Usually, when a solar storm hits, most of the radiation either hits the outer radiation belt or the plasmaphere.
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Forecasters can predict the speed a solar storm travels and its strength, but the north-south orientation is the wild card.
WSJ: Solar Flare: Sun Flare Leads to Solar Storm Reaching Earth
Fortunately, many of the concepts and tools needed to mitigate the consequences of solar storm activity for the electrical grid exist today.
FORBES: Intelligence Community Warns Solar Storms Could Collapse Electric Grid
The other aspect relevant to aviation is the increase in radiation that aircrew and passengers caught in a major solar storm would experience.
August 1972 saw a solar storm that is legendary at Nasa.
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Oddly enough, it turns out that a solar storm can make your toilet stop working, according a study by the National Academy of Sciences in 2002.
Based on observational data of solar storms, the radiation belts, and the plasmasphere during past years, the authors were able to successfully model the Halloween solar storm.
FORBES: A Powerful Solar Storm Could Render Satellites Inoperable For Years
In addition, from cell phones to computers, washers and dryers to electronic ignition for cars would be damaged by a massive solar storm that directly hit the Earth.
If its conclusions are correct, then a solar storm the size of one that was observed in 1859 could potentially kill several weather, telecommunications, and military satellites in less than a year.
FORBES: A Powerful Solar Storm Could Render Satellites Inoperable For Years
They then modeled a solar storm with the intensity of the Carrington Solar Storm, which took place in 1859 and is estimated to have been about four times stronger than the Halloween storms.
FORBES: A Powerful Solar Storm Could Render Satellites Inoperable For Years
By unleashing a massive pulse of electromagnetic radiation sweeping over the planet, a severe solar storm could potentially knock out the electric power grid, silence radio and satellite communications and disrupt GPS navigation systems.
But a solar storm has the potential to disrupt the shielding effect, and severe space weather can have harmful effects on a wide array of technological systems, including satellite operations, communications, navigation and electric power grids.
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Eventually, though, a really big solar storm will deliver its full fury on the American heartland, and then the accumulated design decisions that have been made as the domestic electrical grid expanded tenfold over the last half-century will lead to disaster.
FORBES: Intelligence Community Warns Solar Storms Could Collapse Electric Grid
This summer, two of them merged to form a single oval, larger than the earth, making the second-biggest storm in the solar system after the Great Red Spot.
And even in this hostile and historically low cost environment, solar and wind are poised to storm the kingdom with a goal of grid parity.
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White House Science Advisor John Holdren and Sir John Beddington, Science Advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, in a recent joint article "Celestial Storm Warnings" published in the New York Times, warned that a solar flare from the Sun could cause a great geomagnetic storm, with catastrophic consequences for the United States and the world.
The storm started with a massive solar flare Tuesday evening and grew as it raced outward from the sun, expanding like a giant soap bubble, scientists said.
WSJ: Solar Flare: Sun Flare Leads to Solar Storm Reaching Earth
Resch explained that a Treasury program called Section 1603 has helped provide key incentives for the solar industry, allowing it to weather the storm that was the financial crisis.
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Trash tiles could, for example, bolster the space radiation shielding around the astronauts' sleeping quarters or perhaps a small area in the spacecraft that would be built up to serve as a storm shelter to protect crews from solar flare effects, NASA officials said.
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As Holdren and Beddington note, the solar maximum, and increased possibility of a great geomagnetic storm, is fast approaching, now less than a year away.
Among the possibilities: Have astronauts wear a deployable shield resembling a heavy winter coat or have them hunker down in a storm shelter aboard the spacecraft during periods of high solar activity.
The only reason a storm-driven catastrophe has not already occurred is that the vast majority of solar disturbances do not affect the area of space around the Earth, and even when they do the induced charges tend to be generated in areas where there is only modest electrical infrastructure.
FORBES: Intelligence Community Warns Solar Storms Could Collapse Electric Grid
We also covered several off-grid devices that we'd like to have in the event of another storm of Sandy's magnitude -- Nokero's compact SunRay Pro solar charger, Berkey's super-versatile and effective water filter and Eton's hand-crank cellphone charger.
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And this storm, while strong, may seem fiercer because Earth has been lulled by several years of weak solar activity.
WSJ: Solar Flare: Sun Flare Leads to Solar Storm Reaching Earth
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