Can a Solar Flare Cause Economic Collapse?
In September of 1859, Richard Carrington, England's premier solar astronomer at the time, was drawing on some paper the sun spots he was observing projected on a screen by his telescope. Suddenly, what later came to be known as a white light solar flare blossomed forth over the sunspots and rapidly intensified. Mystified by this outburst, he ran to get a witness, but when he returned 60 seconds later, the flare had already contracted to a white pinpoint.
That was not the end of it, however. Brilliant auroras enveloped the earth, and in many places a newspaper could be read as easily in the night as in the daytime. Telegraph operators were knocked off their chairs, and the paper used to record the dots and dashes caught fire. Even with the batteries disconnected, it was possible to transmit messages because of aurora induced electrical currents.
Though solar flares are now known to be fairly common, one that can be seen (in reflection) by the naked eye has to be brighter than the sun around it, and correspondingly, extremely powerful.
This became known as the "Carrington Effect", and as we've become a more electrified world, the consequences of a contemporary solar flare could be catastrophic indeed. A solar flare in August of 1972 knocked out the telecommunications in the state of Illinois, and another one in 1989 blacked out Quebec and plunged the entire province into darkness that lasted 9 hours. In December of 2005, xrays from a solar storm damaged satellites and interrupted GPS activities for up to 10 minutes.
These flares were not of the magnitude of the one that Carrington witnessed, which thankfully don't occur very often. If one were to occur, however, the consequences could be devastating. A severe flare could conceivably induce ground currents that could destroy hundreds of transformers in the USA in minutes, and because melted hubs inside transformers can't be repaired, only replaced, it could take months or years for things to get back to normal.
In the meantime, high rise apartments requiring pumps to get water to the upper floors would be cut off first, and with no electricity to pump water from reservoirs, our taps would run dry in a day or so. No elevators, no transportation as the electricity required to pump gas would not exist, no deliveries as trucks and planes ran out of gas, empty supermarket shelves and stores, and it's easy to see the framework of a national, even international tragedy unfolding in a relatively brief amount of time.
Even worse, an electromagnetic pulse of this sort can also be caused by a nuclear weapon detonation at high altitudes in our atmosphere. The resultant electromagnetic pulse would mimic the damage caused by a massive solar flare, and cause havoc with communication, transportation, and our electrical grid with all its attendant horrors.
More attention is being paid to these concerns, and computers, transformers, satellites and portions of our grid are being hardened to better resist these magnetic assaults. More, however, desperately needs to be done, so until that remains the case, make sure you have enough water, food and other essential supplies to last at least a few weeks, and pray that the damage that was done was not a worst case scenario.
About the Author:
Larry Isaacson is Vice President of Haskell New York Inc., a company which sells office supplies on the Internet through its online service, http://www.officesalesusa.com and holiday / Christmas cards at their sister site Christmas-holiday-cards.com.
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