I was reading the "locked" thread about the possibility of a CME causing widespread collapse on earth.
I totally understand why the moderators choose to cloase such thread, as the relevance for bushcraft is rather low.
However, as a teacher, I weekly sees the results of teenagers who have read some wild pseudo-scientific predictions on the internet, and have become rather scared. And I do not like children being scared. Especially for totally unnecessary things.
On this basis, I found it appropriate to actually explain - with verifiable and rational arguments - why the "collapse" predicted in the forementioned thread is a quite wrongful conclusion.
In 1859 the world expirienced a Carrington Event. The only such event recorded in the time of written history. It was caused by a magnetic disturbance on the surface of the sun (called a sunspot), which, on its collapse, created a quite large explosion. This explosion threw large amount of charged particles in the direction of earth. The Van Allen belt - the Earths magnetic field - does a great job of deflecting such charged particle radiation, so no humans were harmed, but observant individuals were threated to a splendid display of auroras. However, humans were beginning to string telegraph wires between cities and countries, and some of these wires were damaged. As Orsted proved - moving a electrical conductor in a magnetic field creates electricity - possibily much more electricity than the circuit were designed for.
So the theory goes that with the amount of electric distribution wires and electric circuits were have in our normal western society such an event would bring the western society to a standstill.
People making such assumptions actually forgets that we have a formidable technological advantage in comparison to the people in 1859.
We will KNOW if the threat of such an event is imminent. The sun is CONSTANTLY being monitored. All sunspots are catalogized and even small changes monitored. Such data are furthermore available to the general public, and are of course of great value for satellite operators.
And please remember, the sun is some 1,39 million km wide. And we are some 150 million km from the sun. In comparison the earth is only 12750km wide. The chance of a large CME actually hitting earth is therefore exceedingly low.
Even IF a larce CME would be wandering our way we would know in advance. The SOHO observatory is actually located in the Lagrange Point (the point were the Suns and the Earths gravitational fields cancels each out out), and provides continuous surveillance of the Suns Surface. The SOHO was launched in 1995 and is itself a prime example of how human ingenuity always will prevail even faced with extreme difficulties.
SOHO is nearing the end of its useful life, but there are other more modern and advanced sun-monitoring satellites to take over.
(Read more about SOHO:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_and_Heliospheric_Observatory)
(Read more about CME's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection)
Modern electricity distribution net are actually quite well monitored, and given a warning from the scientific community the operators of the electricity distribution network would just bypass the stretches of wires which would be developing stray currents. The currents would not damage the wires (as the are constructed for such purposes), and denying the stray currents access to the transformer stations could be done electronically. Most of the distribution network is actually built with triple redundancy.
And much have been learnt since the Quebec event in 1989 where a large transformer actually melted due to such stray currents following a large magnetic field disturbance
The design and construction of electrical transmission infrastructure is actually a quite well-established and continouosly researched science. For a short introduction read the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides and excellent page with continuous updates regarding the satellite environment and the possibility of solar eruptions and auroras. The data and imagery can be viewed at:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
http://www.spaceweather.com/ is another exellent page for such subjects. This is a quasi-commercial page, with greater focus on easily understandable graphics and related science news.
For actually determining the amount of energy input in the magnetic field (and the resulting aurora) the following page can be of interest:
http://www.spacew.com/www/aurora.php
The only real threat from a Carrington-event would be the damage the stream of charged particles could do to the satellites orbiting earth. Satellites are costly to replace - which explains some of the interest from the scientific community in researching and predicting such events.
The original report from R.C. Carrington is actually online: http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1859MNRAS..20...13C
And NASA has recently undertaken a major study of the impact of Carrington-events on space exploration. The summary of the study can be read at:
http://www.nap.edu/nap-cgi/report.cgi?record_id=11760&type=pdfxsum
As a final thought, I would politely request that the fact that many children and teenagers read a lot of the material presented on the internet without the scientific background to question the conclusions is taken into account when posting material on family-oriented sites.
My sincere apologies to the moderation team, if the above is considered rude in regard to the locking of the original thread, however I find the reasons described above quite compelling.
//Kim Horsevad
I totally understand why the moderators choose to cloase such thread, as the relevance for bushcraft is rather low.
However, as a teacher, I weekly sees the results of teenagers who have read some wild pseudo-scientific predictions on the internet, and have become rather scared. And I do not like children being scared. Especially for totally unnecessary things.
On this basis, I found it appropriate to actually explain - with verifiable and rational arguments - why the "collapse" predicted in the forementioned thread is a quite wrongful conclusion.
In 1859 the world expirienced a Carrington Event. The only such event recorded in the time of written history. It was caused by a magnetic disturbance on the surface of the sun (called a sunspot), which, on its collapse, created a quite large explosion. This explosion threw large amount of charged particles in the direction of earth. The Van Allen belt - the Earths magnetic field - does a great job of deflecting such charged particle radiation, so no humans were harmed, but observant individuals were threated to a splendid display of auroras. However, humans were beginning to string telegraph wires between cities and countries, and some of these wires were damaged. As Orsted proved - moving a electrical conductor in a magnetic field creates electricity - possibily much more electricity than the circuit were designed for.
So the theory goes that with the amount of electric distribution wires and electric circuits were have in our normal western society such an event would bring the western society to a standstill.
People making such assumptions actually forgets that we have a formidable technological advantage in comparison to the people in 1859.
We will KNOW if the threat of such an event is imminent. The sun is CONSTANTLY being monitored. All sunspots are catalogized and even small changes monitored. Such data are furthermore available to the general public, and are of course of great value for satellite operators.
And please remember, the sun is some 1,39 million km wide. And we are some 150 million km from the sun. In comparison the earth is only 12750km wide. The chance of a large CME actually hitting earth is therefore exceedingly low.
Even IF a larce CME would be wandering our way we would know in advance. The SOHO observatory is actually located in the Lagrange Point (the point were the Suns and the Earths gravitational fields cancels each out out), and provides continuous surveillance of the Suns Surface. The SOHO was launched in 1995 and is itself a prime example of how human ingenuity always will prevail even faced with extreme difficulties.
SOHO is nearing the end of its useful life, but there are other more modern and advanced sun-monitoring satellites to take over.
(Read more about SOHO:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_and_Heliospheric_Observatory)
(Read more about CME's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection)
Modern electricity distribution net are actually quite well monitored, and given a warning from the scientific community the operators of the electricity distribution network would just bypass the stretches of wires which would be developing stray currents. The currents would not damage the wires (as the are constructed for such purposes), and denying the stray currents access to the transformer stations could be done electronically. Most of the distribution network is actually built with triple redundancy.
And much have been learnt since the Quebec event in 1989 where a large transformer actually melted due to such stray currents following a large magnetic field disturbance
The design and construction of electrical transmission infrastructure is actually a quite well-established and continouosly researched science. For a short introduction read the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides and excellent page with continuous updates regarding the satellite environment and the possibility of solar eruptions and auroras. The data and imagery can be viewed at:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
http://www.spaceweather.com/ is another exellent page for such subjects. This is a quasi-commercial page, with greater focus on easily understandable graphics and related science news.
For actually determining the amount of energy input in the magnetic field (and the resulting aurora) the following page can be of interest:
http://www.spacew.com/www/aurora.php
The only real threat from a Carrington-event would be the damage the stream of charged particles could do to the satellites orbiting earth. Satellites are costly to replace - which explains some of the interest from the scientific community in researching and predicting such events.
The original report from R.C. Carrington is actually online: http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1859MNRAS..20...13C
And NASA has recently undertaken a major study of the impact of Carrington-events on space exploration. The summary of the study can be read at:
http://www.nap.edu/nap-cgi/report.cgi?record_id=11760&type=pdfxsum
As a final thought, I would politely request that the fact that many children and teenagers read a lot of the material presented on the internet without the scientific background to question the conclusions is taken into account when posting material on family-oriented sites.
My sincere apologies to the moderation team, if the above is considered rude in regard to the locking of the original thread, however I find the reasons described above quite compelling.
//Kim Horsevad
