Solar superflares hit Earth multiple times(earthsky.org)
earthsky.org
Solar superflares hit Earth multiple times
https://earthsky.org/earth/solar-superflares-tree-rings/
68 comments
The take-away from COVID is that humanity adapts, the outliers are the minority. Politics is required for a stable environment, but not every politician is as good as you'd wish.
The difference now with the past is that everything is connected. We have seen that we "absorbed" it much better/ flexible than what I anticipated. Still getting bad news through the web immediately is not something we had time to adapt to before.
Is it perfect, no. Are there issues, sure! Humanity adapts, bad news actually makes prepares us more and makes us find a solution.
I'm not worried about an apocalypse. The only thing that I'm worried about is the growth of human population since 1960 actually.
But we'll adapt.
Just like all other crisis that were the end of the world before.
And don't forget, humanity had to go through a lot of shit to get where we are now.
Greetings from Bruges, Belgium!
https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_om_de_IJzer - translate this. This is practically where I live now ;) ( dutch to English)
The difference now with the past is that everything is connected. We have seen that we "absorbed" it much better/ flexible than what I anticipated. Still getting bad news through the web immediately is not something we had time to adapt to before.
Is it perfect, no. Are there issues, sure! Humanity adapts, bad news actually makes prepares us more and makes us find a solution.
I'm not worried about an apocalypse. The only thing that I'm worried about is the growth of human population since 1960 actually.
But we'll adapt.
Just like all other crisis that were the end of the world before.
And don't forget, humanity had to go through a lot of shit to get where we are now.
Greetings from Bruges, Belgium!
https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_om_de_IJzer - translate this. This is practically where I live now ;) ( dutch to English)
This is my view too. It actually surprises me that so many people are doom and gloom when all one has to do is look out the window and realize that's pretty much all humans are good for. We aren't good at preventing things from happening but we are good at adapting to whatever happens.
I don't believe climate change will destroy us all. It might make things more uncomfortable than it has to be but when push comes to shove, humans will adapt to pretty much any situation.
I don't believe climate change will destroy us all. It might make things more uncomfortable than it has to be but when push comes to shove, humans will adapt to pretty much any situation.
I'm not claiming that climate change will be innocent ( just to be sure). It will impact a lot of people ( in absolute numbers, I'm not sure in relative numbers) before it gets fixed.
But humans are indeed pretty good at getting on top of things when it's crucial. It's the preparation part that could use improvement ( definitely on a global participation scale).
From another point of view: it's never been this peaceful in the world. Which doesn't mean it's all perfect now, but a reminder of where we came from and how bad it was.
Making a "big bad fuzz" out of things is a requirement to acknowledge and to solve them by getting everyone onboard.
Edit: misread a bit, I thought you mentioned we were better at preventing things, but you didn't. So...
Tldr: I agree!
But humans are indeed pretty good at getting on top of things when it's crucial. It's the preparation part that could use improvement ( definitely on a global participation scale).
From another point of view: it's never been this peaceful in the world. Which doesn't mean it's all perfect now, but a reminder of where we came from and how bad it was.
Making a "big bad fuzz" out of things is a requirement to acknowledge and to solve them by getting everyone onboard.
Edit: misread a bit, I thought you mentioned we were better at preventing things, but you didn't. So...
Tldr: I agree!
Humanity will surely survive one way or another - when I say apocalypse I don't mean complete and total extinction.
Civilisation adapted to covid because we had power and communication. It simply won't survive the instantaneous loss of both for an extended period.
With pre-industrial population levels, maybe we could survive in our towns and villages without electricity and communication. But now? I think the suffering would be unimaginable.
Civilisation adapted to covid because we had power and communication. It simply won't survive the instantaneous loss of both for an extended period.
With pre-industrial population levels, maybe we could survive in our towns and villages without electricity and communication. But now? I think the suffering would be unimaginable.
Humans have a tendency to view the very first thing they experience as "normal". This is a warped perception. I mean 120 years ago there had never been human-powered flight. Look where we are now. Some embrace changes. Others try and resist it. Most just accept it.
Beyond personal experience, this colours collective consciousness. The earliest human writing that we still have record of is only 5000-6000 years old. There is archaeological evidence os civilization going back 10,000-15,000 years. We've found settlements at the bottom of the English Channel from ~8,000 years ago [1]. This should tell you something: we've seen massive sea level rises in recent Earth history.
The last 10,000 years have been relatively stable, abnormally so. There are a host of events that affect life on earth. Just to name a few: solar flares, meteor/asteroid impacts, supervolcanoes, earthquakes, magnetic pole flipping, rapid climate change (cooling and warming), sea levels rising and falling, Milankovitch cycles (ie eccentricity, axial tilt and precession) driving long-term climate, cosmic events (eg gamma ray bursts) and so on.
Some of these things are relatively common too in the sense that they've occurred multiple times in the short span of civilization. Beyond these superflare events there are others that cause massive death and destruction (eg [1]).
I guess my point is the best we can do is put off the next such event temporarily. There will be another Ice Age, for example. There will be future mass extinctions. Yes, we're wreaking havoc on the planet but anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales.
Ultimately we're just going to have to learn to adapt.
[1]: https://www.livescience.com/1759-stone-age-settlement-englis...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
Beyond personal experience, this colours collective consciousness. The earliest human writing that we still have record of is only 5000-6000 years old. There is archaeological evidence os civilization going back 10,000-15,000 years. We've found settlements at the bottom of the English Channel from ~8,000 years ago [1]. This should tell you something: we've seen massive sea level rises in recent Earth history.
The last 10,000 years have been relatively stable, abnormally so. There are a host of events that affect life on earth. Just to name a few: solar flares, meteor/asteroid impacts, supervolcanoes, earthquakes, magnetic pole flipping, rapid climate change (cooling and warming), sea levels rising and falling, Milankovitch cycles (ie eccentricity, axial tilt and precession) driving long-term climate, cosmic events (eg gamma ray bursts) and so on.
Some of these things are relatively common too in the sense that they've occurred multiple times in the short span of civilization. Beyond these superflare events there are others that cause massive death and destruction (eg [1]).
I guess my point is the best we can do is put off the next such event temporarily. There will be another Ice Age, for example. There will be future mass extinctions. Yes, we're wreaking havoc on the planet but anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales.
Ultimately we're just going to have to learn to adapt.
[1]: https://www.livescience.com/1759-stone-age-settlement-englis...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
Yes. And a key component of learning to adapt is learning to make intelligent global-scale behavior changes when it's in our interest, such as banning CFCs and reducing CO2 output.
Perhaps "adapt" is the wrong word; you might see some of these actions as proactive.
Perhaps "adapt" is the wrong word; you might see some of these actions as proactive.
I agree with you that we need to be proactive, it just seems like its impossible to be proactive on a species-wide level without giant authoritarian governments. It kind of seems like the best we can do is to just be reactive unfortunately.
If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it's that people won't even mildly inconvenience themselves to benefit other people. What's more, that will become political.
I mean think about it: is it easier to reduce global CO2 output that'll no doubt make things more expensive at least in the short term and require concerted action by other countries like India and China and with all of that it'll probably take decades to see an impact or to just form a voting bloc and get the government to bail you out when your coastal town gets flooded?
I mean think about it: is it easier to reduce global CO2 output that'll no doubt make things more expensive at least in the short term and require concerted action by other countries like India and China and with all of that it'll probably take decades to see an impact or to just form a voting bloc and get the government to bail you out when your coastal town gets flooded?
It's hard for people to even mildly inconvenience themselves in the short term to benefit themselves in the long term. Think how hard it is to lose weight.
That's not what the pandemic has taught me. The pandemic has taught me that governments all over the world are able to make overnight sweeping changes, develop and roll out new medicine in incredibly short timespans, and that people will put up with horrible life changing protective measures for years for the sake of society.
This is so true, reading headlines and toxic internet comments makes it so easy to feel like we completely failed WRT the pandemic, but if you really think about it, its kind of amazing how well we responded. Especially considering the free world got to keep its individual liberties and the global economy didn't completely collapse.
I think it's safe to say that modern civilization will be positively fucked when a Tambora-level eruption (let alone a 536 AD-level one) occurs. Like, decades-long economic depressions. And no nation is equipped to handle that. It's easier to recover when civilizations weren't as connected as they are today, in addition to no electricity grid to have to worry about.
Imagine how much fossil fuel and nuclear power will be needed to illuminate crops in until the skies clear. Any country without abundant access to energy will starve to death.
So installing a "base-load" of vertical farming as civilisatory prepping?
This is one of the reasons I've continued to advocate for a nuclear baseload in the face of the jaw-dropping price decreases for solar.
The Scream by Edvard Munch was painted in 1893. Planning for multiple summers with chronically low insolation is the only responsible course of action.
Bad enough it will put pressure on food, trouble keeping the lights on would make this much worse.
The Scream by Edvard Munch was painted in 1893. Planning for multiple summers with chronically low insolation is the only responsible course of action.
Bad enough it will put pressure on food, trouble keeping the lights on would make this much worse.
> trouble keeping the lights on would make this much worse
I think the bigger problem would be trouble keeping phones charged and Internet/WiFi running. I seriously think that we are so addicted to our always-connected devices that losing them would be severely distressing for many/most people.
I think the bigger problem would be trouble keeping phones charged and Internet/WiFi running. I seriously think that we are so addicted to our always-connected devices that losing them would be severely distressing for many/most people.
You can't eat phones.
There was a man who ate a whole plane. I’m pretty sure someone could eat a phone.
https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/mangetout/
https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/mangetout/
April? Second?
Only those who were around before it was commonplace would recover quickly. Muscle memory is a thing. I'm often told by younger peers that my practice of leaving my phone at home to go to the grocery store is unthinkable. Folks will just have to learn patience, and a different way.
Yes I still have to deliberately check that I have my phone when I leave the house. OTOH I always have my keys and my wallet. My kids are constantly losing keys and wallets. None of them has ever lost his phone.
"Internet" is inclusive of critical logistic and financial infrastructure so, yeah, not optional to keep it running no matter how much of it consist of cat pics.
> Yes, we're wreaking havoc on the planet but anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales.
I'd like to see a graphic or some kind of graph-theoretic summary statistic describing the damage we've done to the evolutionary tree.
I'd like to see a graphic or some kind of graph-theoretic summary statistic describing the damage we've done to the evolutionary tree.
I think you make a lot of fair points, but when I see comments like:
> anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales
I’m reminded of: https://xkcd.com/1732/
> anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales
I’m reminded of: https://xkcd.com/1732/
One of the most famous solar storms in recorded history is the Carrington Event of 1859. This event, which fried telegraph systems – the peak technology of the time – isn’t even detectable in the carbon-14 data in tree rings. So it would be but a whisper compared to the thundering onslaught of a solar superflare
This is not comforting.
This is not comforting.
The C14 event in the 700s AD has been noted for a while. When it first came to my attention, it had been posted on The Register and it wasn't "world wide" it was IIRC most impactful in the northern hemisphere. People went looking. Somebody found a "Domesday Book" (diary by a cleric) talking about a "red star".
I’m wondering if the definition of star has shifted over the years.
It’s likely that the flare caused red aurora, but it would be pretty diffuse and unlike points of light that we know stars to be.
It’s likely that the flare caused red aurora, but it would be pretty diffuse and unlike points of light that we know stars to be.
It would also be far further south than normal, and people didn't travel much. The majority would never have seen an aurora before, so the only thing they had as a comparison might be stars.
In the article:
> knocking out undersea cables
Most undersea cables being optic fiber, I don’t really see why a solar flare would knock them out. Or maybe they are active components like repeaters? But how are they powered up?
> knocking out undersea cables
Most undersea cables being optic fiber, I don’t really see why a solar flare would knock them out. Or maybe they are active components like repeaters? But how are they powered up?
Undersea cables use steel for strength and additional conductor to power repeaters.
Fiberoptic needs repeaters every couple hundred kilometers, so everything crossing any ocean is actively powered.
The damage to the cable would come from difference in potential at the ends of the cable. The cable might be at the ocean bottom but it could still get fried if you apply high voltage that could kill repeaters. And without those the cable is useless.
Basically, greatly simplifying, in a solar storm any long conductor might be subjected to high potential difference (potential difference == voltage). It does not matter if the middle is exposed but enough of it needs to be exposed at the ends. So a lot will depend on details of how the cable is actually terminated. And it should be possible to engineer it (ie terminations) so that it is safe from a storm.
Fiberoptic needs repeaters every couple hundred kilometers, so everything crossing any ocean is actively powered.
The damage to the cable would come from difference in potential at the ends of the cable. The cable might be at the ocean bottom but it could still get fried if you apply high voltage that could kill repeaters. And without those the cable is useless.
Basically, greatly simplifying, in a solar storm any long conductor might be subjected to high potential difference (potential difference == voltage). It does not matter if the middle is exposed but enough of it needs to be exposed at the ends. So a lot will depend on details of how the cable is actually terminated. And it should be possible to engineer it (ie terminations) so that it is safe from a storm.
I don't think the steel support is a real problem. It's conductive, but not that much.
One ohm/m is enough to severely limit anything on the kV range over hundreds of km. Steel cable support is often much more resistive than that.
One ohm/m is enough to severely limit anything on the kV range over hundreds of km. Steel cable support is often much more resistive than that.
First of all, there is also copper conductor in it.
But the most important is, I think, you are mistaking voltage and current.
Resistance will limit current, but it will do nothing to voltage (except for fast transients depending on capacitive properties of the line -- sorry, there must always be some exceptions to every rule).
1M volts put to a conductor will still be 1M volts regardless of wether the conductor is 1ohm or 1M ohm.
Remember, electronics is mostly fried by voltage, not by current. For high current to damage electronics at nominal voltage it must have an internal fault -- short circuit, for example, that causes it to draw more power than necessary.
High potential, on the other hand, causes electrons to go all sorts of ways they are not supposed to go, causing damage to all sorts of things that are not supposed to be penetrated by electrons.
You can damage sensitive electronics by waving your hand over it. You don't even have to touch it -- just the fact that you are moving some electrons on your hand causes electromagnetic field (moving charge == electromagnetic field) that causes potential to be induced in internal electronics (conductor in changing electromagnetic field == induction).
Just read about why exactly electronics is distributed in those funny metalized bags.
But the most important is, I think, you are mistaking voltage and current.
Resistance will limit current, but it will do nothing to voltage (except for fast transients depending on capacitive properties of the line -- sorry, there must always be some exceptions to every rule).
1M volts put to a conductor will still be 1M volts regardless of wether the conductor is 1ohm or 1M ohm.
Remember, electronics is mostly fried by voltage, not by current. For high current to damage electronics at nominal voltage it must have an internal fault -- short circuit, for example, that causes it to draw more power than necessary.
High potential, on the other hand, causes electrons to go all sorts of ways they are not supposed to go, causing damage to all sorts of things that are not supposed to be penetrated by electrons.
You can damage sensitive electronics by waving your hand over it. You don't even have to touch it -- just the fact that you are moving some electrons on your hand causes electromagnetic field (moving charge == electromagnetic field) that causes potential to be induced in internal electronics (conductor in changing electromagnetic field == induction).
Just read about why exactly electronics is distributed in those funny metalized bags.
Electronics devices are full of protective features against low-current high-voltage events. That's exactly because you can fry some parts just by touching them, and people do not want to entire devices to be that sensitive.
As a rule, you need both voltage and current to kill a device. For MOSFETs, that's indeed very little current, but most components are far more forgiving, and the MOSFETs are always protected.
Also, resistance causes the voltage to drop. How much it drops depends on the details of the device protection, but you certainly won't get a 1MV drop inside the device if you have many Mohm of resistance outside of it.
As a rule, you need both voltage and current to kill a device. For MOSFETs, that's indeed very little current, but most components are far more forgiving, and the MOSFETs are always protected.
Also, resistance causes the voltage to drop. How much it drops depends on the details of the device protection, but you certainly won't get a 1MV drop inside the device if you have many Mohm of resistance outside of it.
[deleted]
They never said steel was an issue.
> Undersea cables use steel for strength
But they never said it was an issue. I don’t understand how you got that it was.
Super clear! Thanks!
See recent research on this, which expands on the description provided by the other replier:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~sabdujyo/papers/sigcomm21-cme.pdf
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~sabdujyo/papers/sigcomm21-cme.pdf
Underwater damage from an EMP is unlikely. The cables all come ashore somewhere, a more likely place for damage.
So what are the odds that we will have a solar super flare?
It's pretty darn unlikely in our lifetimes. But you'll know about it yourself without anyone needing to tell you before it happens. The energy available to the initial flare and/or associated coronal mass ejection is roughly proportional to the area of the sunspot group.
Before there was a "super" flare and/or CME you'd see the sunspot with your unaided eyes. Check out "The standard flare model in three dimensions. II. Upper limit on solar flare energy" and the figure 4 in particular for size to energy reference. https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.2086
Before there was a "super" flare and/or CME you'd see the sunspot with your unaided eyes. Check out "The standard flare model in three dimensions. II. Upper limit on solar flare energy" and the figure 4 in particular for size to energy reference. https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.2086
Does this mean the maximum size is roughly an X51?
"Although X is the last letter, there are flares more than 10 times the power of an X1, so X-class flares can go higher than 9. The most powerful flare on record was in 2003, during the last solar maximum. It was so powerful that it overloaded the sensors measuring it. They cut-out at X17, and the flare was later estimated to be about X45. A powerful X-class flare like that can create long lasting radiation storms, which can harm satellites and even give airline passengers, flying near the poles, small radiation doses. X flares also have the potential to create global transmission problems and world-wide blackouts." (1)
(1) https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10109
"Although X is the last letter, there are flares more than 10 times the power of an X1, so X-class flares can go higher than 9. The most powerful flare on record was in 2003, during the last solar maximum. It was so powerful that it overloaded the sensors measuring it. They cut-out at X17, and the flare was later estimated to be about X45. A powerful X-class flare like that can create long lasting radiation storms, which can harm satellites and even give airline passengers, flying near the poles, small radiation doses. X flares also have the potential to create global transmission problems and world-wide blackouts." (1)
(1) https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10109
How much time would elapse from the point of seeing the sunspot until the flare/CME actually occurs?
Hard to say. For a "super" event the sunspot group might be noticibly big right after it appears and flare during the emergence which would mean a ~day or two warning all the way up to a long established group slowly growing over an entire rotation around the sun and coming back to flare and/or erupt ~29 days later.
So, does that mean we'd have time to shut off our power grid and disconnect any long lines of metal?
AIUI, it's only a problem if sufficiently long wires are actually connected to vulnerable equipment.
AIUI, it's only a problem if sufficiently long wires are actually connected to vulnerable equipment.
Yes. But I think there'd be a lot of political/social problems with that. The solution for the grid at least is to spend the infrastructure money to put fast ground fault interrupters on all irreplacable (<months) big backbone transformers.
The odds are 1.
The question is when.
The question is when.
Nitpick: I think you mean that the probability is 1 and the odds infinity.
[deleted]
Hopefully tomorrow so we can stop worrying.
Can we have the Cascadia earthquake as well while we’re at it?
Don't forget the Yellowstone caldera!
What? No love for the ELE asteroid/comet collision?
Cumbre Vieja megatsunami please as well.
This thread reminds me of this Calvin and Hobbes comic:
https://thecomicninja.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/calvin-and...
https://thecomicninja.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/calvin-and...
Don't lump me in with that "we."
If we learnt anything from covid it's that our governments do not account for systemic risks. The emperor has no clothes, etc.