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Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings

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Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings

#51
post #45

Pardon my ignorance, but a solar storm would wipe out offline harddrives/ssds/laptops?

It's common to conflate the effects of a solar storm with an EMP; when in reality they're opposite extremes of the same mechanism (i.e. voltage varying over distance).

An EMP is a short-duration high voltage spike; i.e. short-wavelength/high-frequency.

A solar storm acts on a large scale and causes a long-duration high voltage spike; i.e. long wavelength/low-frequency.

So an EMP (i.e. a high altitude nuke) will tend to induce high voltage in small "antennas"; i.e. circuits in an SSD or other transistor electronics like your concern.

Whereas a solar storm will induce high voltage in large antennas; think power lines or long cables. However these days there's enough warning and contingencies to mitigate the worst of these effects; i.e. preemptively shut down vulnerable power systems. The grid "crashing" and needing to do a cold start is still very bad, but far better than also getting damaged.

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Edit: I also want to point out that the above is specific to "on the ground" effects as we're shielded by earth's magnetic field. Satellites still get bombarded directly with heavy radiation/particles, which is much closer to an EMP in terms of acute impact.

Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings

#52
post #14
post #2

>A similar solar storm today would be catastrophic for modern technological society—potentially wiping out telecommunications and satellite systems, causing massive electricity grid blackouts, and costing us billions of pounds. I wonder if any country has a disaster recovery plan for this kind on event.

Being properly prepared for a once-in-15k-years storm would likely require such a cost over such a long time for the expected benefit that it's not worth it. Hardening infrastructure against extremely rare disasters likely means less infrastructure, and probably fewer social programs. Sometimes the objective rational choice is to do nothing for the mega-disasters and instead just prepare/harden for once-a-century or…

[deleted]

Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must be somewhat depressing to be living in a state of fear such that you build an OS specifically for when you assume all supply chains fail globally, probably this decade. Seems both stressful AND unlikely your project will truly be useful in such a position. Not knocking the tech or author, just a thought about such depressing predictions!

It's a very interesting hobby project that involves thinking about technology in a different way. It's not any more useless than Haskell.

Many major businesses use Haskell. A better comparison might be brainfuck.

Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings

#54
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only hope is one can find the now obsolete computing parts needed after the last modern computer stops working. Collapse OS is a fantasy.

Half of the Earth will be unaffected by the flare. Even if a storm fries all electronics on one side of Earth, there will remain devices, networks, and factories on the other side, likely somehow protected by the bulk of the planet.

Flares aren’t line-of-sight nor instantaneous. The whole earth would be affected.

Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings

#56
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only hope is one can find the now obsolete computing parts needed after the last modern computer stops working. Collapse OS is a fantasy.

Half of the Earth will be unaffected by the flare. Even if a storm fries all electronics on one side of Earth, there will remain devices, networks, and factories on the other side, likely somehow protected by the bulk of the planet.

Not true.

The flare itself is fairly fast. But the issue is charged particles that take longer to get us. And they are spread out in time.

As https://www.livescience.com/carrington-event describes, the Carrington Event was a solar flare lasting only 5 minutes. But the magnetic disturbances kept arriving over a week.

Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not if you worked on a MacBook using an ungrounded socket in Europe, for example. Forearms are not that strongly insulated

I went to Europe years ago for work. And the adapter for my macbook work gave me wasn't grounded. Whenever I plugged my computer in I could feel a buzz when i touched the aluminum body. Others thought I was crazy. But it freaked me out and only charged when I wasn't touching it. You make me feel like I wasn't making it all up. haha!

Haha, no, you can find people complaining about that all over the web. It’s a very real effect.

Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings

#59
post #51
post #45

Pardon my ignorance, but a solar storm would wipe out offline harddrives/ssds/laptops?

It's common to conflate the effects of a solar storm with an EMP; when in reality they're opposite extremes of the same mechanism (i.e. voltage varying over distance). An EMP is a short-duration high voltage spike; i.e. short-wavelength/high-frequency. A solar storm acts on a large scale and causes a long-duration high voltage spike; i.e. long wavelength/low-frequency. So an EMP (i.e. a high altitude nuke) will tend…

Do you have a reference for that difference in EMP and solar storm? I tried to research this once and couldn’t find anything
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