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Three powerful solar flares in August, which threatened to knock out electronic communications and overload power grids on Earth, may be the first warnings of a major solar storm that’s not just expected but long overdue. When it arrives it could easily spell disaster for the technological systems we rely on to live our lives.

Solar flares, or the larger CMEs (coronal mass ejections), are bursts of electromagnetic energy that, when ejected in the right direction, strike the Earth’s magnetic field and can overload electrical equipment.

Solar activity has an 11-year cycle, and we are now entering a period of high activity where eruptions are stronger and more common, but every hundred years or so there’s a solar storm with the power to fill the skies with blood-red auras, stop compasses from pointing north and overload power grids.

The last major storm of this kind was in 1859. The Carrington Event brought crimson auroras normally only seen at the Earth’s poles to the Caribbean and sent electric currents coursing through the topsoil. Then electrical technology was just in its infancy, but the telegraph system was badly affected – large electric currents surged through the wires, shocked operators and set some telegraphic offices on fire. Imagine what would happen if such an electronic overload happened today.

We spoke to Dr Michael Hesse, Chief of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Space Weather Laboratory, to ask what technologies this type of solar activity can affect, and what the worst case scenario would be. “Solar activity affects technologies such as spacecraft systems, GPS, communications and the power grid,” Dr Hesse explains. “Many of these impacts have surprising consequences: For example, GPS degradation not only affects how precisely you can determine your position, but also may render unavailable timing information for financial transactions. This in itself can have a big impact – imagine if this were to happen at a time of market instability.

“The most catastrophic effect would be the failure of the electric power grid and of its components. Were this to take place, we could, in principle, be without power for extended periods of time, up to months. Fortunately there are activities to prevent this from happening.”

Joseph M Kunches, Space Scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center agrees: “We should be concerned with solar eruptions, of which flares are a part and CMEs the other part. CMEs cause magnetic storms on earth, and magnetic storms can cause ill effects to high tech systems. Solar eruptions affect electrical power grids, commercial airline operations, particularly polar routes, GPS, HF radio, satellite communications and manned spaceflight.”

So is it only now, because of our reliance on technology, that solar flares will have such an impact? “Yes,” says Dr Hesse, “the severity of potential effects is largely a consequence of our reliance on susceptible technology. There were, also effects in the past – for example, the largest event in recorded history, the Carrington Event of 1859, generated sparks in telegraph system, and the whole system went haywire. But then we didn’t have GPS, a power grid, or satellites and humans in space.”

There have been numerous other earthbound solar flares since then, which also help demonstrate the disruption a large solar storm could cause – in 1989 solar activity knocked out the electrical systems in Quebec, plunging six million people into darkness for nine hours. So should we be worried?

“The average person should not worry too much about being hit by solar effects tomorrow,” explains Hesse. “Drastic effects from solar activity are in the low probability – high impact category. While we don’t really know how likely a very large event is, a reasonable comparison might be the likelihood of a major hurricane impact on the New England region of the East coast. I always go to sleep without worrying about a solar disaster tomorrow, but we should learn to predict and mitigate these impacts regardless. In addition, special groups, such as satellite operators, astronauts, anybody heavily relying on GPS precision, are already interested in considerably smaller events.”

So does Hesse think governments should be looking to help protect critical systems? “Governments are already doing a lot to develop the knowledge and technology to protect critical systems. NASA operates space missions aiming at the underlying scientific problems and NASA, together with partners such as the National Science Foundation, sponsors the development of forecasting models and tools. These developments have, over the last 10 years, greatly increased our capability to predict harmful effects of space weather.

And we are pushing forward. Further research will eventually get us to the point where we, in principle, can predict space weather with the same accuracy as terrestrial weather. We have also learned a great deal about the space measurements we need. For example, we know now that data of the type we presently get from NASA research missions such as ACE, SOHO (a NASA/ESA mission) and STEREO make all the difference in our ability to issue timely and accurate warnings.”