Lots of people talking about this article in the UK daily Mail:
A near miss for Earth: Solar flare that could have knocked out power, cars and phones came so close two weeks ago
- Earth has narrowly missed electromagnetic pulses caused by solar flares
- If they had hit, the pulses could have knocked out electrical equipment over continent-scale regions
An electromagnetic pulse that could have knocked electrical equipment over continent-scale regions barely missed Earth two weeks ago, it has been revealed.
Source: (h/t Jack Simmons)
But, not so fast…NASA’s Dr. Tony Phillips of Spaceweather.com writes:
Many readers are asking about a report in the Washington Examiner, which states that a Carrington-class solar storm narrowly missed Earth two weeks ago. There was no Carrington-class solar storm two weeks ago. On the contrary, solar activity was low throughout the month of July.
The report is erroneous.
The possibility of such a storm is, however, worth thinking about: A modern Carrington event would cause significant damage to our high-tech society.
There is even a recent SciFi movie revolving around the idea which seems to have gone straight to video:
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Leif Svalgaard says:
August 4, 2013 at 2:46 pm
Carla says:
August 4, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Our understanding of solar dynamo is in rapid change mode….
YOU HAVE NO POLAR CORONAL HOLE WIND AT ALL!
Your getting all your winds at virtually mid and low latitudes.
With all due respect to Janet, this is no news at all. That has been traditional wisdom for decades. In our 1978 paper on this http://www.leif.org/research/The%20Strength%20of%20the%20Sun%27s%20Polar%20Fields.pdf we pointed out that “the polar cap flux is almost sufficient to provide the interplanetary magnetic flux.
—
Not exactly.. you might want to watch her presentation Dr. S. Our current observations are contributing to our understanding of the field being generated at the surface and where these points are originating.
Parker’s spiral is more horizontal instead of more vertical at times during the cycle. Our current model of how the solar wind carries out the field may have taken ahhhhhh wide turn.. This changes the whole configuration and ‘not just a flattening.’
And not knowing where the polar field is anchored.
But the future is built on our past understanding.
@ur momisugly lectorconstans says: August 4, 2013 at 2:57 pm
I’m sorry, lectorconstans, but I don’t know what you’re referring to… solution to what? Which post are you referring to?
Rational Db8, I intended no disrespect to the incredibly brave people who risked, and lost, their lives, KNOWING they would probably not survive the firefighting and capping of the reactor. However:
This was piling tragedy on top of tragedy, and is not something I say for humor. Everyone living in Pripyat should have known that anything going on at the reactor sites would have been reason to turn and flee, not stop and watch.
Carla says:
August 4, 2013 at 2:31 pm
..Where does this polar field actually ah.. anchor?
I think is still a very important question that needs to be answered.
25:00
pseudo streamers ubiquitous this cycle for reason that we are till trying to figure out.
..But you can also see, that there is much more than a solar dipole present..
..The sun is not a dipole. We need to take that into account when we look at it…
—
Really good job displaying those pseudo streamers (Closed field) and helmut streamers (Open field), using information from several solar observatories. Such detail and the models are good.
Those pseudo streamers have null points in their surface origin. Those pseudo streamers interact with the outer corona out ? solar radii. Hoping IRIS will shed more light on some of the outer solar atmosphere several solar radii outward to the parabolic exclusion boundary in the inner heliosphere.
_Jim says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:48 am
Gail Combs says August 3, 2013 at 5:49 am
…
FWIW: I worked at a company where our well shielded very expensive X-ray machine was taken out by a lightening strike. The installers were really scratching their heads over how the equipment got fried.
For all you know there may have been a primary (say, at 14 KV) to secondary (208/240/120V etc.) arc take place (induced by lightning, a nearby a strike even) out on the ‘pole’ or line somewhere; there is little one can do at that point (think: Plasma discharge ‘arcs’ are basically “short circuits”) …
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Don’t think so because none of the other equipment in the lab or factory was affected only the X-ray which is why they think it came up through the grounding rods. The machine was in a separate shielded room in the middle of the lab and several other pieces of equipment were on the outside wall and not affected.
vukcevic says:
August 4, 2013 at 3:12 pm
CO2 bit is still on the original graph (see one of the earlier links), but it is followed by question mark.
No, it was not.
The object is to probe if there is global temperature related to the Ap index
The correct way of doing that is to make a ‘Superposed Epoch’ analysis: Line up all 15 cycles on their minima [or maxima], then compute the average dT for each ‘bin’ and the average Ap [and SSN for completeness: You get something like this
http://www/leif/org/research/Vuk-Failing-15.png
showing that within the error bar there is no solar cycle or Ap dependence on dT. The expected cycle variation just drown in the noise.
It is more likely to be related to the geomagnetic jerks
not at all, those are minute and have no effect on anything, originating deep in the core.
[Dr S. Please verify that this edited link is now correct. Mod.]
Carla says:
August 4, 2013 at 5:10 pm
..But you can also see, that there is much more than a solar dipole present..
..The sun is not a dipole. We need to take that into account when we look at it…
As you can see from the link below, we never thought it was. Read the first five lines of the link.
The polar fields are still a mystery that need to be solved, but apart from that the big picture has not changed at all as you can see from this http://www.leif.org/research/A%20View%20of%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields,%20the%20Solar%20Corona,%20and%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20in%20Three%20Dimensions.pdf
We are into the details now and that sometimes overwhelms people so they lose the big picture. This is Janet;s message: remember the big picture.
Need another slash:
http://www/leif/org/research/Vuk-Failing-15.png
But not too many:
http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-Failing-15.png
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
u.k.(us) says:
August 4, 2013 at 6:20 pm
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
—
To hard to tell if that (Vuk failing 15) was Dr. S., best shot or not.
Carla says:
August 4, 2013 at 7:00 pm
To hard to tell if that (Vuk failing 15) was Dr. S., best shot or not.
Now, now, Carla. Mind the difference between a best shot and a cheap shot…
@ur momisugly CodeTech says: August 4, 2013 at 5:02 pm
Thanks for the reply, and the acknowledgement of some of the incredible heroism that occurred.
You know, I’ve heard of the “bridge of death” before, but believe it’s an urban myth – there were only about 56 people who died from radiation sickness – primarily plant personnel there during the time of the accident, firemen and other personnel who directly responded to the accident, and some of the “liquidators” who were on site doing clean up (including picking up chunks of graphite with bare hands!!!!! Yikes!!!). Oh, and some members of the media who came onsite to film the incident – one of which took video looking directly into the open core, with nothing on but a respirator (if even that, can’t recall for certain). Anyhow, I’m pretty certain that none of those 56 were Pripyat residents who weren’t actually at the plant itself during the disaster or directly onsite responding to the disaster. I’ve even searched a little for it, and find a lot of sites making the claim, but none from any reputable, knowledgeable, expert source. If you can find anything that way, I’d really appreciate it if you post the link.
Also, in the USSR, I’d be amazed if town residents had a clue about the radiation risks, effects, fallout concerns, plume travel and exposure risks, etc. They were really kept in the dark. The government and the experts were telling them the town was perfectly safe, there was no radiation risk, etc – for at least three days. They had no reason to think a bridge some distance from the plant would be any risk, unfortunately. But remember, this was the USSR, and their views of what was and wasn’t appropriate to inform people about, and how much they needed to know about risks, etc., was radically different than ours. The USSR’s behavior in this regard was abysmal and horrific. Cripes, they didn’t even give out KI to the local people, which sure could have prevented a number of children from winding up having to be treated for thyroid cancer years later. I think it was 10 days before they even gave some out to some local people – and by then, the thyroid uptake would have been huge and the benefit of KI negligible.
Rational Db8, I was 22 when Chernobyl happened. I know that due to the very nature of the USSR we probably are still being told stuff that is dishonest at best. I took the Bridge of Death story at face value. Now that I’m doing more research I guess it probably was an urban myth. At least, most of that story. It appears there were a lot of people on that bridge, though.
Either way, Chernobyl was hardly an “accident”, in the sense that it wasn’t mechanical failure or natural catastrophe that triggered it. It was apparently human ego and recklessness that caused it, along with a healthy dose of “stupid”.
A graphite core reactor was already a dangerous and ill-advised design in 1986. The USSR was always playing a weird game of catch-up and copying, and trying to prove they could do anything that anyone else could do. While I grew up the Soviet Union was a formidable and dangerous superpower, and it’s just as well we didn’t know everything that was going on behind the Iron Curtain or we’d really have lain awake panicking, every night.
Pripyat, as I understand it, was essentially a town created to service the reactor site. It just seems to me that everyone there should have known the danger they were in. If it was me, the only radiation burns I would have received would have been on my back as I ran as quickly as possible in the opposite direction…
@CodeTech says: August 4, 2013 at 9:32 pm
You and I are right about the same age. We actually knew for certain that there had been a major nuclear incident somewhere in the world a few days before the USSR finally publicly announced it, because we saw background radiation levels rise very slightly and stay elevated. Truly a miniscule amount, but enough that there had to have been something to cause it. We suspected it had to be in the USSR, because where else could some major accident occur and not be known almost right away?
Of course you are absolutely right about the cause being gross human error. They violated like 6 major “thou shalt not” safety regulations, all that night. And yes, also totally agree that it was well known at the time to be a risky design. They had reasons for choosing it, but it wasn’t nearly as safe as most other design. And then even worse, those in command refused to believe their staff reports that the reactor was gone – and even refused to believe their own eyes. Some at the top were just in utter denial, unable to cope with the idea that a disaster of massive proportions had occurred on their watch.
I just can’t blame the residents for not knowing how risky the situation was – they were never trained worth a flip on it, in fact were fed questionable info at best, then were lied to by the “experts” during those first few days who supposedly would warn them if there was any risk. I suspect that if you or I were residents there who never worked at the plant, we wouldn’t have behaved any differently because we wouldn’t have known any better either. It was absolutely unconscionable behavior on the part of the USSR government.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 4, 2013 at 5:43 pm
………….
vukcevic says:
CO2 bit is still on the original graph (see one of the earlier links), but it is followed by question mark.
……….
No, it was not.
……………..
There are two links: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Ap_LT.htm with CO2
and : http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ApGLT.htm with no CO2
You didn’t look at the original one
We keep getting these “melt the wires” threats from solar storms thrown at us all the time, but nobody ever mentions any physical mechanism that would cause this.
Now I don’t doubt that controller glitches can trigger circuits changes, that end up connecting things that aren’t supposed to be connected, like connecting together two alternators, that are out of phase with each other at the time of connection.
The Voltage induced in a wire is L di/dt. Straight wires over ground planes, have about 3 nano-Henrys per cm of inductance or 0.3 microHenrys per meter, that’s 3 mH per km of straight wire. Well you’ll get 3 Henrys for 1,000 km of straight wire.
So how big is di/dt going to get for an emp pulse due to solar flares.
And power lines that travel large distances, are twisted, so that the 60 Hz radiation from one section of transmission line, cancels that from another section. Twisted pair circuits, are not only very inefficient radiators of EM radiation, but they are equally poor receiving antennas as well.
The idea that slowly varying EM fields (how many Volts per meter or Amps per meter has anyone ever measured in any of these fields.), can induce destructive amounts of received electrical energy, is pretty much nonsense.
Lightning strikes generate very large and fast EM radiation fields. They can damage circuits that are hit; but they don’t induce damaging Voltages in power lines that aren’t hit.
Has somebody in the know got a graph of the full frequency spectrum of the varying EM fields that come from these events (at the earth end) ??
We shouldn’t blame solar events, for software gitches that can scramble electric power circuits.
@george e. smith 11:46 pm
but nobody ever mentions any physical mechanism that would cause this.
I feel the same way. The physics of the danger is underspecified.
There is no doubt that during a geomagnetic storm somehow there is an abnormally large voltage potential in the Earth. Typically with a NE-SW gradient in the North American Continent.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but the real dangers to our infrastructure might be the result of other infrastructure. Take the Trans Alaska Pipeline. 2000 Amps in a geomag storm. But only 20 volts DC to spots on the ground – near the pipeline. The pipeline is a huge conductor with the effect of taking the Earth potential at Prudhoe Bay and equalizing it to the Fairbanks pumping station. The real threat might come from the unexpected unusual voltage potential between the Fairbanks pumping station and the “North Pole Refinery” next door.
Pipelines and Railways. Big steel conductors that will try to make everything they touch at a common potential. In my mind’s eye, I see a network of “conductors” some at different potentials and where the potentials are most different is where the trouble will be. It would be the poor joints and near joints where the current flows and voltage gradients are greatest that the failures will occur.
Isn’t the salt water ocean a massive conductor, too?
Up thread, there is the story of the NY Central Railroad that had ground current problems that brought down the signal and switching system “south of 128st Street”. I found that location odd. Could it be that the ground potential gradient between nearby upstate and the ocean waters lapping on NYC’s shores was the place the gradient was highest?
No doubt that the high tension power lines are a weak point. They use earth ground 60 times/sec. I’m just expressing the possibility that changes in nearby earth potential from other infrastructure may be a key component to vulnerabilities.
vukcevic says:
August 4, 2013 at 11:20 pm
There are two links … You didn’t look at the original one
None of them has a question mark…
Rational Db8 says:
“The reason people respond to the “reduce population drastically” people this way is because the only way to significantly reduce populations quickly is by murdering large numbers, or forceful mass sterilization – and both options are extremely offensive to us, because we actually value human life, and it seems those advocating relatively quick reduction of population numbers do not seem to value human life any to speak of, and seem to think those options would be acceptable ‘for the [supposed] greater good.’ And they don’t even bother to look into how such changes would effect the economy, standard of living, poverty, starvation, etc., rates.”
I don’t advocate murdering people, but forced sterilization is a good idea and probably the only way to keep people from being murdered.
Any quick change to the size of the population will, obviously, cause some dislocation in the economy, but that will be relatively painless and soon pass; and the additional urban space and housing that becomes available will, again obviously, be good for those who remain.
The idea that the reduction will somehow make people starve is absurd; the amount of food produced in Europe and the European Diaspora is far more than is needed to feed us. Even if our population were one-tenth of what it is, we could easily produce enough food to keep us well-fed.
A higher ratio of old people to younger ones will be offset by the fact the a large part of the ‘old’ people are healthier than their peers of 100 years ago and can continue working, and will want to. In any case, younger people, unless they are psychopaths, take in their elderly parents and grandparents, do they not?
Joel says : “forced sterilization is a good idea”
Do you have any children? If so will you volunteer them to be sterilised?
Energetic geomagnetic pulse last night with KP=5, with polar Bz > 1% swing
http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Last24&site=tro2a&
Two CMEs on the 3rd & 4th August
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c2.gif
“Joel Renfrew says:
August 5, 2013 at 4:25 am”
Your post is a joke, right? If it’s not a joke it certainly is uninformed to the point of ridiculousness.
Patrick says:
“Your post is a joke, right? If it’s not a joke it certainly is uninformed to the point of ridiculousness.”
Please point out how it is uninformed. Be specific.
“Joel Renfrew says:
August 5, 2013 at 5:30 am”
How about the whole post, is that specific enough?