Solar Flare 2013 - 14

The_Fire

Unimpressed Female
The_Fire
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Soooo...I would hate to wake up to a world where I cant get online and bash Deathwings brains in, but according to some,this might actually happen sometime 2013 or in 2014 due to our friendly neighbourhood star the Sun pms'ing worse than usual.

Having scoured the interwebs for information and getting more confused than usual, I now turn to you, oh knowledgeble ones, for some clarification on a couple of things.

1: If I read it correct, the last solar flare of any kind of importance hit in 1991(?) and blacked out parts of Canada. How much damage apart from loss of electricity could be attributed to the flare and would burying the cables help? I ask the last part because Denmark are in the process of moving all powerlines underground to protect them from storms (of the ordinary kind), but I could see it work against this as well.

2: I've downloaded an app, SunAlert Lite for my Droid pad. Now I'm trying to figure out WHEN the numbers are telling me to panic. Anyone got a clue? And Yes, I accept a link.

3: How hardened is the standard less-than-a-year old laptop (not to mention my ps3, my television etc.) against the radiation from the Flare? Can I disconnect it from the grid to prevent surge damage and leave it at that or should I panic and build a faraday cage?(And yes, I'm buying surge protection for all of my outlets anyhow)

4: As I understand, the plastic bags you buy electronics in (those silver ones as well as the ones with the line pattern) acts as faraday cages. Would dumping my cellphone, computer etc. in one of those help?

5: As for faraday cages; Since I'm looking to get my electronics better organised anyhow, I was thinking of buying one of those cheap steel shelving things and add mesh to the sides and back as well as a mesh door, then insulate the entire thing with some sort of cheap rubber or foam insulation. Would this work?

and finally:

6: HOW MUCH SHOULD I PANIC?!!!!
 
Does this have anything to do with the 11 year cycle of solar activity, or is there some more specific reason for predicting the Sun's going to blow a fuse next year?
 
From what I understand, its a combination of the 11 year cycle and a 24 year cycle. Theory is that isolated, these two events COULD cause problems, but together, they almost certainly will and that theres going to be global reprecautions if two large flares hit at the same time. Sort of like a double whammy.

Surge protection just went up to my number 1 priority. Panic index went down a tad. If I can protect my stuff by adding that, I'm thrilled. And that link managed to explain a couple of the indexes on the app rather nicely. Tnx.

Its going to be interesting watching the magnetosphere in relations to this. Lets say a rather large flare happens, what I understand to be an X event.

How fast would the magnetosphere "regenerate"?
And should I tell my parents to stay inside untill it does (Have heard that it could cause problems with the planetary radiation "shield")?
 
Craig B said:
Does this have anything to do with the 11 year cycle of solar activity, or is there some more specific reason for predicting the Sun's going to blow a fuse next year?
Click to expand...

Kinda sort maybe...no

Here is a good summary

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/29may_noaaprediction/

I suspect everyone has latched onto this nugget

"Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather," points out Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."

In other words nothing to worry about
 
Right...Panic now absent. Still buying a ******** of surgeprotection thou. Fortunately extenstion cords with that build-in is fairly cheap around these parts. Might as well take a look at my parents place while Im at it.
 
Ok, got my surge protectors today. Just waiting for the special order ones for my cable connection.

However.
A question from pure curiosity in connection with me buying decent storage for my electronics and the sheer geekiness of being able to say I own a faraday cage :P :

I was contemplating a steel cabinet with a lock and pull-out trays for storage of the laptops etc when I don't use them (at least I can tell my insurance that I TRIED to prevent theft that waY), and I got thinking: Would such a cabinet function as a faraday cage as well or does the paintjob interfer?

Or how about a cheap wooden multi-shelf thing wrapped in copper netting? (last one was my parents whom ARE panicking over then entire solar flare thing (thanks, Denmarks Radio or whomever it was that showed that documentary a while back.....). The copper netting thing could actually end up looking neat since Dad is good with his hands when it comes to metal working.......hmmm......... *start imagining black shelfing, red shiny copper netting and possible black painted trim on the outside for finishing and a Torchwood T on the doors*
 
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As for as EMP goes...

My understanding is that it can happen in any length of conductor which is oriented along the path of the EMP currents, which on Earth are along the lines of force. Obviously, long wires offer more length to induce currents in (on the other hand, small wires occur in more delicate and sensitive equipment), and there is the factor of impedance coupling (antenna effects) between a particular frequency and the length of the conductor it is inducing into.

The EMF has to be impressed into the Earth's magnetic field; that is only done by incoming solar flares and atomic blasts occurring in the ionosphere, both of which supply frequencies all along the EM spectrum. They were encountered in the great flare of 1859, and in American and Soviet bombs actually lofted into the ionosphere. A-bombs going off on land within a mile of fairly sensitive electronics seem to not very much affect them.

The strength of EMF is often estimated to defeat most Faraday cages in use by seeking out leakage spaces and getting inside. A place for incoming power, or for a LAN cable, might be enough. Military shielding for EMP defeat is awsome, multiple solid cages separated with insulators, with offset service ports, and multiple redundancy at all levels. And, they are in direct competition with electronics cooling.
 
so...the plating would have to be solid for the cage to work with as tight fitting doors as possible. And, unless I suddenly developed a multi-million budget, only for storage (which suits my plans for the electronics cubboard nicely). And grounding as well...

Off cause if this thing takes out all electronics, there's going to be more immidiate problems than having a working computer.....looting and general violence comes to mind.....

eta1:hm....The Canada flash was a, what, X1x15, flare right? Does anyone know how the computers at the time were impacted?

ETA2: Wait: Acording to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_22 you would have be outside in the upper layers of the atmosphere or for the flare to be x20 before you feel it on ground level computers (the example being the stock exchange outage which was cause by malfuntioning chips).

Does anyone know if the chips reset themselves or had to be replaced? And it seems like theres a 3 day prediction period before earth getting hit. Am I reading this correct?
 
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Ok, so I THINK I'm getting my brain wrapped around at least parts of this.

The danger to surface based systems, including computer, is the cases where there's a large CME involved, otherwise the damage occures in the higher levels of the atmosphere.

Something about the charged Plasma being ejected making the radiation more likely to actually reach earths lower atmosphere, right?

CMEs can, if I get it correct, be somewhat reliably predicted by monitoring the other parts of the flare, the ones where only sattelites etc. are affected as well as monitoring the size of sunspots (stop me and correct me if I'm wrong). This gives us 10 minutes warning for the high altitude "fast" radiation which only affects the astronauts, poor buggers, satelites and other things in that altitude, but 3 days for the slower low altitude impact which, unlike the "fast" radiation that only lingers for a couple of minutes, can stick around for a couple of days.

Am I getting this right?

eta: My brain officially hurts. I KNEW there was a reason I didn't go into astronomy.....
 
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I'm having trouble finding exact numbers, but the current induced by a magnetic storm is proportional to the loop area. The stuff I'm seeing is 100nT/s is probably the largest you'd expect.

Take a power line that is 1000km (1e6 m) long, and has a ground loop distance of 50m, so that is 5e7m^2. Now, take your small electronics, maybe a loop area of .1m^2? So the effect on a power line will be nearly a billion times greater than on your small electronics.

From doing the math on loop area of a power line, and the 100nT/s, there must be other factors that cause the damage, such a currents in the ground of the earth. I noticed during my research a recommendation to install 2.5 to 7 ohm resistors in transformer neutral grounds in order to mitigate.

http://www.midwestreliability.org/00_events/2009_CIP_Workshop/10._Kappenman_MRO_Dec1_2009.pdf

http://scottiestech.info/2011/02/08...electrical-grid-and-what-it-all-means-to-you/
 
We had geomagnetic activity take down transmission lines in the 80s.

You get breaker trips, you have a blackout, and in a few days all is restored.

More likely the closer to the poles you are.

Equator unlikely to care.
 
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