X2-Class Solar Flare – But Don’t Worry!
There are several doom’n’gloom news services out there that report every solar flare as if it will cause the end of the world.
SpaceWeather.com has informed us:
Departing sunspot 1402 unleashed an X2-class solar flare today, Jan. 27th, at 18:37 UT.
Now X-class flares are the worst, but they range from X1 to X9:
X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.
To put today’s flare in perspective, this is from SolarHam.com:
The latest solar flare ranks # 7 in the list of strongest solar flares during Cycle 24. Below is the updated list showing flare size, date, year and sunspot number.
X6.9 – August 9 2011 (1263)
X2.2 – February 15 2011 (1158)
X2.1 – September 6 2011 (1283)
X1.9 – November 3 2011 (1339)
X1.9 – September 24 2011 (1302)
X1.8 – September 7 2011 (1283)
X1.7 – January 27 2012 (1402)
X1.5 – March 9 2011 (1166)
X1.4 – September 22 2011 (1302)
The Carrington Event of 1859 is described well by Scientific American:
At 11:18 a.m. he witnessed an intense white light flash from two locations within the sunspot group. He called out in vain to anyone in the observatory to come see the brief five-minute spectacle, but solitary astronomers seldom have an audience to share their excitement. Seventeen hours later in the Americas a second wave of auroras turned night to day as far south as Panama. People could read the newspaper by their crimson and green light. Gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke up and ate breakfast at 1 a.m., thinking the sun had risen on a cloudy day. Telegraph systems became unusable across Europe and North America.
The two solar flares led to a pair of CMEs. Coronal Mass Ejections are what we really need to worry about, and two hitting Earth at the same time (again) would be catastrophic. A new article from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers describes the possible effects of another major solar storm:
Luminous fingers of intense red, green, and violet light flicker and pulse across the northern and southern skies like a vast cosmic conflagration. Within minutes, millions of people are tweeting, texting, and blogging about the wondrous sight. But then the sky turns a deep blood red, and fascination turns to panic.
…Those huge currents disturb Earth’s normally quiescent magnetic field, which in turn induces surges of current in electrical, telecommunications, and other networks across entire continents. Streetlights flicker out; electricity is lost. A massive planetary blackout has occurred, leaving vast swaths of North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia without power.
Within a few months, the crisis has deepened. In many areas, food shortages are rampant, drinking water has become a precious commodity, and patients in need of blood transfusions, insulin, or critical prescription drugs die waiting. Normal commerce has ground to a halt, replaced by black markets and violent crime. As fatalities climb into the millions, the fabric of society starts to unravel.
While it is easy to dismiss Patrick Geryl, Lawrence E. Joesph and myself as scaremongers, when serious engineers tell us that the fabric of society could unravel, people should pay attention.
NOTE: The Carrington Event meant the Northern Lights were seen as far south as Panama, and generally speaking the bigger solar storms are mean auroras are seen closer to the equator. The ancient Mayans could have kept track of visible auroras and noted a pattern, enabling them to predict a storm for 2012.
