{"id":45164,"date":"2020-09-03T06:37:54","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T10:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=45164"},"modified":"2020-09-03T07:50:48","modified_gmt":"2020-09-03T11:50:48","slug":"might-be-a-good-idea-to-protect-your-gear-scientists-believe-the-carrington-event-was-not-unique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/might-be-a-good-idea-to-protect-your-gear-scientists-believe-the-carrington-event-was-not-unique\/","title":{"rendered":"Might be a good idea to protect your gear: Scientists believe the Carrington Event “was not unique”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many thanks to SWLing Post<\/em> contributor, Eric McFadden (WD8RIF)<\/a>, who shares the following story from Spaceweather.com<\/a> (my comments follow):<\/p>\n

On Sept. 1st, 1859, the most ferocious solar storm in recorded history engulfed our planet. It was “the Carrington Event,” named after British scientist Richard Carrington, who witnessed the flare that started it. The storm rocked Earth’s magnetic field, sparked auroras over Cuba, the Bahamas and Hawaii, set fire to telegraph stations, and wrote itself into history books as the Biggest. Solar. Storm. Ever.<\/p>\n

But, sometimes, what you read in history books is wrong.<\/p>\n

“The Carrington Event was not unique,” says Hisashi Hayakawa of Japan’s Nagoya University, whose recent study of solar storms has uncovered other events of comparable intensity. “While the Carrington Event has long been considered a once-in-a-century catastrophe, historical observations warn us that this may be something that occurs much more frequently.”<\/p>\n

To generations of space weather forecasters who learned in school that the Carrington Event was one of a kind, these are unsettling thoughts. Modern technology is far more vulnerable to solar storms than 19th-century telegraphs. Think about GPS, the internet, and transcontinental power grids that can carry geomagnetic storm surges from coast to coast in a matter of minutes. A modern-day Carrington Event could cause widespread power outages along with disruptions to navigation, air travel, banking, and all forms of digital communication.<\/p>\n

Many previous studies of solar superstorms leaned heavily on Western Hemisphere accounts, omitting data from the Eastern Hemisphere. This skewed perceptions of the Carrington Event, highlighting its importance while causing other superstorms to be overlooked.<\/p>\n

[…]Hayakawa’s team has delved into the history of other storms as well, examining Japanese diaries, Chinese and Korean government records, archives of the Russian Central Observatory, and log-books from ships at sea–all helping to form a more complete picture of events.<\/p>\n

They found that superstorms in February 1872 and May 1921 were also comparable to the Carrington Event, with similar magnetic amplitudes and widespread auroras. Two more storms are nipping at Carrington’s heels: The Quebec Blackout of March 13, 1989, and an unnamed storm on Sept. 25, 1909, were only a factor of ~2 less intense. (Check Table 1 of Hayakawa et al’s 2019 paper for details.)<\/p>\n

“This is likely happening much more often than previously thought,” says Hayakawa.<\/p>\n

Are we overdue for another Carrington Event? Maybe. In fact, we might have just missed one.<\/p>\n

In July 2012, NASA and European spacecraft watched an extreme solar storm erupt from the sun and narrowly miss Earth. “If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” announced Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado at a NOAA Space Weather Workshop 2 years later. “It might have been stronger than the Carrington Event itself.”<\/p>\n

History books, let the re-write begin.<\/p>\n

Click here to read at Spaceweather.com.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

With the way 2020 has gone so far, it might be wise to take a look at our EMP Primer<\/a> which goes into detail about how to protect your radio gear from an EMP event like this. It’s not an expensive process, but requires advance preparation.<\/p>\n

Click here to check out our EMP primer.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Eric McFadden (WD8RIF), who shares the following story from Spaceweather.com (my comments follow): On Sept. 1st, 1859, the most ferocious solar storm in recorded history engulfed our planet. It was “the Carrington Event,” named after British scientist Richard Carrington, who witnessed the flare that started it. The storm rocked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,810],"tags":[4376,809,808,6531,2524,2887,811],"class_list":["post-45164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-space-weather","tag-carrington-event","tag-cme","tag-coronal-mass-ejections","tag-electromagnetic-pulse","tag-emp","tag-eric-mcfadden","tag-spaceweather"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-bKs","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39808,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/1921-ny-railroad-storm-could-have-surpassed-intensity-of-1859-carrington-event\/","url_meta":{"origin":45164,"position":0},"title":"1921 NY Railroad Storm could have surpassed intensity of 1859 Carrington Event","author":"Thomas","date":"September 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"(Source: Southgate ARC via Eric McFadden) Scientific American magazine reports new data suggest the 1921 'New York Railroad Storm' could have surpassed the intensity of the famous Carrington Event of 1859 In a paper published in the journal Space Weather,\u00a0Jeffrey Love\u00a0of the U.S. Geological Survey and his colleagues reexamined the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Sun-Solar-Flare-CME-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Sun-Solar-Flare-CME-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Emergency Preparedness"","block_context":{"text":"Emergency Preparedness","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/emergency-preparedness\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/WHKY-AM-Towers-Transmitter-Site.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/WHKY-AM-Towers-Transmitter-Site.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/WHKY-AM-Towers-Transmitter-Site.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/WHKY-AM-Towers-Transmitter-Site.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/WHKY-AM-Towers-Transmitter-Site.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 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Radio","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/ham-radio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/X-class-Flare.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/X-class-Flare.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/X-class-Flare.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/X-class-Flare.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":29207,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/the-1770-solar-storm-that-turned-the-skies-red-for-a-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":45164,"position":3},"title":"The 1770 solar storm that turned the skies red for a week","author":"Thomas","date":"November 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"(Source: Wired UK via\u00a0Mark Hirst) Records kept by people living in Korea, China and Japan in 1770 have revealed evidence for the longest geomagnetic storm in recorded history Almost 250 years ago, for over two weeks, the skies above parts of Asia lit up in what looked like a burst\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/CME-Via-Spaceweather.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":58465,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/soldersmoke-super-solar-storms-may-not-be-so-rare\/","url_meta":{"origin":45164,"position":4},"title":"SolderSmoke: Super Solar Storms May Not Be So Rare","author":"Thomas","date":"December 14, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to\u00a0SWLing Post\u00a0contributor, Bill Meara who shares\u00a0the following article from the SolderSmoke Podcast: Super Solar Storms May Not Be So Rare Yesterday's Washington Post had a good story about large solar storms. We are all aware of the Carrington Event (September 1859) but there were others. The Japanese painting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Ozakazi-1872.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Ozakazi-1872.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Ozakazi-1872.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Ozakazi-1872.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":15458,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/planning-for-a-carrington-event-super-solar-storm\/","url_meta":{"origin":45164,"position":5},"title":"Planning for a Carrington Event super solar storm","author":"Thomas","date":"November 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"My buddy, Bill Forstchen, is author of NY Times best seller, One Second After (and many other books). One day, we met for lunch and I admitted to him that I'm less worried about an EMP attack (the catalyst for writing his novel) than I am a powerful solar storm,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Electricity-Pylon-Tower","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Electricity-Pylon-Tower.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Electricity-Pylon-Tower.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Electricity-Pylon-Tower.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}