Everything in the modern day is built off of infrastructure that uses either the internet or some form of electronic data-processing equipment; from banking to military communication, electronic infrastructure is vital to humanity. It could all be gone in an instant.
Coronal mass ejections, as defined by NOAA, are, ”large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona.” Essentially, the Sun vomits out massive amounts of energy into space, and sometimes they hit the Earth. These expulsions of plasma have the capacity to damage satellites in orbit around the Earth, as well as electrical transmission sites stationed on the ground. This happens due to the Earth’s magnetosphere absorbing the energy, which creates powerful electric and magnetic fields. The Earth is constantly bombarded with smaller amounts of energy of this type from the Sun; this phenomenon is actually what creates the “northern lights”. There is some predictability to these events. Every eleven years, the Earth goes through what’s called a “solar maximum”, during which solar activity, like coronal mass ejections and solar flares, are at their greatest. Even with an understanding of solar maximums, scientists are still unable to fully predict when we can expect these coronal mass ejections. These “CME’s” are classed as: “A”, “B”, “C”, “M”, and “X” class flares. With “X” being the final letter in this classification, it’s important to establish that there are numbered-sublevels within these letter categories. For instance, an “X1”-classed flare is inconsequential compared to an “X28”-classed flare (‘28’ is the end of the scaling). Each subsequent increase in sublevel can mean an increase of power by hundreds of factors. Most of the time, Earth is only fed smaller amounts of this energy from the Sun, at least in terms of classification. Every once in a while, we get hit with something bigger.
Cue, the Carrington Event, the largest coronal mass ejection event that humanity has recorded. To sum-it up, in 1859 the Earth was directly struck with an ~X50 level (yes, so large it would be outside of our current classification) coronal mass ejection. This event was so powerful that aurora borealis were clearly visible at low altitudes in Boston, MA. There weren’t many electrical devices to be damaged in 1859, aside from telegraph lines and the occasional transformer; but, if the Earth were to be directly on the receiving end of a coronal mass ejection event of that scale today, the damage would be beyond extensive. “It was clear from the presentations and discussions in this workshop session that society faces different types of risks due to space weather events now than it did during the Carrington event in 1859” (National Research Council, 29). The globe’s entire electronic infrastructure could potentially collapse. Transformers would detonate; power grids would fail; communications would be disrupted; and much of this damage would be long-lasting and costly. “...an estimate of $1 trillion to $2 trillion during the first year alone was given for the societal and economic costs of a “severe geomagnetic storm scenario” with recovery times of 4 to 10 years” (National Research Council, 4).
So, why should a coronal mass ejection concern the average person today? There is much uncertainty surrounding our understanding of when we can expect to get hit with one of these bursts of energy, and combined with our sheer lack of preparedness in our infrastructure, as outlined by the National Research Council in Severe Space Weather Events, an event of this caliber could happen within this century that has cataclysmic outcomes. Obviously, there isn’t anything the average person could do to stop this, but it’s always smart to be prepared.
Sources:
National Research Council. 2008. Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts: A Workshop Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://lasp.colorado.edu/home/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/lowres-Severe-Space-Weather-FINAL.pdf
“Solar Flare.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 June 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare.
“Solar Maximum.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 June 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_maximum.
“Carrington Event.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 June 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event#:~:text=The%20Carrington%20Event%20was%20a,largest%20geomagnetic%20storm%20on%20record.
Garner, Rob. “Solar Storm and Space Weather - Frequently Asked Questions.” NASA, NASA, 19 Mar. 2015, www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/spaceweather/index.html.
Zell, Holly. “Solar Flares: What Does It Take to Be X-Class?” NASA, NASA, 31 July 2013, www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/X-class-flares.html.
“A Super Solar Flare.” NASA, NASA, science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare.
Galloway, Taraya, and Taraya Galloway. “The Solar Storm of 1859 - Fishwrap The Official Blog of Newspapers.com.” Fishwrap, 23 Aug. 2018, blog.newspapers.com/the-solar-storm-of-1859/.
Pixabay. “Yellow Sphere Illustration.” Pexels.com, 31 Jan. 2016, www.pexels.com/photo/yellow-sphere-illustration-39649/.
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