CME's, Blackstarts, and internet problems?

[jim mcnamara]

TL;DR Summary

Coronal mass ejections (CME) range from almost fun to apocalyptic.

As of 2/2/2022 a very current M-class CME, which will light up auroras
https://www.livescience.com/solar-flare-reaches-earth-wednesday

Since these geomagnetic storms keep making news, let's take look...

A massive X class CME from 9200 ya, came during a solar sunspot cycle minimum and would have nasty consequences for the electric grid and satellite communications today
https://www.livescience.com/ancient-solar-storm-solar-minimum

A less nasty set of geomagnetic storm consequences from a powerful CME in 1859, we had problems like telegraph lines on fire.
Carrington Event was the most powerful geomagnetic storm in recorded history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

M class is middle of the road CME, classes of CME:
A,B,C,M, and X. A is tiny , M is middle of the road, and X has the potential to be "uh-oh"

Space weather scale based on CME power, see examples of how they affect us:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation
1. Solar Radiation storms - can have very bad biological consequences for astronauts, damage to high altitude air craft electronics.
2. Radio Blackouts - completely disrupt navigation systems
3. Space weather - electric grid failure/damage, telecommunications failure, internet disruption

Examples - electric grid failure. During the 2013 freeze in Texas, the entire TX grid nearly failed completely. Had it failed a full restart would have required. A restart takes weeks since ERCOT has not yet installed set of fixes. It was not from a CME, just very cold weather. From this, you get a handle on the magnitude of possible problems with our technology. This restart is called a blackstart. AFAIK Texas has made no remedial changes.

 

[anorlunda]

If it is severe enough to fry all our electric devices, or kill all the people, the power grid is the least of our problems. I guess that is the uh oh case.

I once saw aurora in New York, but now I'm in Florida. It would be truly remarkable to see aurora from here.

A great question to ask is how much worse could it be if we have a CME event during a magnetic pole reversal period?

 

[berkeman]

A great question to ask is how much worse could it be if we have a CME event during a magnetic pole reversal period?

I see that you've got your "Mr. Cheerful" hat on today...

 

[jim mcnamara]

@anorlunda

CME kill people? I do not know for sure. Pole reversals appear to be a long drawn out series of events. Which complicates things.

Losing technology for weeks would be really ugly on the ground so to speak. No electricity for a while, no way to pump well water, no way to pump gasoline... you can work it out.

However. Putting on a smiley face
There is a gamma ray burst hypothesis as an extinction event driver. The folks making the statement felt a gamma ray burst from nearby object like a neutron star would be sufficiently lethal to kill of lots of living things.

Specifically, one group of scientists proposed that a gamma ray burst from a nearby object caused one of the extinction events of the Ordovician-Silurian.
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/gammaray_extinction.html

There were two events: a global extinction event occurring during the Hirnantian Age (445.2 million to 443.8 million years ago) of the Ordovician Period and the subsequent Rhuddanian Age (443.8 million to 440.8 million years ago) of the Silurian Period that eliminated an estimated 85 percent of all species. In geologic terms almost a back-to-back series of extinction events.

 

[jim mcnamara]

And then there are nearby supernovae as causes of extinction events.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.04589

Enough. Most of this is informed speculation. I think the common thread is finding a widespread isotope in rock strata and the isotope does not and did not exist anywhere else in the Earth's crust.
Somewhat like the Iridium in Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_boundary

If someone knows more please advise.

 

[anorlunda]

CME kill people? I do not know for sure.

Yeah. Perhaps I overreacted. I was thinking of the frequent non-science claims that EMPs or CMEs or hackers will destroy the power grid and bring on the collapse of civilization.