NASA Warns Solar Flares Could Disrupt Power Grid

If the low levels of solar activity during the past three years continue through the current solar cycle (Solar Cycle 24), which is expected to peak in 2013, we could be facing a severe temperature decline within the next five to eight years as Earth’s climate begins to respond to the drop-off in solar activity... "The sun is behaving very quietly — like it did in the late 1700s during the transition from Solar Cycle 4 to Solar Cycle 5 — which was the start of the Dalton Minimum," D’Aleo says. If the official sunspot number reaches only 40 or 50 — a low number indicating very weak solar energy levels — during the next solar maximum, we could be facing much lower global temperatures down the road." Even NASA solar physicist David Hathaway has said this is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century. "Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high," Hathaway told NASA Science News. "Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We're just not used to this kind of deep calm." - Kirk Myers, Triple Crown of Global Cooling Could Pose Serious Threat to Humanity, Seminole County Environmental News Examiner, May 19, 2010

NASA Warns Solar Flares from 'Huge Space Storm' Will Cause Devastation

Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.

June 14, 2010

London Telegraph - National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.

Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.

Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa's Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.

“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”

“Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.”

A “space weather” conference in Washington DC last week, attended by Nasa scientists, policy-makers, researchers and government officials, was told of similar warnings.

While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher’s comments are the most comprehensive warnings from Nasa to date.

Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause the Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person’s life.

Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.

Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation.

He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely.

A more likely scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have “fragile” power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for hours, possibly even days.

He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be.

“I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependant on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred,” he said.

“There is a severe economic impact from this. We take it very seriously. The economic impact could be like a large, major hurricane or storm.”

The National Academy of Sciences warned two years ago that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could “all be knocked out by intense solar activity.”

It warned a powerful solar storm could cause “twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.” That storm devastated New Orleans in 2005 and left an estimated damage bill of more than $125bn (£85bn).

Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids and allow development on satellite “safe modes.”

“If you know that a hazard is coming … and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble,” he added.

His division, a department of the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC, which investigates the Sun’s influence on the earth, uses dozens of satellites to study the threat

The government has said it was aware of the threat and “contingency plans were in place” to cope with the fall out from such a storm

These included allowing for certain transformers at the edge of the National Grid to be temporarily switched off and to improve voltage levels throughout the network.

The National Risk Register, established in 2008 to identify different dangers to Britain, also has “comprehensive” plans on how to handle a complete outage of electricity supplies.

Scientists Warn Solar Flares Could Disrupt Power Grid

A solar flare-up could cause huge damages to Earth's communication system and power grids.

June 8, 2010

Science.com - Space weather scientists meet in Washington, D.C. tomorrow to discuss the potential problems of solar flares, eruptions on the sun's surface that can cause massive disruptions in the electrical power grid. Solar flares send off little bursts of radiation that travel down to the Earth, and can impact communications systems, GPS systems, satellites, power grids, aviation interests and polar regions, according to Bill Murtagh, who works at the Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And he says get ready for more: Solar activity comes in cycles, and the next one starts in 2013.

"It could be ugly: a storm could disrupt credit card and ATM transactions. Cell phone networks could go."

According to Murtagh, the entire power grid could get zapped, which could cause trillions of dollars of damage.

W Kent Tobiska runs a company that does space weather forecasting. He says we can predict sun storms better, but it may not help.

"Frankly right now, there is probably not an immediate solution, but certainly a necessity to plan for contingencies in case those kinds of things happen."

Scientists say there have been big sun storms before, but we've never been this dependent on the technology they can disrupt.

More Active Sun Means Nasty Solar Storms Ahead

A sufficiently powerful electromagnetic pulse would take down our grid and other electrical systems for months and probably for years. Imagine suddenly having a 19th century infrastructure: no clean water coming out of the tap, no heat, no lights, no food supplies because the transportation system is kaput, no communication systems. NO ATMs? That would be the least of our problems. And we don't need to wait for a solar flare; a nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere above the middle of the US would accomplish the same thing. I think that the average citizen hasn't heard about this because the consequences of inaction are so catastrophic that people don't want to think about it. - Catherine Adams, Scientists warn solar flares could disrupt power grid, Science.com, June 8, 2010

June 9, 2010

SPACE.com - The sun is about to get a lot more active, which could have ill effects on Earth. So to prepare, top sun scientists met Tuesday to discuss the best ways to protect Earth's satellites and other vital systems from the coming solar storms.

Solar storms occur when sunspots on our star erupt and spew out flumes of charged particles that can damage power systems. The sun's activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, and it looks to be coming out of a slump and gearing up for an active period.

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity," said Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division. "At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

Bad news for gizmos

People of the 21st century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. But smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity.

A major solar storm could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina, warned the National Academy of Sciences in a 2008 report, "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts."

Luckily, much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. That's why better understanding of solar weather, and the ability to give advance warning, is especially important.

Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers can protect electronics from damaging electrical surges.

"Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we're making rapid progress," said Thomas Bogdan, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo.

Eyes on the sun

NASA and NOAA work together to manage a fleet of satellites that monitor the sun and help to predict its changes.

A pair of spacecraft called STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is stationed on opposite sides of the sun, offering a combined view of 90 percent of the solar surface. In addition, SDO (the Solar Dynamics Observatory), which just launched in February 2010, is able to photograph solar active regions with unprecedented spectral, temporal and spatial resolution. Also, an old satellite called the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), which launched in 1997, is still chugging along monitoring winds coming off the sun. And there are dozens more dedicated to solar science.

"I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather." Fisher said. "We take this very seriously indeed."

Video - How Space Storms Wreak Havoc on Earth