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Recently declassified documents suggest that in August 1972, a massive, high-velocity coronal mass ejection caused many sea mines to detonate unexpectedly. A new look is taken at the incident, taking into account more of what is known about the solar activity at the time.
The extreme space weather events of early August 1972 had significant impact on the US Navy, which have not been widely reported. These effects, long buried in the Vietnam War archives, add credence to the severity of the storm: a nearly instantaneous, unintended detonation of dozens of sea mines south of Hai Phong, North Vietnam on 4 August 1972. This event occurred near the end of the Vietnam War. The US Navy attributed the dramatic event to 'magnetic perturbations of solar storms.' In researching these events we determined that the widespread electric‐ and communication‐ grid disturbances that plagued North America and the disturbances in Southeast Asia late on 4 August likely resulted from propagation of major eruptive activity from the Sun to the Earth. The activity fits the description of a Carrington‐class storm minus the low latitude aurora reported in 1859. We provide insight into the solar, geophysical and military circumstances of this extraordinary situation. In our view this storm deserves a scientific revisit as a grand challenge for the space weather community, as it provides space‐age terrestrial observations of what was likely a Carrington‐class storm.
Given that nearly everything is almost fully dependent on electronics and those same electronics are connected to several large networks of copper wire which will act as antennas, what will we do now to mitigate the damage so we are more ready when a similar event occurs again?
From
Space Weather : On the Little‐Known Consequences of the 4 August 1972 Ultra‐Fast Coronal Mass Ejecta: Facts, Commentary and Call to Action
Science Alert : A Solar Storm Detonated Dozens of US Sea Mines, Declassified Navy Documents Reveal
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Saturday November 10 2018, @11:28PM (5 children)
that it takes out my laptop or cellphone. Yeah, those things suck, but I actually remember a time before such things existed. We could mostly make due, although it would admittedly be funny as hell watching the latest generation try to read an actual *map*
The larger problem is that it takes out the electrical grid completely, blowing transformers by the hundreds. Recovery would take decades (those transformers can take a couple of years to build in normal times.)
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There's a nice writeup here showing some storm scenarios and areas at risk of grid collapse https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u33/finalBoulderPresentation042611%20%281%29.pdf [noaa.gov]
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Looking around a bit for CME's that actually noticeably affected the Earth, there isn't a perfect list (or Google has downranked out of existence for being too static), but this is what i gathered up from a number of sources:
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1859 (Carrington) Telegraphs keep working when unplugged.
1882 Telegraphs and telephones disrupted
1921 Damage to telegraph systems in Northern and Southern hemespheres and undersea cables (they had those in the 20s?). Interestingly radio reception improved due to ionosphere activation.
1972 Blew up mines during the war
1989 Powergrid in Quebec taken out, Canadian stock market trading stopped, astronauts eyes feel burning sensation
2003 (The Halloween Storms) satellites damaged, spacecraft/instruments had to be shut down temporarily, power outage in Sweden, transformers destroyed in S. Africa.
2012 (extreme storm near miss...)
2014 (largely mitigated by Earth's magnetic field, nice light show)
Ballpark this is about one significant Earth affecting CME every 25 years. Carrington was 10x > than the 1989 event which took out power in North Eastern North America, which is the most recent one of significance.
We'll call Carrington class a once a century solar storm.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @02:17AM (1 child)
There were already undersea cables in the mid-19th century. There was a cable connecting Great Britain to the continent in 1851, and the first cable connecting Britain to North America was laid in 1866. (I recommend Arthur C. Clarke’s How the World Was One as a readable history of the early work in establishing worldwide telegraph communications, among other things.)
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 11 2018, @03:32PM
Thanks, I'll check it out.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday November 11 2018, @05:27AM (2 children)
The larger problem is that it takes out the electrical grid completely, blowing transformers by the hundreds. Recovery would take decades (those transformers can take a couple of years to build in normal times.)
It depends on the country and if they have a grid robust enough to be able to bootstrap if it all goes down at once. From what I read, many require live adjacent networks to online or they cannot be brought back up. So recovery of just the electricity from major failure would take centuries, if ever. The just-in-time nature of the supply chain in regards to food means it is quite brittle. Water is a little more robust in many places but that just means violent, angry, hungry people going after eachother if the supply of food is disrupted sufficiently.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @09:31AM (1 child)
"centuries"? really? it was built from scratch less than a century ago! what is wrong with you?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Sunday November 11 2018, @10:12AM
"centuries"? really? it was built from scratch less than a century ago! what is wrong with you?
If a whole continent goes down, it will take a concerted effort from the population of the remaining continents (assuming there are any) to wipe out the remaining bands of rabble and colonize. Even if they want to help them rebuilt there are still the bands of rabble to content with.
If electricity were out for a full week in your region, just how well would any aspect of your society hold together? Water? Sanitation? Food? Other infrastructure? How well will the populace react to the abscence of it all? I'm guessing that their reaction woud be 'uncivilized'.
If all continents go down simultaneously, then it's game over. We've pulled up that ladder after us. There is no way to roll back to an earlier stage such as agrarian or hunter-gatherer. Even if there were, which resources can be rebuilt from nothing?
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.