This is the weather alert we got last night. It was fairly alarming.
The losses of high and low frequencies would be bad. Eric Feigl-Ding did an excellent summation of what could happen, which you can read here. One of the things he mentioned, was that science was concerned about another Carrington event. From Wikipedia we learn the following.
The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking from 1–2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally[1] and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations. The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere.[2]
What was really cool was that the storm was putting electricity into the wires of the telegraph service. I thought this was so interesting.
Because of the geomagnetically induced current from the electromagnetic field, telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving their operators electric shocks.[22] Telegraph pylons threw sparks.[23] Some operators were able to continue to send and receive messages despite having disconnected their power supplies.[24][25] The following conversation occurred between two operators of the American telegraph line between Boston, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine, on the night of 2 September 1859 and reported in the Boston Evening Traveler:
Boston operator (to Portland operator): "Please cut off your battery [power source] entirely for fifteen minutes."
Portland operator: "Will do so. It is now disconnected."
Boston: "Mine is disconnected, and we are working with the auroral current. How do you receive my writing?"
Portland: "Better than with our batteries on. – Current comes and goes gradually."
Boston: "My current is very strong at times, and we can work better without the batteries, as the aurora seems to neutralize and augment our batteries alternately, making current too strong at times for our relay magnets. Suppose we work without batteries while we are affected by this trouble."
Portland: "Very well. Shall I go ahead with business?"
Boston: "Yes. Go ahead."
We, of course, saw nothing, because every house in this neighborhood has a light on a post, and the light pollution is immense. People in Arizona saw it, which is really surprising. Here is a photo I swiped off Facebook.
So, that's my recording of the event, which doesn't happen very often.
Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI missed it as well. The science is interesting though, with the colours dependant on the height of the activity.
it's been completely overcast here for days so we saw nothing but other areas of Texas even with us did. that's an amazing picture of Arisona.
ReplyDeleteI slept and missed it. That photo from Arizona is gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing the aurora could be seen as far south as Arizona. I tried to see it here but of course nothing was visible in light-polluted London!
ReplyDeleteWow, that photo from AZ was surprising. I went outside several times to try to see if I could see any lights but being in the heart of the city, too much city light was in the way.
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