The Mother of All Disasters

One hundred and fifty years ago on August 27, 1859, the world witnessed beautiful auroras that were seen as far south as the equator. This amazing light show continued for eight nights until September 7. In England, Richard Carrington, an amateur astronomer, was one of the first scientists to notice the intensely bright white light originating from a group of sunspots. Carrington also noted that the local magnetometers were erratic and off the scale. (A magnetometer measures the strength and direction of magnetic fields. They are useful in finding buried or submerged objects like shipwrecks or even submarines, and are standard equipment on spacecraft. In 1859, there were magnetometers at telegraph stations because the telegraph operated via electromagnetism.) Carrington correctly correlated this sunspot activity with the geomagnetic anomalies that were being recorded on magnometers as long distance communiques died and telegraph networks failed worldwide. Today, we refer to those eight days in 1859 as the Carrington Event. More recently, in 1989 in Quebec, there was another 'warning' solar event. Then, a brief plasma burst from the sun overwhelmed the power grid and high voltage current created a meltdown of the copper in the grid; Eastern Canada went dark. Luckily the storm was short-lived and US power companies helped restart the Canadian system.

You are probably wondering why the Carrington Event and the Quebec blackout is a big deal. Undoubtedly, the Earth has been bombarded with similar solar storms and we as a people and a planet have come through them just fine. However, if the Carrington Event happened again tomorrow, and it could, it is not an exaggeration to say that millions would die. It would be the planet's worst natural disaster in history.

How could that be in this interconnected global technological age? It is simple; our reliance on technology weakens us for this type of disaster. Here is what actually happens: During periods of increased solar/sunspot activity, the sun's coronal gases spit forth a plasma ball called a Coronal Mass Ejection or CME. CME's hurl through space like a gust of wind, and if they are directed at the Earth, the plasma interacts with the Earth's magnetosphere and atmosphere to create beautiful auroras and if it is powerful enough, some really nasty magnetic effects. To understand CME's, think of a small creek. During normal times, the creek slowly trickles on, like the solar wind does. Sometimes, during dry spells, the creek dries up and there is no flow whatsoever. Sometimes, there are flash floods that appear suddenly and do not last very long. That would be analogous to what happened during the Quebec incident. It was brief in duration and regional in effect. Sometimes, the flooding raises the water level and the flood continues for days. That would be analogous to the Carrington Event. As the Earth spun around, it was bombarded continuously by the CME from the sun, and telegraphs around the world were disabled as the storm lasted eight days.

The first casualties of an Earth directed CME will be satellites that are in Earth orbit. The plasma blasts disrupt gyroscopes on satellites making them unable to maintain orbital position. Once they lose Earth-lock, they lose the ability to transmit data, and there is no way scientists on the ground can communicate with the satellite, so they have to be abandoned. Secondly, high energy atomic particles bombard and fry electrical systems. Finally, as the upper atmosphere heats up from the plasma bombardment, the density of the lower atmosphere changes and that creates drag on satellites. Any or all of these things can happen to varying degrees in solar storms. Satellites would begin tumbling and would quickly lose orbital height. Communications would be lost. If GPS satellites are lost, oil platforms, aircraft navigation, cell phones, and other equipment that use GPS would become useless. The loss of communications and global positioning satellites alone would be an economic disaster. Solar disturbances wreak havoc on satellites quite frequently, much like earthquakes cause damage on Earth. However, one day, we will experience another Carrington Event-the equivalent of The Big One.

Within a minute and a half of the plasma burst hitting the atmosphere, power grids would fail from high energy particles like electrons overloading the lines which will heat up and melt essential grid hubs. In North America, there are about 300 key transformer hubs and if they are lost, the continental grid fails. These large currents will travel through the system like a massive lightning bolt, frying the electronics of anything not hardened in a Faraday cage. The world now relies so heavily on technology that the loss of power and equipment would have devastating consequences. Without power for control, drinking water treatment plants, sewage pumping stations, gasoline stations, supermarket refrigeration, medical equipment and other vital equipment will become non-functional.

Financial markets will plummet and the world's economy will flip-flop with the most technologically dependent countries taking the worst fall. For safety reasons, power plants are programmed to shut down with grid disruptions, so until the physical grid itself is restored, there would be no power generation. Nothing would change for months, probably years as melted transformers and hubs can only be replaced, not repaired. The few spare transformers kept in reserve would quickly be used, It takes a year to make one, and with high demand worldwide, obtaining more transformers would be nearly impossible in the short term. Government studies have suggested that if a large CME disabled the power grid in the United States, that power might not be restored for 4 to 10 years. YEARS.

Even when some systems are capable of receiving power again, there is no guarantee there will be any electricity to deliver. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate. Coal-fired power stations usually keep coal reserves to last 30 days, but they rely on trains for coal delivery, and of course the trains are dependent on GPS and electrical switching and fuel pumping. Nuclear plants would be taken off line for safety reasons during the first minutes of the storm when the grid was lost and would be locked out until a consistent power source could be restored. After a period of say five years and millions of deaths, would there even be enough trained and knowledgeable people to operate the equipment?

Within minutes of the initial power loss, people would realize that without electricity, there is no clean drinking water or sewer service. That would soon lead to bacterial diseases like cholera and dysentery. Within a few days, there would be no food in the stores, because due to the inability to pump gasoline, no deliveries are made. Backup generators for medical care would last a few days, but after that, medical care loses 150 years of progress without lighting, lasers, sanitizers, diagnostic and monitoring equipment, etc. etc. With only rudimentary medical treatment, untold numbers would die. Of course, there would be no power for heating, cooling, or industry. After a few weeks, the supplies of medicine would run out, and without industry, there would be no way of making more or delivering the supplies where they are needed. In the course of several years, millions would die-from accidents and disease, from starvation and exposure, from criminal acts, and probably from war.

Other developed countries would be equally reduced to third world status. China's power grid system is even at a higher risk of failure due to the way the voltage is regulated, and European countries are so interdependent that a domino effect would incapacitate the continent almost immediately. The internet would survive in a diminished capacity, but only the military and governments would have hardened assets and battery capability to exchange information on a global scale. During solar storms, even shortwave radio is not reliable.

In the best of all possible worlds, our only hope is the ACE solar orbiting satellite(Advanced Composition Explorer) which could possibly give us 15 to 45 minutes of warning, depending on the speed of the ejection and the position of the satellite. If power companies have 15 minutes of warning, they can sometimes prevent damage or at least attempt to isolate grids to prevent a cascading loss. The problem is that ACE is already operating beyond it's expected lifespan-it was launched to study the solar wind back in 1997-and as it ages, it's detectors become less sensitive. It was not designed to measure a massive plasma ejection. The second and more serious problem is that previous large CME's, like the ones that precipitated the Carrington Event and the Quebec grid failure, traveled much faster than anticipated and arrived at Earth in less than 10 minutes. Even if ACE had been out there during those CME's, it would detect the particles, but not provide enough warning time to power companies or satellite controllers to take emergency measures.

In the worst of all possible worlds, the CME comes during a period of heightened solar activity, like what is projected to occur in 2012, near the Spring or Fall equinox. At the time of the equinoxes, Earth is oriented in such a way that the protective magnetic field is weakened and vulnerable to plasma strikes. Also, during this time of year, there is little demand for heating and cooling- it is 'off peak' if you will, and computers monitor the equipment on the grid. It is a time of year when manpower is minimal and should a spike occur, there may not be staff on hand to take immediate action before the plasma overwhelms the circuits.

What can you do to prepare? It is easy. Stay healthy and become more self sufficient. Reduce your dependency on technology and especially electricity. If a large CME does take out the power grid, power restoration will be sporadic at best, perhaps even managed as a rolling grid, where a certain area might have power one day a week or perhaps for one hour a day. Learn to grow your own food. Learn to hunt or fish. Learn which plants can be used as medicine. Go low tech whenever possible, for example, bike instead of drive. Learn to build a fire so that you can boil water. Most importantly, believe that it can happen, but don't panic if it does. Millions of humans before you survived just fine. Millions will die, but it doesn't have to be you.