> occurring precisely 14,300 years ago. …precisely? Really?
From the abstract: "The resulting Δ14C record exhibits an abrupt spike occurring in a single year at 14 300–14 299 cal yr BP and a century-long event between 14 and 13.9 cal kyr BP."
Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
101–110 of 163 posts
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#102I wonder what the health effects to the plants/animals/humans were (if any) due to that?
There shouldn't be any effect. Solar storms cause low-frequency fluctuations that can induce significant currents in very long conductors (like hundreds to thousands of kilometers). It's a very big deal for large-scale electrical grids and any copper communication, but it doesn't matter for anything that isn't hooked up to such networks.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#103> occurring precisely 14,300 years ago. …precisely? Really?
You can count individual tree rings, so yeah.
The oldest living tree has seen 9,565 birthdays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko), but it doesn't have 9,565 rings. Even if it did, there's a gap of at least a few thousand years ;-)
I'm impressed they got it exact, but wasn't by ring-counting (only).
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it have to be either/or? Planetary GDP is around $85tn annually. The US military budget on its own is around $1tn. One-off mitigation costs followed by annual maintenance would barely be a rounding error on that. They'd have the added benefit of hardening systems against hostile EMP, which is a more likely threat.
Edit: simplified version of my assertion: current budgets are X. It would cost Y to harden infrastructure against an event 10 times as large as the Carrington event. Even if it were trivial to increase the budget from X to X+Y, it's probably not a good use of money to perform such extreme hardening. This is true for all positive finite values for X and Y in a world where we still have cancer, heart disease, poverty,…
Florida has enough crazy exotic animal people that I bet the polar bear example isn’t as far fetched as you think.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can count individual tree rings, so yeah.
The oldest living tree has seen 9,565 birthdays ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko ), but it doesn't have 9,565 rings. Even if it did, there's a gap of at least a few thousand years ;-) I'm impressed they got it exact, but wasn't by ring-counting (only).
Not necessarily. You can compare dead trees in the same vicinity that were alive at overlapping time intervals. Patterns in the width of the rings will reveal the period over which their lives overlapped. With enough dead trees, if they are preserved well enough, you could go back significantly further and age trees that are long dead.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#106Pardon 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…
My understanding is that solar storms and high-altitude EMPs have similar effects. Both energize the upper atmosphere which induces currents in long conductors. High-altitude EMP does not harm electronics.
It is close-by EMP from nuclear blast that harms electronics.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#107I wonder what the health effects to the plants/animals/humans were (if any) due to that?
I had a similar thought, if high energy particles damage/affect DNA could these events contribute in some way to a period of more pronounced speciation?
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just rebooting. There will be damage even in stored brand-new equipment
How it gets damaged? For comparison lightning is stronger than solar flares but only rarely damages stored unconnected equipment.
The earth and everything in and on it is part of an electrical system, as solar emissions wash across the landscape they’ll stimulate the flow of electrons in everything especially metal and circuit based items. Since circuits in many items are delicate things, designed for very specific currents, it will be a near guarantee that electrical components will be damaged.
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#109Google says we can have 1-4 days of warning for this kind of thing. Is there any approach to circuit breaking that can help appliances against such an event?
Move everything into an old multi story carpark that has bad radio reception?
Re: Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14k-year-old tree rings
#110This evidence supports Robert M. Schoch "Solar induced dark age" theory.
I've always been a sucker for fringe archeology. Looks like Hancock et. Al. were right about an ancient cataclysm around this time, but wrong on the cause.