Will the solar storm have a devastating impact on the earth?

It should have an impact, but it will not cause damage, but it needs to be vigilant.

Researcher Wang Huaning: "Not alarmist"

Researcher Wang Huaning: Watch out for the 20 12 solar storm.

According to foreign media reports recently, experts from the National Academy of Sciences pointed out that the sun will enter a new round of activities in 20 12. American scientists are worried that human beings are not prepared enough for the possible solar storm, and this space storm may cut off the power supply, cell phone signal and even water supply system of human society, and its influence will penetrate into all aspects of modern society.

Attention in this issue: American experts warn that the 20 12 solar storm may seriously affect human beings.

These two days, foreign media reported such a news: American experts warned that the 20 12 solar storm may seriously affect human beings. The title of ABC News website is "Is Hurricane Katrina-style solar storm brewing"; Fox's headline is "A strong solar storm may bring the United States to a standstill in a few months".

So, is this warning alarmist? After all, there have been many so-called "catastrophe predictions", which were later proved to be nonsense and made people laugh.

Not alarmist.

However, this warning is not alarmist, but based on the conclusion of scientific research.

The theory of celestial evolution reveals that the sun, as a relatively stable star, has a history of at least 4 billion years. In such a long time, it is impossible to make a detailed textual research on how many violent epidemics have occurred; However, the observation of the sun-like stars in the Milky Way shows that this eruption must be very frequent, sometimes on a very large scale, far exceeding the power of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricanes are only violent movements of the earth's atmosphere, while solar bursts include strong electromagnetic radiation, high-energy particle streams, large-scale coronal mass ejections, and trigger huge shock waves in interplanetary space. These shock waves impact the earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, causing geomagnetic storms and ionospheric storms.

We know that every 1 1 year, the sun will usher in a period of frequent explosive activities, and sun-like stars also have periodic activities. In addition, the time when life phenomena appear in the solar system can be considered to be very short compared with the life span of the sun. The evolution of human beings in life phenomena can be considered as an instant. Perhaps the eruption of the sun is one of the important natural factors that gave birth to human beings, and it does not rule out becoming one of the factors of human extinction. The reason is that the intensity of solar burst activity is not enough to break through the protection of the earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, which poses a fatal threat to the existing species on the earth. But this does not mean that solar eruptions are always as "mild" as they are now. Once the solar burst energy exceeds the protective capacity of the earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, it will inevitably cause a strong change in the space environment near the earth. This change will eliminate some species that are not adapted to this change and give birth to species that can adapt to this change. Therefore, on the scale of the evolution of the sun and solar system, solar storms often occur, while humans do not. So my statement may be more "alarmist" than that of my American counterparts. Metabolism is just a universal law in the universe.

But what needs to be emphasized is that there is absolutely no need to panic about this now, because in a short time, mankind will not face such a serious survival crisis; Our "alarmism" is also said on a long time scale.

The high-tech system on which human beings depend is very sensitive to solar storms.

In this report, experts in the United States pointed out that once a particularly serious solar storm occurs, in addition to satellites and GPS positioning systems may be completely paralyzed, the power transmission network will become very fragile and unstable, or even completely shut down; It may also lead to "traffic paralysis, communication interruption, financial industry collapse and public facilities chaos, interruption of drinking water supply due to pump stop, lack of refrigeration equipment, and difficulty in effectively preserving food and medicine". The report also pointed out that similar events occurred as early as 1859 when the sun broke out, which actually led to the burning of telegraph lines. Now the earth is full of wired and wireless facilities, but these facilities can hardly stand the test of strong solar storms.

As for the example of the harm caused by solar storms to human beings, the media reported more about the impact of human space activities in the past, but will strong solar storms have a serious and extensive impact on ground facilities and human beings?

This is a very interesting question. But from the perspective of the development of human society, it is not difficult to answer. When human beings are still a vulnerable species on the earth, there are few opportunities to be affected by natural disasters, and they are mainly in danger of being wiped out by other species. In fact, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis often occur. Why do they cause a lot of human deaths now? The reason is that human beings have become the only dominant species on the earth, so they are bound to withstand the test of natural disasters. This is also the practical significance of investigating the causes of dinosaur extinction.

With the development of science and technology, the scale of high-tech systems established by human beings is getting larger and larger, and the dependence on these systems is getting higher and higher. These systems are more and more sensitive to the changes of the surrounding environment, so the disaster events of technical systems will have more and more influence on human society. At present, the high-tech systems sensitive to solar eruption mainly include: aerospace, communication, navigation, power grid, oil pipeline and other systems. In addition, at a deeper level, solar activities have a comprehensive impact on human society by adjusting the frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as earthquakes, droughts and floods on the earth.

How should humans plan ahead?

If human beings have foreseen the great harm that strong solar storms may bring, what can we do to reduce the losses?

First of all, we need to improve our ability to predict solar activity.

Judging from the accumulated solar observation data, human beings can effectively predict the long-term change of solar activity and the short-term activity level of the sun. For example, we can predict that the next peak of solar activity will be around 20 12. By observing various phenomena on the sun, such as sunspots, prominence and coronal holes, we can judge the level of solar activity in the next few decades and predict the probability of solar storms. These prediction abilities are of great help to spacecraft launch and flight, astronaut space activities, satellite load reinforcement and protection, communication system anti-interference reinforcement, power system protection and so on.

However, realistically speaking, solar activity forecast, especially severe solar activity forecast, is still the most difficult part of space weather forecast. The reason is that we can only indirectly measure many physical parameters in the solar atmosphere by remote sensing, and can only describe the physical state of the solar atmosphere qualitatively, so we can't give a relatively accurate forecast of solar activity. Therefore, for a rainy day, the first thing to do is to study the physical mechanism of intense solar activity and improve our forecasting ability.

In addition, people also need to analyze and study the fragile factors of high-tech systems in solar storms, and improve the ability of technical systems to resist solar storms. It is also necessary to strengthen the popularization of solar storms and space weather disasters and raise the awareness of disaster prevention among the whole people. To make the above preparations, it is necessary to increase investment in scientific research and education in related fields.

Science Times (2009-1-16 a1highlights)

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American experts warned that the 20 12 solar storm may seriously affect human beings.

American scientists released a special report, predicting that there will be a solar storm on September 22, 20 12. According to the analysis, this may lead to a global disaster, and some parts of the United States will fall into a disaster crisis after 90 seconds. The United States is likely to become a developing country, with economic losses as high as trillions of dollars. It may take 4- 10 years to recover, which is far more destructive than Hurricane Katrina.

According to a special report, there will be a 90-second solar storm crisis on September 22, 20 12.

20 12 at midnight on September 22nd, there will be flashing colored lights over Manhattan, new york. It is rare for new york citizens to see such a short and unique phenomenon similar to the aurora, which can only be seen in Antarctica. In just a few seconds, the light bulbs in residents' homes began to dim and flicker, and then became extremely bright. Then the light bulb went out completely. In 90 seconds, half of the eastern United States will be in a power outage crisis.

In a year, millions of Americans will die one after another, and the national infrastructure will be on the verge of collapse. The World Bank will declare the United States a developing country, and the same disasters will happen in Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland), China and Japan. This disaster originated from a violent solar storm-from the surface of the sun 65.438+0.5 billion kilometers away from the earth.

The above may sound ridiculous, and many people will believe that there will be no such tragic disaster on earth. However, this is not alarmist. From June+10 in 5438, research funds were provided by NASA, and the National Academy of Sciences published a special report, which seriously put forward the "future solar storm crisis". The report pointed out that in the past few decades, while western culture developed rapidly, it also planted the seeds of destruction. The modern lifestyle and the science and technology it relies on are quietly pushing mankind to a particularly dangerous situation-the plasma ball ejected from the surface of the sun will destroy our power grid and cause fatal consequences.

Daniel Baker, a space climate expert at Colorado State University, was responsible for drafting this research report. He said: "We are getting closer and closer to the edge of possible disaster." A large number of plasma high-energy particles are released from the surface of the sun, which escape from the surface of the sun and travel through space in the form of solar wind. Sometimes the solar wind carries billions of tons of plasma balls. If a large number of plasma balls enter the earth's magnetic field, it will lead to a devastating disaster.

It is more destructive than Hurricane Katrina and often occurs in economically developed areas.

Plasma entering the earth's atmosphere will lead to the rapid change of the earth's magnetic field structure, which will induce the power grid with long wires on the ground to generate current. In this way, the copper wire of the transformer will be quickly heated and melted, and the current will be out of control. 1989 In March, a similar power outage occurred in Quebec, Canada, and 6 million residents spent nine hours without electricity. But worse things are not limited to this.

The worst space weather event in history occurred at 1859, which is the famous Carrington event, named after the British amateur astronomer Richard Carrington. This time it was caused by sunspots and lasted for 8 days. James Green, head of the Planetary Department of NASA, who was in charge of studying the carrington incident of 1859, said that although the solar surface eruption proved to be very powerful and terrible, we have not found anything worse than the carrington incident. Based on the prediction of solar storm events in 20 12 years, we can still survive. However, we will face two problems. First of all, the modern power grid covers a wider area and has a higher voltage. Although this provides a more effective power grid operation mode, it has also become the most vulnerable object to bad space weather. The higher power grid will become a very effective antenna, guiding huge direct current to the transformer. Secondly, the power grid system is closely related to our life, which is closely related to water supply and sewage treatment systems, supermarket logistics infrastructure, power station control systems, financial markets and other systems. If we combine the above two factors, we will clearly realize that if Carrington's space weather event is staged again, it will trigger an unprecedented catastrophic event in the world.

John Kap Capmann, an adviser to the National Academy of Sciences and an analyst in the power industry of Meta Technology in California, said: "This is very different from what we usually think of as a natural disaster. Solar storms often attack economically developed areas. "

The solar storm disaster may take 4- 10 years to recover.

According to this special report of the American Academy of Sciences, bad space weather will induce ground current in the United States, thus destroying 300 key transformers in the United States within 90 seconds and cutting off the power system of at least 65.438+300 million residents. The first difficulty is drinking water. For those residents living in high-rise buildings, drinking water is difficult to reach by pumping, and the source of drinking water will soon be cut off. Because of the power failure, water will not be pumped out of the reservoir. The current situation is not only that the power system transportation is interrupted, but also that there is no railway transportation and subway transportation has stopped; Daily necessities will soon be consumed, and the goods on the supermarket shelves will soon be sold out. Trucks carrying goods can only run before the fuel runs out. When the fuel runs out, the drivers are at a loss. Without electricity, gas stations can't extract fuel from underground oil storage tanks. For hospitals, without electricity and drinking water, medical care and medical rescue cannot be carried out.

What is really terrible is that the situation has not improved for several months, and it may last for several years. The melted transformer cannot be repaired, so it can only be replaced. Capmann said: "It may not be difficult to find a few spare transformers, but it will take a week or more for trained workers to install a new transformer. However, a large power infrastructure may be equipped with only one or two staff members for routine maintenance. "

Even if power is restored to some systems, there is no guarantee that they will not fail again. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipeline maintenance needs power support. Coal-fired power stations usually store coal for 30 days, but if there is no other transportation system to bring more coal, the power stations will stop generating electricity in the second month.

In fact, the situation will be worse. The social and economic losses caused by Hurricane Katrina can reach 810-12.5 billion dollars. According to the research report of the American Academy of Sciences, if a "serious geomagnetic storm event" occurs, it is likely to cause losses as high as 2 trillion US dollars. And this is only the economic loss in the first year of the disaster. If it takes 4- 10 years to recover from the disaster, it is doubtful whether the United States can recover from such a disaster.

"I don't think this special report is spreading rumors," said Mike Hapke, chairman of the Space Weather Research Group of the European Space Agency. Scientists' research and analysis of natural events are relatively objective, and their analysis is well thought out. This is a fair scientific analysis report, which deserves great attention. "