Total blackout

[Marc-D]

About this : https://spainsnews.com/austria-prepares-its-citizens-for-a-possible-large-scale-blackout/
or the recent Facebook outage

What could happen so that the sun causes within an hour a total blackout on earth, or will we always have +/- 2 or 3 days to have the effects on earth and to prepare for it?

[Vancanneyt Sander]

Mankind has learned a lot from previous severe geomagnetic storming and systems have been adapted to withstand the effects. So huge blackouts aren’t expected unless your electric company sucks at maintaining their grid. 

the Facebook outage was a human error and nothing related to space weather.

[Marc-D]

8 minutes ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

Mankind has learned a lot from previous severe geomagnetic storming and systems have been adapted to withstand the effects. So huge blackouts aren’t expected unless your electric company sucks at maintaining their grid. 

the Facebook outage was a human error and nothing related to space weather.

I'm looking for the article I read some days ago. It was about very recent conference in the U.N. where they exposed the possibility of a total blackout due to solar activity. They said that humanity would need months to repare everything. It was very very detail with impact on sea cables and hubs for example. I try to find this paper. 

15 minutes ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

Mankind has learned a lot from previous severe geomagnetic storming and systems have been adapted to withstand the effects. So huge blackouts aren’t expected unless your electric company sucks at maintaining their grid. 

the Facebook outage was a human error and nothing related to space weather.

Here is. It was about Internet and electric impact of solar superstorm, August 2021.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3452296.3472916

[Vancanneyt Sander]

Please read this article: 

Quote

The modern grid is designed to withstand an extreme 1-in-100 year geomagnetic event. To put that in perspective, March 1989 was only a 1-in-40 or 50 year event--well within our design specs."

https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2021/03/12/the-great-quebec-blackout/

And the European study: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC86658/lbna26370enn.pdf

[Marc-D]

4 minutes ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

Please read this article: 

https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2021/03/12/the-great-quebec-blackout/

And the European study: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC86658/lbna26370enn.pdf

Exactly, they say that such event can occur every 100 years, but the last one occurred more than 100 years (1859). So they expect, it will come again soon. Read my article, you will see that they are very worried about that, and their paper is about the impact of such solar storm on 2021. They say for example, that all internet structure will not resist at all to such storm reaching earth in 17 hours.

[Vancanneyt Sander]

It’s normal to take precautions and not rely on measures that where already taken. During such events the grid is already extra monitored so they can react if something goes bad and from next events we’ll learn new things and the more of such events the more prepared we are. 
the Halloween storms of 2003, the Quebec incident where two major events that have made us improve the grid to withstand those. As mentioned in my first link the grid is prepared for that one in hundred year event.

[MinYoongi]

I do think it's always smart to tell people to stock up. 

 

The Blackout isnt only reasoned with Space Weather tho. Actually as a german speaking person close to austria i looked it up and they simply say its 100% certain a Blackout could happen because of a flood, terrorist attack and many other reasons. 

 

[Marc-D]

1 minute ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

It’s normal to take precautions and not rely on measures that where already taken. During such events the grid is already extra monitored so they can react if something goes bad and from next events we’ll learn new things and the more of such events the more prepared we are. 
the Halloween storms of 2003, the Quebec incident where two major events that have made us improve the grid to withstand those. As mentioned in my first link the grid is prepared for that one in hundred year event.

They are not as optimistic as you are, especially in all electronics and satellites and airplanes, for example. I am Belgian but I have lived in the Philippines for 6 years. With every little solar storm like last week (I think), the electricity and the Internet here have problems, and sometimes blackouts / cuts. Power grids are likely to resist more than electronic grids. However, today if the electronics do not work, the Internet will also be down and for a very long time, and without the Internet, humanity will collapse; no bank, no money, no communication and so on ... That is the main topic, the alert of the paper (pdf) I sent you and presented to the UN.

[MinYoongi]

2 minutes ago, Marc-D said:

They are not as optimistic as you are, especially in all electronics and satellites and airplanes, for example. I am Belgian but I have lived in the Philippines for 6 years. With every little solar storm like last week (I think), the electricity and the Internet here have problems, and sometimes blackouts / cuts. Power grids are likely to resist more than electronic grids. However, today if the electronics do not work, the Internet will also be down and for a very long time, and without the Internet, humanity will collapse; no bank, no money, no communication and so on ... That is the main topic, the alert of the paper (pdf) I sent you and presented to the UN.

It's good to always do the most to save power and electrical grids. But Austrias Campaign is due to many, many other factors and reasons besides spaceweather. It focusses mainly on Catastrophes like Floodings or Terrorism/Cyberattacks. 

 

[Marc-D]

6 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

I do think it's always smart to tell people to stock up. 

 

The Blackout isnt only reasoned with Space Weather tho. Actually as a german speaking person close to austria i looked it up and they simply say its 100% certain a Blackout could happen because of a flood, terrorist attack and many other reasons. 

 

Yes, I know that but one of the reasons is the possible solar storms. We must be realistic. It can happen. A big solar storm will happen, but we don't know when, and world is not prepared for it. 

[MinYoongi]

1 minute ago, Marc-D said:

Yes, I know that but one of the reasons is the possible solar storms. We must be realistic. It can happen. A big solar storm will happen, but we don't know when, and world is not prepared for it. 

Theoretically we are prepared for it.

For an example, Finland has implemented great measurements in their Power Grid because theyre so far up north that they have problems with that.

Its just very expensive and very rare..

[Marc-D]

3 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

Theoretically we are prepared for it.

For an example, Finland has implemented great measurements in their Power Grid because theyre so far up north that they have problems with that.

Its just very expensive and very rare..

Yes, but my point is mainly about electronic and Internet networks and not the power grids, because the paper I talk about, above, says that the world would collapse with a solar storm like the one of 1859. It will be useless to have electicity and to have lost all communications means, Internet included. Today, without Internet, without satellite, world will collapase, even if you have light in your house.   

[Isatsuki San]

12 minutes ago, Marc-D said:

Sí, pero mi punto es principalmente sobre las redes electrónicas e Internet y no sobre las redes eléctricas, porque el papel del que hablo, arriba, dice que el mundo colapsaría con una tormenta solar como la de 1859. Sería inútil tener electricidad. y haber perdido todos los medios de comunicación, incluido Internet. Hoy, sin Internet, sin satélite, el mundo se derrumbará, aunque tenga luz en su casa.   

The satellites can survive a carriptong event, only if they are in magnetic field, something that is demonstrated in 2012 there was a carriptong event on the other side of the sun and he received it it in front of satellite stereo b, and it survived for this in the field Magnetic Jupiter I think, and that stereo b was released in 2006, where there was not as much technology as now (if I make a mistake, let me know)

Edited October 29, 2021 by Isatsuki San

[MinYoongi]

The satellites survived 2003.. 

18 minutes ago, Marc-D said:

Yes, but my point is mainly about electronic and Internet networks and not the power grids, because the paper I talk about, above, says that the world would collapse with a solar storm like the one of 1859. It will be useless to have electicity and to have lost all communications means, Internet included. Today, without Internet, without satellite, world will collapase, even if you have light in your house.   

 

[Marc-D]

2 minutes ago, Isatsuki San said:

The satellites can survive a carriptong event, only if they are in magnetic field, something that is demonstrated in 2012 there was a carriptong event on the other side of the sun and he received it it in front of satellite stereo b, and it survived for this in the field Magnetic Jupiter I think, and that stereo b was released in 2006, where there was not as much technology as now (if I make a mistake, let me know)

I repeat only what says this paper. It is very detailed about the consequences of a big solar storm on all communications networks. This conference is organized by the main Internet companies software and hardware.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3452296.3472916
https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2021/
 

2 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

The satellites survived 2003.. 

 

We don't talk about 2003, but about 1859 solar storm.

[MinYoongi]

Yes but this has been a topic for years.

[Marc-D]

Just now, MinYoongi said:

Yes but this has been a topic for years.

Indeed, but the paper said that such solar storm could happen every 100 years, but the last one was in 1859, so 160 years ago. So they expect, it will occur soon. So my first question was : what would happen on the sun to provoke such solar storm that worries so much the SIGCOMM ??? And the answers I get, is "the world is prepared for such solar storm". It is not what says that paper, and the Internet companies around the world.  

[Archmonoth]

1 hour ago, Marc-D said:

 Power grids are likely to resist more than electronic grids. However, today if the electronics do not work, the Internet will also be down and for a very long time, and without the Internet, humanity will collapse; no bank, no money, no communication and so on ..

The primary difference between 1st and 3rd world countries is food logistics. The 1st world uses machines, and the 3rd world uses manual labor. Humanity won't collapse, 1st world society might get a glimpse of the rest of the world. 

 

Welcome to the 3rd world.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Archmonoth

[Isatsuki San]

9 minutes ago, Marc-D said:

Indeed, but the paper said that such solar storm could happen every 100 years, but the last one was in 1859, so 160 years ago. So they expect, it will occur soon. So my first question was : what would happen on the sun to provoke such solar storm that worries so much the SIGCOMM ??? And the answers I get, is "the world is prepared for such solar storm". It is not what says that paper, and the Internet companies around the world.  

I will answer that question, yes and no, in 2012 the United States I believe that I was doing an emergency measure due to a large solar storm, and I believe that Europe too, well about that, I am not so informed, but it can be said that if it happened 100 years since the last solar storm that is said to be similar to the carriptong was the 1921

[Marc-D]

20 minutes ago, Isatsuki San said:

I will answer that question, yes and no, in 2012 the United States I believe that I was doing an emergency measure due to a large solar storm, and I believe that Europe too, well about that, I am not so informed, but it can be said that if it happened 100 years since the last solar storm that is said to be similar to the carriptong was the 1921

About Carrington...
If it happens again...
economic cost of 2.6 trillon USD because of the damages on the power grid in the US only...
Without Internet impact.

You said, they are prepared?

In this paper, they talk about CME of Carrington event. Ok,
They said also, that this CME reached earth in only 17.6h, and they said it was very high speed. Ok.

My question was what event can occur on the sun to provoke CME at such speed?

Edited October 29, 2021 by Marc-D

[Christopher S.]

22 minutes ago, Marc-D said:

My question was what event can occur on the sun to provoke CME at such speed?

You'll know it when it happens. It's not going to be a wake up to an x-flare you didn't really expect It'd be a this sunspot is huge and extremely complex and we'll be talking about it up until said event

[Marc-D]

7 minutes ago, Christopher S. said:

You'll know it when it happens. It's not going to be a wake up to an x-flare you didn't really expect It'd be a this sunspot is huge and extremely complex and we'll be talking about it up until said event

Would it be possible that this sunspot doesn't show up until it explodes? So, that we don't have time to see and to analyze this sunspot before the CME is ejected.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Marc-D

[MinYoongi]

21 minutes ago, Marc-D said:

Would it be possible that this sunspot doesn't show up until it explodes? So, that we don't have time to see and to analyze this sunspot before the CME is ejected.

Highly unlikely that such an extremely complex structure would form THIS quick.

[Marc-D]

3 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

Highly unlikely that such an extremely complex structure would form THIS quick.

I know a huge solar storm is going to happen very soon. No matter how I know it.
I'm just trying to find out what could happen to provoke it.

[Christopher S.]

There is a maximum rate the sunspots can grow, through limitations of mechanical forces, mainly. Regardless,

33 minutes ago, Marc-D said:

So, that we don't have time to see and to analyze this sunspot before the CME is ejected

Researching the sunspot before the CME can still be done after it happens. The data is archived. There is no imperative action to be taken in the event of these things, there is simply the preventative actions you take to be safe in the event of a power outage 🤷‍♂️ which can be caused by something as random and common as a squirrel getting zapped on a power line. That is, as I've said a lot on this website, more likely of a cause of concern than any geomagnetic storm you've experienced in your lifetime.

I should note that middle European countries with archaic electrical grids will definitely be impacted, as well as radio communication and other accessory services. The article you mentioned has some meat on it. But, unless you're living in those historic areas, the fact stands that more modern grids are designed to withstand very strong events. The grid where I live was built in the late 50's and expanded in the 70's - there are more outages from cold weather alone than any geomagnetic storm or even thunderstorm 😭

Edited October 29, 2021 by Christopher S.