Solar activity can sometimes trigger strong geomagnetic storms that can disrupt our power grids and communication systems. Are we ready for the next big storm?
Ken Tegnell's first home was on Alcatraz Island. At that time, in the fifties, in addition to the federal penitentiary, there were kindergartens, a post office and residences for prison employees and their families. That included Tegnell and his mother and grandfather, a prison guard, who was stationed in South Korea at the time. The entire Alcatraz is less than a tenth of a square mile, and despite all the security measures and "no entry" signs, the distance between prisoners and civilians is always close. However, even taking into account the proximity to the likes of Bai Yi Bourg, it is still a peaceful place to live. The scenery is spectacular, there are almost no non-captive residents who lock their doors, and almost all of them know each other and share friendships because of a unique identity. "We're a weird group," Tegnell joked, "and that's why I'm weird." ”
When Tegnell's father returned from South Korea, the family moved and has moved several times since. But eventually, Tegnell returned to the Bay Area, this time to attend the University of Berkeley, which was also another odd crowd gathering place in the late 1960s. While taking astronomy classes at Berkeley, he attended a lecture by Carl Sagan, a scientist who was not yet famous at the time. Interested in everything that happens in the sky and indifferent to the hippie culture that surrounds him, Tegnell joined the Air Force in 1974. The army taught him to use a telescope and radio array, and then sent him to the Liremont Solar Observatory in the northwest corner of Australia to collect data about the sun. He served there twice, a twelve-hour drive from anything that could be called a city – a forgotten place, as Tegnell recalled, but with beautiful scenery, beautiful beaches, excellent fishing spots, and little to no rain throughout the year. Whether for work or play, he spends time there, observing the sun.
Tegnell still makes a living from it, although he retired in 1996. Today, his work is so obscure that most people have never heard of it and so important that almost all sectors of the economy rely on it. His official title, which is shared by only a few dozen Americans, is a space weather forecaster. Since leaving the Air Force, Tegnell has worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Forecasting Center in Boulder, Colorado: 10 hours a day, 40 hours a week, and three decades staring at real-time images of the sun. There are also 11 forecasters there. The rest are employed by the only similar agency in the country: the Space Weather Operations Center, operated by the Department of Defense at Overfort Air Force Base in Sappie County, Nebraska.
Regular, earth-based weather is such an important part of our lives that we are almost always aware of it, and often obsessed with it; It's a topic for everything from small talk to heated political debates. In contrast, most people don't know that there is weather in outer space, let alone what its changes mean for our planet. This is because, unlike everyday weather, you can't experience space weather directly. It won't make you feel cold or hot, won't flood your basement or rip off your roof. In fact, until the 19th century, it had hardly any noticeable impact on human activity. Then there was a series of scientific revolutions that made technologies such as electricity and telecommunications an integral part of our lives. It wasn't until later that we realized that these technologies were susceptible to space weather. The potential consequences are as extensive as our reliance on technology. In 2019, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, while investigating possible disasters, concluded that only two natural disasters could affect an entire country at once. One is epidemics. The other is a severe solar storm.
That's why Tegnell's position is so important. But "space weather forecaster" is just an overly optimistic misnomer; For the most part, he and his colleagues couldn't ** what would happen in outer space. All they can do is try to figure out what's going on there, preferably fast enough to limit its impact on the planet. It's even difficult, because space weather is both an extremely challenging field – it's essentially applied astrophysics – and a relatively new one. As such, it is filled with many lingering scientific questions and a pressing practical question: What will happen on Earth when the next massive space storm hits?
The first such storm that caused us trouble occurred in 1859. In late August, the Northern Lights, usually seen only at polar latitudes, showed a series of anomalies: in Havana, Panama, Rome, New York City. Then, in early September, the Northern Lights reappeared, so dazzling that the gold miners of the Rocky Mountains woke up at night to start making breakfast, and the disoriented birds greeted the non-existent morning.
There is an unpleasant corollary to this beautiful and confusing phenomenon: the telegraph system across the globe has become a mess. Many stopped working altogether, while others sent and received "fantastic and unreadable messages," as described by the Philadelphia Evening Post. At some telegraph stations, operators found that they could disconnect the battery and send messages through ambient current, as if the earth itself had become an instant messaging system.
By a lucky coincidence, all of these anomalies were quickly linked to their possible causes. Around noon on September 1, British astronomer Richard Carrington was outdoors mapping a set of sunspots when he saw a light appear on the surface of the sun: the first observed solar flare. When reports of the Northern Lights at low latitudes began to appear, along with reports of a surge in magnetometers that measure fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field, scientists began to suspect that the strange phenomena happening on Earth were related to the strange phenomena that Carrington saw on the Sun.
The surprise that people now known as the Carrington event quickly faded, as fast as the Northern Lights – but sixty years later, it happened again. In May 1921, dazzling light lit up the night sky as far away from the North Pole, such as Texas and Samoa; This time, the spectacle was followed by the catastrophe. "Electrofluids" jumping from a telegraph exchange set fire to a train station in Brewster, New York, while stray voltages on railroad signaling and commutation systems brought Manhattan trains out of service and caused a fire further north at Albany Union Station.
Over the years, this pattern has been repeated, at varying intervals: bright night skies, followed by disturbing consequences that change with the evolution of technology. The teletypewriter stopped working; or the transatlantic cable stopped working; or the silence of the global radio circuit; Or hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines used to send and receive telegram news were interrupted at the same time. In May 1967, all three radar stations of the ballistic missile warning system maintained by the U.S. Air Force at the time appeared to be jammed; Fearing an imminent attack by the USSR, the military ** almost sent planes equipped with nuclear **. Five years later, during the Vietnam War, the United States began laying mines with magnetic sensors outside North Vietnamese seaports, triggering when steel-hulled ships passed above**. Three months after the program began, many of these mines – four thousand, according to one of the *** at the time, were almost simultaneously**. The investigation determined that the plan was not sabotaged by Hanoi, but by a newly discovered solar phenomenon, coronal mass ejection.
Over time, with the help of each new technical puzzle, astrophysicists began to have a better understanding of the weather in space. However, it took a long time for science to enter the public consciousness, let alone public policy, so space weather remained an almost marginalized subject until 2008, when the National Academy of Sciences convened a team of experts to assess the country's ability to withstand the effects of its land. Later that year, the National Academy of Sciences released a report on the findings, "Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Social and Economic Impacts."
The title is boring, and the content is not boring. The report notes that the Earth has not experienced a Carrington-class storm in the space age or broader electrification, and much of the country's critical infrastructure does not appear to be able to withstand one. Widespread disruption of satellites would jeopardize everything from communications to the power grid, and widespread disruption of the power grid would jeopardize everything: healthcare, transportation, agriculture, emergency response, water and sanitation, finance, continuity. The report estimates that recovering from a Carrington-class storm could take up to a decade and cost trillions of dollars.
The report caused a sensation and reached Barack Obama, who had already appointed a new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency named Craig Fugart. At the time, very few people knew about space weather, even in the emergency response community. But, as it happens, Fugart worked with NASA earlier in his career and was impressed by the agency's concerns about the risks of space weather. Therefore, when he received the report of the National Academy of Sciences, he immediately took action. He convened a task force of experts, academia and the private sector with the task of developing a plan to protect the country from severe space weather.
This work culminated in the development of the National Space Weather Action Plan, which was released in 2015. The program outlines more than 100 actions aimed at improving U.S. preparedness and resilience to space weather. Some of these actions have already been implemented, such as the establishment of new early warning systems and the development of stricter infrastructure standards. However, many other actions are still in the planning stage and require significant funding to implement.
Despite the progress made, much remains to be done. Scientists still can't say when a Carrington-class storm will happen, and they can't stop it from happening. All they can do is try to mitigate its effects.
As the name suggests, solar radiation storms can harm humans, but only if they happen to be in the sky at the time of the storm. For passengers flying across polar routes (where high-energy particles traveling along magnetic field lines tend to concentrate), this risk is minimal; However, these flights get a space weather report from the SWPC before takeoff, and they often change course if a major storm is expected. However, for astronauts, severe radiation storms are even more worrisome. Astronauts on the ISS can benefit from the protection of the Earth's weakened but still present magnetic field, but during extreme radiation events, they can take refuge in the stronger shielded parts of the station. But for those beyond the atmosphere, such a storm could be fatal, either immediately fatal, or radiation sickness would prevent them from performing critical life-sustaining functions. One obstacle facing some of the space exploration projects currently under consideration is that neither the Moon nor Mars have a magnetic field to deflect solar radiation; As a result, both are extremely dangerous in solar storms without proper shelter. Only after the fact did it become known how lucky NASA was that there were no such storms during the Apollo mission.
However, the current number of people in outer space - less than a dozen - is insignificant in comparison with the number of satellites in outer space: more than eight thousand. Like us, these satellites are threatened by solar radiation storms. On the one hand, solar particles can go directly into the satellite, physically damaging the hardware and hijacking the software by randomly turning 1 into 0 or 0 into 1. On the other hand, when these particles bombard a satellite, different parts of it accumulate different levels of charge, and electricity can jump between one area and another, trying to neutralize itself and damage or disable the onboard electronics in the process.
Finally, enhanced solar radiation increases the density of certain areas of the Earth's atmosphere, which increases drag. This is especially problematic in low-Earth orbit (about 1200 miles above the Earth's surface), where there are more than 80% of the satellites. As drag increases, these satellites can go off orbit, leaving both their owners and North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) scrambling to find them to maintain functionality, prevent collisions, and avoid confusion about their identity: Unidentified intruders or old friends of a new place? Satellites that encounter this situation would do well to use more fuel to maintain their orbits, thereby shortening their lifespan; That's why the Zenith Lab crashed to Earth earlier than expected in 1979. Worst of all, they completely lost their orbit and burned up when they re-entered the atmosphere. In February 2022, SpaceX, a space exploration company co-founded by Elon Musk, unveiled 49 new satellites as part of its StarLink system, which aims to provide over-the-air internet access to paying customers anywhere on Earth. The company knew the storm had just started just before the launch date, but it was a mild storm — G2, which is the second-lowest category of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) geomagnetic storm rating — and internal models suggest the satellite will be fine. A day after launch, 38 of the satellites lost their orbits and suffered catastrophic failures.
SpaceX still plans to launch tens of thousands of satellites in the coming years, and other entities are expanding their fleets to deploy space-based technology for everything from wildlife tracking to intelligence gathering. But the most critical satellites in all the skies right now are not part of our Global Positioning System (GPS) or, to use the more general term, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).
GPS satellites are not affected by drag because they are not in low Earth orbit; Where they hang, there isn't enough remaining atmosphere to affect them. However, to reach ground-based receivers, signals from these satellites must travel through about 12,000 miles of space. During solar storms, when our ionosphere is disturbed, these signals can be distorted, like light bending as it passes through water, resulting in positional errors of tens of meters and, in rare cases, even hundreds of meters. These errors usually correct on their own when the storm subsides, and they don't matter if you're only using GPS to remind yourself which exit to get to the airport. But a growing number of processes require continuous access to ultra-precise location data, including military operations, aviation, crop management, bridge construction, and oil and gas exploration, especially on deep-sea platforms, where precise position must be maintained during underwater drilling operations, regardless of waves and drift.
However, the most important service provided by GPS is not about space, but about time: each GPS satellite carries multiple atomic clocks, often accurate to the billionth of a second, that transmit ultra-precise time information called GPS timing signals. These signals are one of our most important intangible infrastructures. Cellular companies use them to manage the flow of data on their networks. * Companies use them to broadcast programs, split large data streams into smaller packets for transmission, and then reassemble them upon arrival based on timestamps. Utilities use them to help regulate the flow of electricity from source to destination and prevent surges and outages. Computer applications use them to coordinate any situation where two or more users are working on the same project in different locations. They are used by the financial industry to track mobile banking transactions and timestamp each transaction – a critical traffic control system for a world that processes hundreds of thousands of financial messages per second.
As with GPS position accuracy, GPS timing accuracy can be affected during solar storms. The longer and more severe the storm, the more these errors accumulate until the systems that rely on these signals are not working properly or are not working at all. There are alternate programs available; For example, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States has a backup capability to ensure that aircraft fly safely in the event of a GPS failure. Overall, despite this, the inclusion of such alternatives is limited for one simple reason: GPS is a service provided free of charge by the US federal**. As noted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in a 2020 report, "Without regulatory requirements or a positive cost-benefit equation, the likelihood of adopting non-GNSS services is slim." ”
At the same time, our primary navigational and time information** remains susceptible to changes in the sun's weather. Also affected are a growing number of other satellites, which are provided by a young, thriving and largely unregulated industry. This worries Bill Murtageh, who is usually poise. "Space is a barren land right now," he said. He was blunt about the satellite company: "I don't think they're ready for a major space weather event. If he's right, then when that happens, a large part of our lives will likely be affected: information, communication, entertainment, economic activity, but these are just holes in our skies. According to most accounts, when the next extreme space storm hits, the real problem will be on the ground.
If a solar flare resembles the muzzle flash of an artillery, then the coronal mass ejection is a cannonball: slower, but more destructive. It takes 15 hours to a few days to reach our planet, by which time it has swelled a lot. Upon arrival, it hits our magnetosphere, presses the plane to the side of the Sun (i.e., the day side), and blows the night side away from the Earth, like the wind sock in a gale. If you remember Faraday's law, you know that a moving magnetic field generates an electric current. So, in the end, it was the Earth's own storm-wrenching magnetosphere that caused the Earth to generate an excessive charge, triggering the third and final phase of a space weather event: the geomagnetic storm.
While the storm affects anything long and metallic (pipes, railroad tracks), it poses the most serious threat to the power grid. In the United States, our power grid is divided into three regions. The Eastern Interconnection stretches from the East Coast all the way to the Rocky Mountains; The Western Interconnection stretches from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean; Texas, in its true Lone Star style, acts alone. In most cases, power can't flow from one area to another – which is why when 75% of Texas was without power during the 2021 winter storm, no outside energy vendors were able to help. However, within each region, electricity flows freely – and so can power issues, such as the 2003 Ohio short-circuited power line that caused power outages across much of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast of the United States, plunging 55 million people into darkness.
All of this infrastructure, all the way to the Canadian border, forms the North American power grid, also known as the bulk power system, because it deals with energy transmission, not energy distribution. Electricity distribution involves sending electricity from a local substation to all nearby places that need it – schools, traffic lights, factories, toasters in your kitchen. Electricity is delivered to this substation through transmission, and one of the more than 6,000 power generation facilities (nuclear power plants, hydroelectric dams, solar farms, etc.) on the North American grid is delivered via high-voltage transmission lines, which are often hundreds of miles long and operate at hundreds of kilovolts. This is the weakest link in the power grid and the easiest place for solar storms to attack.
When a magnetic storm rages over the Earth, it creates a strong electric current around the Earth. These currents flow in the Earth's magnetic field, just like they flow in electrical wires. If they are strong enough, they will induce their own current in long wires on Earth, such as transmission lines. These induced currents can overload the transmission line, just as you would if you were plugging too many appliances into one outlet. Transformers and other equipment can be damaged, causing power outages.
In 1989, a powerful geomagnetic storm hit the Canadian province of Quebec, causing a 9-hour power outage across most of the province. The outage affected 6 million people and caused billions of dollars in damage. In 2003, another powerful geomagnetic storm hit the United States, causing power outages in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Experts fear that the next strong geomagnetic storm could cause even more damage. The National Academy of Sciences estimated in a 2013 report that an extreme geomagnetic storm could cost the U.S. economy up to $2 trillion.
We have taken a number of steps to mitigate the risk of solar storms. For example, grid operators are installing better equipment to monitor and protect their systems. The United States** also has a plan in place to respond to major solar storms.
However, we need to do more. We need to invest in research to better understand solar storms and ** them. We also need to upgrade our infrastructure to make it more resilient to solar storms.
A strong geomagnetic storm can have a significant impact on our lives. It can cause power outages, communication disruptions, and transportation delays. It can also harm critical infrastructure, such as power grids and satellite navigation systems.
We must take action to mitigate the risk of solar storms. We cannot afford to take it lightly.