Northern Lights Imperiled Infrastructure From Power Grids To Satellites (bloomberg.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a Bloomberg article, written by Jason Leopold: The aurora borealis, or northern lights, is a colorful display in the night sky that comes from geomagnetic storms in space. When charged particles from the sun smash into the Earth's upper atmosphere, they create bright, kaleidoscopic ribbons of light, typically in polar regions. Really big solar action can interfere with GPS systems and power grids. That's exactly what happened on May 10, when there were three "coronal mass ejections" (my future metal band name) that produced one of the most powerful solar storms in 500 years, hence the dazzling, polychromatic sky visible even from South America. Turns out, the extreme space weather also disrupted life on Earth.
Six days after the northern lights, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with NOAA. I was curious how the agency reacted to the atmospheric event and whether the public deserved to be concerned. I asked NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center and National Weather Service for a wide range of records, including emails, photographs, satellite images and threat assessments. A couple of weeks ago, NOAA turned over some interesting documents. The short version is, while we marveled at the light show, scientists were concerned. According to one internal memo, the geomagnetic storm was an "extreme," rare event and if NOAA scientists hadn't been on their game it could have been catastrophic.
A May 14, three-page after action memo disseminated by Clinton Wallace, the director of the Space Weather Prediction Center, described the storm's impact and explained the celestial phenomenon. He said "Solar Cycle 25," a phase of solar sunspot activity that began in December 2019 and continues through 2030, "has been more active than anticipated, with an intense surge in solar activity marking the beginning of May." "A large group of unstable sunspots on the Sun's surface unleashed several powerful solar flares, immediately affecting the Earth's outer atmosphere and causing disruptions in high-frequency (HF) radio communications," he wrote. "This had significant implications for trans-oceanic aviation, which relies heavily on HF radio for communication over long distances."
On May 9, a day before the northern lights extravaganza, staff at the Space Weather Prediction Center "activated" the North American Electric Reliability Corp. hotline to make sure the regulator was prepared. Wallace's memo said NERC gave about 3,000 electric utility companies a six-hour head start to get ready. The space weather officials also advised the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on preparedness. Wallace wrote in his memo that the storm caused "significant disruptions across multiple sectors, including navigation, power grids, aviation, and satellite operations." He also noted that the severity of the geomagnetic storm "underscored the interconnectedness and vulnerability of modern infrastructure to space weather." Although Wallace said the space weather scientists took steps to mitigate any potential disaster, their work "highlighted areas for improvement in preparedness and response." He didn't elaborate.
Six days after the northern lights, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with NOAA. I was curious how the agency reacted to the atmospheric event and whether the public deserved to be concerned. I asked NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center and National Weather Service for a wide range of records, including emails, photographs, satellite images and threat assessments. A couple of weeks ago, NOAA turned over some interesting documents. The short version is, while we marveled at the light show, scientists were concerned. According to one internal memo, the geomagnetic storm was an "extreme," rare event and if NOAA scientists hadn't been on their game it could have been catastrophic.
A May 14, three-page after action memo disseminated by Clinton Wallace, the director of the Space Weather Prediction Center, described the storm's impact and explained the celestial phenomenon. He said "Solar Cycle 25," a phase of solar sunspot activity that began in December 2019 and continues through 2030, "has been more active than anticipated, with an intense surge in solar activity marking the beginning of May." "A large group of unstable sunspots on the Sun's surface unleashed several powerful solar flares, immediately affecting the Earth's outer atmosphere and causing disruptions in high-frequency (HF) radio communications," he wrote. "This had significant implications for trans-oceanic aviation, which relies heavily on HF radio for communication over long distances."
On May 9, a day before the northern lights extravaganza, staff at the Space Weather Prediction Center "activated" the North American Electric Reliability Corp. hotline to make sure the regulator was prepared. Wallace's memo said NERC gave about 3,000 electric utility companies a six-hour head start to get ready. The space weather officials also advised the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on preparedness. Wallace wrote in his memo that the storm caused "significant disruptions across multiple sectors, including navigation, power grids, aviation, and satellite operations." He also noted that the severity of the geomagnetic storm "underscored the interconnectedness and vulnerability of modern infrastructure to space weather." Although Wallace said the space weather scientists took steps to mitigate any potential disaster, their work "highlighted areas for improvement in preparedness and response." He didn't elaborate.
The Sun (Score:1)
Re:The Sun (Score:5, Funny)
It's a deadly lazer
That's why the Earth protects itself with heavy cloud cover whenever the Northern Lights are out.
Re: (Score:2)
The sun is a really big hydrogen bomb.
Re: (Score:2)
it's a hydrogen fusion reactor.
It will slowly evolve into a bomb in the next 3 billion years.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hahaha, yeah. Nope.
The closest fusion reactor is 150 million kilometers away
This is 0.000015945 LightYears.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's all Musk's fault (Score:3)
When I was a kid, we never had this kind of stuff.
You know what else we didn't have when you were a kid? Starlink. As the satellites move through Earth's ionosphere, they might be generating plasma trails - streams of ionized particles. These trails could, in theory, form temporary conduits for solar plasma, guiding CMEs in a more focused manner towards our planet. Like a lightning rod channeling the energy of a storm, Starlink could be unwittingly channeling the solar storms towards us!
Okay, I'm totally making this up, but who doesn't love a good correl
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure when you where a kid, but technological problems due to solar storms have happened before, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. The past few solar cycles have been relatively week though, so if you're younger you may indeed never have had this. Interestingly, there are some indications that this weak solar activity indeed contributed to a hotter climate. So your joke may have some truth to it.
Re:Global warming strikes again (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure when you where a kid, but technological problems due to solar storms have happened before, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'll see your "1989" and raise (lower?) to 1859:
https://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event
Even when the height of "high tech" was the telegraph, solar activity was taking down comms infrastructure.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll see your "1989" and raise (lower?) to 1859: https://www.history.com/news/a... [history.com] Even when the height of "high tech" was the telegraph, solar activity was taking down comms infrastructure.
Everyone always gets the carrington event wrong. It was actually caused by aliens stopping by to let Gaston Planté know how to create the first rechargeable battery. Charged particles from the sun is a conspiracy theory (obviously).
A wash (Score:2)
So the Northern Lights takes out your electricity, but you don't need electricity because you have the Northern Lights. What's the problem?
Re:A wash (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it's the CME that takes out the power grid. The resulting light show in the atmosphere is just one of the symptoms.
Yeah, it's pedantic, but we don't say "all the frequent shitting I've been doing on the toilet has given me a stomach bug."
Re:A wash (Score:4, Funny)
If it's another Carrington event, let me know. (Score:4, Funny)
Causation/Correlation? Fugeddaboutit. (Score:5, Informative)
The Northern Lights are a by-product of the same charged particles that cause nasties.
They are not the cause of the nasties.
The Bloomberg reporter is a retard. I can only hope he is easily distracted by Northern Lights and crashes into a ditch whilst driving, thereby becoming a casualty by causation rather than by correlation, although I doubt the world will be that lucky.
Re: (Score:2)
CHTST. The Northern Lights are an effect, not a cause.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
hence the dazzling, polychromatic sky visible even from South America
It almost sounds like he is saying "OMG it was soooo powerful you could see the northern lights in South America!!1!!one!"
Like he never heard of Aurora Australis, and South America had never seen that before.
Re: (Score:2)
Came here to say something similar, now I don't have to.
Re: (Score:2)
You are correct. I feel so bad now. The Slashdot content farmers (laughably called editors) were just doing their usual job of completely misrepresenting the story they are linking to. They are the true retards. Forgive me Jason, or whatever your name was!
"Northern lights cause damage" (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Like a sonic boom causes a plane to break the sound barrier?
Good Lord, what is happening in there? (Score:2)
Aurora Borealis [youtu.be]?
Title is retarded (Score:2)
The northern lights obviously do not affect any infrastructure. They are a symptom of a mar geomagnetic storm, which also causes infrastructure problems. But the auroras themselves do not.
Meh. (Score:3)
And no, what was visible in South America would have been the aurora australis.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't understand. NOAA classified the event as "extreme" BE AFRIAD> THE WORLD NEARLYI ENDED!!!!
Re: (Score:2)
and if NOAA scientists hadn't been on their game it could have been catastrophic.
What exactly did NOAA scientists do? They act like they just saved the planet. Did they do anything besides activate a hotline? Shouldn't that hotline be on all the time? This article sounds like NOAA tooting their own horn.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's like any field of expertise. Like here on /., some will make a big deal of some random statement by Linus, or Bill, or Elon, and if it's in their field (and they're passionate about it), they may make a fuss while the rest of us are thinking BFD.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that, but everything in TFS was known and reported elsewhere the week it happened. Slashdot even covered it [slashdot.org] in real time. There's no new information from the last three months in this article, except maybe the author finding out about it.
Re: (Score:2)
And no, what was visible in South America would have been the aurora australis.
South America extends above the 12th parallel of north latitude. Seeing an aurora from there would be evidence of an unusually strong Aurora Borealis.
Re: (Score:2)
one of the most powerful solar storms in 500 years (Score:2)
The article doesn't say that at all. It says "the strongest solar storm to reach Earth in two decades — and possibly one of the strongest displays of auroras on record in the past 500 years".
Pole Shift (Score:2)
This is missing the bigger point.
The poles are moving rapidly and as such the Earth's geomagnetic field is weakening.
That we saw lights at Southern latitudes at such low Kp levels is a symptom of a concern.
The lights themselves are pretty.
A weakened field increases the odds of Carrington-like effects.
Personally I'm building batteries from raw cells so I can stash the outboard BMS if needed.
Most people are happier hoping someone else will save them.
Re: (Score:2)
Personally I'm building batteries from raw cells
Take serious precautions that they don't catch fire and, if they do, that your house doesn't burn down with them. Make sure there's a fire alarm sensor right near the batteries. Check whether any faults in your system are covered by your insurance policy.
Re: (Score:2)
Doomsday Prepping (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
And _THIS_ is why I like to keep my applications and files on my own machine, not in the cloud.
So that instead of losing your data when someone else's machine is fried, you can lose it when your machine is fried?
Re: Doomsday Prepping (Score:2)
UBE (Score:2)
Universal Basic Electricity .. why aren't we offering that? Divert some taxpayer money into building vast giga solar arrays out in the desert. Ever looked out a plane when flying between coasts? Jesus Christ it's like fucking vast empty barren land. Why aren't we covering it with solar panels? I wouldn't mind my neighbors taxes going into something like that.
Re: (Score:2)
Before you trollers start saying some bullshit about how it can't be done, or there isn't enough sand to make solar panels or some nonsense like that .. how the fuck is China doing it? Right now, as I am typing this and we're arguing over it, some China-type dudes are putting up solar panels and wind turbines while laughing at the United States bureaucracy. Within the next two years, they will add 455 gigawatts of solar/wind power. That's more power generation than the entire half-continent known as India.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't believe everything you read, especially from sources that are known to be distorted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Universal Basic Electricity .. why aren't we offering that? Divert some taxpayer money into building vast giga solar arrays out in the desert. Ever looked out a plane when flying between coasts? Jesus Christ it's like fucking vast empty barren land. Why aren't we covering it with solar panels? I wouldn't mind my neighbors taxes going into something like that.
The reason not to do this isn't technical; it's economic.
If you think the CryptoBros and AI Hypesters are bad now, wait until you give them free electricity, too.
UBI, despite being a direct grant of money, limits the damage that any one person can do to his or her neighbors, and is substantially more difficult to use to remove value from the overall economy. UBE, by contrast, would permit the wastrels among the Crypto and AI crowd to blow even more of a shared and limited resource on things that have no t
interesting readings from current clamp meter (Score:1)
My home electricity usage current clamp meter went crazy during the recent northern lights. I think it had more effect than people are admitting