not be all the data on that drive.
|
| Of course no security is absolute (learned that early from
| my uncle that owned a convenience store at a lake: He spent
| extra on doors, locks, windows, etc and someone drove a
| truck through the brick wall to rob the place). Same here:
| if a solar event happens that would wipe out all of your
| onsite and offsite servers "on the surface" then there is a
| much bigger problem.
| egeozcan wrote:
| > I suspect you're trying to be sarcastic and/or
| facetious
|
| It really was an honest question. Thanks for the detailed
| response even though that wasn't obvious.
| kaivi wrote:
| > by using ECC memory ECC protects from bit flips, but aren't
| high-energy particles required for flipping a bit? AFAIK
| nothing in the solar wind interaction with our atmosphere can
| produce them. They'd likely arrive earlier than the wind, but
| I also haven't heard of gamma ray bursts to accompany solar
| flares...
| shagie wrote:
| They are most noticeable for x-rays, though there is an
| increase in gamma rays too.
|
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-x-ray-flux
|
| https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radiation-solar-activity
|
| > Solar flares are large eruptions of energy coming off the
| Sun containing several different forms of energy: heat,
| magnetic energy, and ionizing radiation. The ionizing
| radiation released during solar flares includes x-rays and
| gamma rays. These rays of ionizing radiation can damage
| satellites because they are in space and are not protected
| by the Earth's atmosphere. Magnetic energy from solar
| flares can interrupt radio communication on Earth or damage
| communications satellites.
|
| Unless you've got a satellite, this likely isn't impacting
| you.
|
| Bit flips tend to be from from heavy charged particles.
| https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/what-are-bit-flips-
| and...
|
| I believe you're more likely to have a bit flip from
| radioactive decay in the chip itself than a cosmic ray.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I'm nowhere near an expert, but the only mechanism that I have
| heard of for them causing damage is through inducing large
| currents in long power transmission lines (and, formerly, long
| telegraph and telephone lines.) I would guess that the risk to
| electronic devices themselves is less than from a nearby
| thunderstorm, and that measures to protect from damage via
| lightning's effects on your external power supply would also be
| adequate protection from geomagnetic storms.
| bob1029 wrote:
| This is my understanding as well. The length/scale of the
| conductive element is directly proportional to how much
| danger is involved.
|
| The modern power grid has lots of places where it can trip
| nearly instantaneously upon adverse conditions. Assuming we
| can automatically trip any segments of transmission, I think
| most of the damage could be isolated. Long conductors that
| aren't connected to anything can't cause any damage beyond
| the lines themselves.
|
| I don't think transformers and generators sitting in storage
| are going to feel much of anything.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Day-to-day ones aren't really worth worrying about.
|
| Something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
| would probably make quite a mess, of the nature where
| individual server rooms are probably a secondary consideration.
| Lapalux wrote:
| Wow!
|
| Telegraphs
|
| Because of the geomagnetically induced current from the
| electromagnetic field, telegraph systems all over Europe and
| North America failed, in some cases giving their operators
| electric shocks.[22] Telegraph pylons threw sparks.[23] Some
| operators were able to continue to send and receive messages
| despite having disconnected their power supplies.[24][25] The
| following conversation occurred between two operators of the
| American telegraph line between Boston, Massachusetts, and
| Portland, Maine, on the night of 2 September 1859 and
| reported in the Boston Evening Traveler:
| 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."
|
| 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, the first time on record that more
| than a word or two was transmitted in such manner.[26]
| post-it wrote:
| It's neat that both telegraph operators seemed to
| immediately know what was going on and why. Professionals
| with good debugging skills.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's so professional it seems more like a dialog between
| operators in a Star Trek fleet.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I often stumble on mundane interactions or writing from
| the past (usually the 19th or the first half of the 20th
| century) and legitimately wonder if the "society is
| gradually crumbling, we're going backwards as a culture"
| people are actually onto something.
| Steltek wrote:
| Given this is early Morse code, I wonder if these question-
| answer bits are actually Q-codes being exchanged rather
| than those exact words being transmitted.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_code#All_services_(QRA%E2%8
| 0...
| maxerickson wrote:
| Checking the dates, no.
|
| Carrington Event was in 1859, the first Q codes in the
| early 1900s.
| shireboy wrote:
| What a great anecdote. Makes me think of Tesla's (the
| person not the company) vision of wireless power
| distribution through the air. Can't we just put a big tesla
| coil in orbit and beam that down to power today's
| "telegraph"
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, since you evidently never played SimCity 2000...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power
|
| This is not a new idea, and we can do much better than
| powering a distributed network.
| toss1 wrote:
| Awesome! Very cool to see those professionals show such
| casual deep knowledge of their systems.
|
| Makes me think it would be very cool if the aurora at this
| level were constant or at least consistent. We'd have
| effectively unlimited clean and easy power...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| 'Unlimited', but actually harvesting the rotating iron
| core's angular momentum until it stopped and the earth
| was destroyed :D
| f5ve wrote:
| I can't answer your question directly. But a while back I did
| study up on the 100-year solar flare (i.e. the equivalent of
| the 100-year flood). I was curious exactly how bad this would
| be for society.
|
| As I recall it would be bad and do a lot of damage in the short
| term. Lots of things, especially in communications, would
| obviously be damaged and very expensive to fix. But hard drives
| would mostly be ok and therefore the most crucial pillars of
| society would emerge intact.
| cout wrote:
| What about SSDs?
| dallyo wrote:
| Maybe look at material about EMP weapon effects, I imagine it's
| probably the same kind of risks. I think solar flare risk is
| overblown though.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| Solar flare risk is underestimated since it's not something
| we've previously experienced in full force. Based on
| conversations I've had with electrical engineers that work
| for a national power company, they don't have any measures in
| place to protect us from solar flares bringing down the full
| power grid.
|
| A sufficiently powerful solar flare event would probably lead
| to millions of deaths, as I understand it.
| codethief wrote:
| > [...] bringing down the full power grid. A sufficiently
| powerful solar flare event would probably lead to millions
| of deaths
|
| Wait, how did we go from "bringing down the full power
| grid" to "millions of deaths" so quickly?
| [deleted]
| dallyo wrote:
| Yeah I think that's a stretch. Likely there would be
| deaths from hospitals not having power etc. but I can't
| imagine it being at that scale. Secondary effects from
| the economic fallout might be worse. This kind of reminds
| me of the y2k non-event though.
| hanselot wrote:
| Well, I'm not a mathematician, but I will hazard that
| since we have a global population of somewhere around 8
| billion we can ask ChatGPT (the cheap one to draw up an
| estimate for us). Sadly it doesn't wanna be more
| specific, however I am willing to entertain the number
| could reach millions. Just the impact on air traffic
| would be catastrophic, nevermind whatever happens to all
| the satellites that didn't exist for the last one.
|
| ```It's difficult to give an accurate estimate of the
| number of lives that could be lost in the event of a
| global-scale transformer destruction due to a Carrington-
| level solar storm, as there are many variables that could
| affect the outcome. However, I can provide some
| information that may be helpful in making an estimate.
|
| A report by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency
| (FEMA) suggests that a large-scale transformer failure
| due to a geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) could result in
| widespread and prolonged power outages, affecting
| multiple states or even the entire country. The report
| estimates that the total economic impact of such an event
| in the United States could range from $1 trillion to $2
| trillion, and that recovery could take years.
|
| If we assume that the impact of a GMD-induced transformer
| failure would be proportionate to the global population,
| then it's reasonable to assume that the number of lives
| lost could be in the hundreds of thousands or even
| millions. This is because prolonged power outages could
| lead to a wide range of consequences, including shortages
| of food and water, breakdowns in transportation systems,
| and disruptions to medical care.
|
| However, it's important to note that the actual number of
| lives lost would depend on many factors, including the
| severity and duration of the power outages, the
| availability of resources and emergency services, and the
| ability of individuals and governments to respond
| effectively to the crisis.```
| dallyo wrote:
| > Sadly it doesn't wanna be more specific
|
| Typical frustrating GTP :)
|
| That's an interesting response from it, but I would not
| trust gpt at all to make this kind of estimation - it
| will only regurgitate permutations of the information
| that's already out there, and I don't think anyone really
| knows.
|
| But yes you are probably right that I've underestimated.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcOb3Dilzjc
|
| _Connections_ , episode 1, "The Trigger Effect".
|
| TL;DW shit gets very, very dicey in a matter of days if
| the power goes out--and most of our ways of recovering
| with any speed _rely on power_ so if it goes out for most
| or all of the world at once, that 's _extremely bad_.
|
| If it hit the wrong time of year, I could easily see a
| global power outage killing millions in the very first
| day. Loss of air conditioning and heating could push it
| into the millions all on their own.
| SirMaster wrote:
| I mean wouldn't most food spoil and tons of secondary
| effects of not having power for a long time?
|
| Some people think that 90% of people in the USA would die
| in a year if the electric grid completed failed.
|
| As far as I understand we don't have the parts to repair
| the grid in any reasonably timely manner.
|
| https://emptaskforce.us/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/01/A-Call-to...
| crashingintoyou wrote:
| > I think solar flare risk is overblown though.
|
| What you'll find on the insurance side of thing is this sort
| of claim from Lloyds of London
| (https://assets.lloyds.com/assets/pdf-solar-storm-risk-to-
| the...):
|
| > A Carrington-level, extreme geomagnetic storm is almost
| inevitable in the future. While the probability of an extreme
| storm occurring is relatively low at any given time, it is
| almost inevitable that one will occur eventually. Historical
| auroral records suggest a return period of 50 years for
| Quebec-level storms and 150 years for very extreme storms,
| such as the Carrington Event that occurred 154 years ago.
|
| If anything I think the solar flare risk is understated.
| captainbland wrote:
| > 150 years for very extreme storms, such as the Carrington
| Event that occurred 154 years ago.
|
| Wow. I knew this was a possibility but I didn't know we
| were overdue. Echoes of COVID a bit as a "once in a hundred
| years pandemic".
|
| Looking forward to the space mandated holiday to be honest.
| godshatter wrote:
| The document posted gives a range from 100 to 250 years,
| but I'd like to see some more scientific estimates.
|
| I'm more worried about electrical lines shorting out
| transformers than I am about the world's data being
| erased all in one go. The Carrington event showed large
| amounts of current generated on long telegraph lines.
| Data is protected by error checking and surge protectors.
| Electrical lines are protected by old transformers that
| like to catch on fire when they short out.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| If it happens during fire season we may not be able to
| stop the resulting fires from burning the entire west
| coast of the US.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| We have a lot more wires lying around than they did in
| 1859, so that's a lot more induced current than they had
| to deal with. They probably had all of the fires out
| within a day or two--I'm not sure we'd be so lucky.
|
| I wonder if we have enough replacement parts on hand to
| recover after an event like that. Given our labyrinthine
| supply chains, if it becomes a manufacturing bottleneck
| it could take years to retool.
|
| In a morbid way though, I'm also looking forward to the
| holiday. I'm really curious to see what changes we make
| while the lights and cameras and payment systems are
| offline.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| The first episode of _Connections_ --"The Trigger Effect"
| --plus times I've read here and other places that the
| destruction of a lot of critical power infrastructure in
| a big chunk of _just the US_ could leave power off for
| _weeks_ before replacements can be procured, _even with
| the whole rest of the world functioning fine_ , make
| me... pessimistic that we'll do very well, in such a
| situation.
|
| No clue what sort of plans major governments have for it.
| Hopefully they have _some_. We 're incredibly dependent
| on electricity--the point of that _Connections_ episode
| was largely that human history is a series of events in
| which we take on some critical new technology, it permits
| a huge boom in productivity /population/whatever, and
| from then on, we're flat-out _dependent_ on it to avoid
| disaster--and that, now (for 1978 values of "now"),
| electricity has become one of those things that we have
| to have or _most of us will die_.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If the power was out in large swaths of urban areas, then
| a lot more people would suddenly be able to see the night
| sky. A similar thing happened in parts of the LA area
| after the '91 Northridge earthquake.
| bobwaycott wrote:
| I believe you mean '94. That was a fun one. ;)
| dylan604 wrote:
| I knew I should have confirmed that year before posting
| =) I couldn't remember the epicenter, I just knew it was
| up in the Valley, so I did look that up on a map. I only
| knew of it from stories, as I was nowhere near California
| at the time. I had a co-worker that had just moved to
| that area the day before the quake. He said he debated
| about putting off the unpacking and checking out the new
| area or busting ass to unpack and just be "moved in" and
| done with it. He chose the unpacking, and then that night
| the quake where he lost a lot of stuff. Had he left
| everything in the boxes, things would have been just
| fine. I bet he's now a firm believer in procrastinating!
| dallyo wrote:
| Well it's a very hypothetical black swan type situation. I
| don't think it's a sensible use of resources to prepare for
| a badly understood phenomenon with uncertain probability.
| If and when it happens things will get fixed, and we will
| learn from the experience.
|
| That document is a very interesting read though, thank you.
| I don't fully trust insurers though - it's in their
| interest to create a feeling of risk.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>If and when it happens things will get fixed
|
| Yes, but the timing of those fixes could be an enormous
| problem
|
| From what I've read, a large part of the problem will be
| burnt-out transformers all over the grid, from the major
| stations down to the street-level. Replacing any one of
| those is only a job of a few hours, when you have one
| available. The problem is that fabricating them takes a
| long time, and there is nowhere near enough inventory to
| replace the numbers that would fry in a Carrington-like
| event (or an EMP attack). It could take YEARS to replace
| them, during which time the economy is pretty much back
| to the 1800s, but with 2000s-level population to feed.
|
| The estimates to create a stockpile of transformers so
| that they could be replaced in weeks-to months range
| around $500 million. It would give the nation a huge
| strategic economic advantage to be able to fully recover
| on a timescale of double-digit weeks instead of years.
| But, since the problem is so un-sexy that it is never
| brought up (the last infrastructure bill would have been
| a good time to do so).
|
| Even if we could individually have power with rooftop
| solar+battery (also sufficiently protected), it'd be hard
| to thrive with the entire transport web broken (no grid
| electricity to pump gasoline/diesel, etc.).
|
| Still, I want to know how vulnerable is rooftop solar,
| and what it would take to protect it (and prevent an
| event from burning down the house). Any experts have some
| pointers?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Geomagnetic effects happen on scales measured in tens or
| hundreds of miles/km. There is no particular threat to
| rooftop solar unless the event is on a scale comparable
| to a nearby EMP burst from a nuke attack. In which case
| you probably aren't too concerned about your solar
| installation as a first order priority.
|
| It also isn't correct to assume that the grid is wholly
| unprotected. Substations have extensive protection in the
| form of interrupters. We will lose power in a Carrington
| scenario, potentially for days, but there won't be an
| apocalypse of exploding transformers. If that happens,
| nobody is going to care too much about charging their
| Teslas. They will be too busy fending off hordes of
| radioactive zombies.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > create a stockpile of transformers
|
| At least one electricity network on the west coast of
| Norway already does this to cope with the inevitable
| damage caused by seasonal thunderstorms.
| dallyo wrote:
| Well, I hope you are wrong :) I imagine that most
| transformers etc are somewhat over-engineered. I mean,
| they get destroyed by things like lightening strikes, but
| are we talking about the same energy levels? I really
| have no idea.
|
| You make a good point about rooftop solar+battery.
| Perhaps an event like this would make us more open to
| decentralised energy production.
|
| Regarding how vulnerable solar panels are - in my limited
| understanding the problem comes from things that will
| induct electrical currents from EM, so basically anything
| with long wires (transmission lines and transformers
| etc.) So I would guess that semiconductors like solar
| panels would not be damaged directly. I'd also like to
| hear from any experts though.
| chaxor wrote:
| It's important to pilots or frequent flyers. There is
| substantial evidence of increased probability of getting
| tumors as pilots. One of the most well understood
| mechanisms for this phenomenon is the time at high
| altitude (although there are of course a few others
| similar to still using leaded fuel for small planes, etc
| - but these aren't as clear for DNA damage specifically).
|
| So it certainly does matter, but there are different
| risks that each demographic takes.
| crashingintoyou wrote:
| > it's a very hypothetical black swan type situation. I
| don't think it's a sensible use of resources to prepare
| for a badly understood phenomenon with uncertain
| probability.
|
| That really depends on how much you'd need to spend I
| think to prep.
|
| There was a US commission evaluating the threat of an EMP
| attack
| (http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf)
| which seems to suggest that radiation-hardening
| transformers for such an event would also seem likely to
| protect them from failing due to geomagnetic storms.
|
| The additional cost for radiation hardening:
|
| > New units can be EMP-hardened for a very small fraction
| of the cost of the non-hardened item, e.g., 1% to 3% of
| cost, if hardening is done at the time the unit is
| designed and manufactured. In contrast, retrofitting
| existing functional components is potentially an order of
| magnitude more expensive and shouldbe done only for
| critical system units.
|
| For that sort of overhead I think that it's justifiable
| to require it of new transformers at least.
| ianburrell wrote:
| With EMP, it is important to distinguish between short-range
| and long-range. Short-range EMP can damage electronics but is
| primarily caused by nearby nuclear blast which tends to be
| bigger problem than the EMP. It can also be caused by
| conventional explosive devices but those cover small area.
|
| Long-range EMP is caused by nuclear blast at high altitude.
| It induces currents is long conductors but doesn't touch
| electronics. The main effect is knocking out power over large
| areas. It has very similar effects to large solar flare.
| evgeniysharapov wrote:
| Here's famous story about bit-flip changing/affecting results
| of election in Belgium
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Belgium
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > What wavelengths am I protecting against?
|
| Something around hundreds of meters. It's large enough that
| people don't treat it like a wave. Also, it's often semi-
| stationary, so you have to care to make your protection long-
| lived, and not only surge-based.
|
| Coronal ejecta is formed by charged particles. The ones that
| can move only a few meters into the atmosphere. You don't have
| to catch those. There is also no high-frequency EM radiation.
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