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"The Threat of a Solar Superstorm Is Growing—And We’re Not Ready" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-threat-of-a-solar-superstorm-is-growing-and-wer
by scentoni 2y ago
"The Threat of a Solar Superstorm Is Growing—And We’re Not Ready"
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-threat-of-a-solar-superstorm-is-growing-and-were-not-ready/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-threat-of-a-s...
Discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40196820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40196820
- xvilka 2y agoHumanity is good in sweeping problems under the rug and not preparing to various threats.
- RedShift1 2y agoWhat problems?
- more_corn 2y agoThat’s the spirit!
- ekianjo 2y agoresources are limited. You cannot prepare for all the threats in the world.
- xvilka 2y agoNobody says about all threats, but there are many, just like CMEs, that are literally thrown to our face.
- fsloth 2y agoAlso good at response. Ozone situation was fixed and now we actually track the asteroids.
- bingbingbing777 2y agoOzone is not fixed because I will still get extremely burnt in the sun here in Australia. Asteroids is not fixed because what happens when one super massive one is coming straight for us?
- southernplaces7 2y agoYou do understand that even with a fully normal ozone layer, exposure to the sun can indeed cause burns during certain times of the year and especially in hot, tropical places? Are you expecting magic as a definition of fixed, or something that actually applies to reality? Much of the climate change discourse on this site strays into the absurdly hysterical, but some of it veers even further into deep childish fantasy.
- bongodongobob 2y agoKind of tired of hearing this. Citing one initiative from 50 years ago is the definition of cherry picking, I'm sorry. The trend is that humans are incapable of long term global initiatives. I'm sure some game theory guy could prove it.
- squigz 2y ago> The trend is that humans are incapable of long term global initiatives Doesn't this sort of assertion leave no room for the possibility of learning to do so?
- AlecSchueler 2y agoNo, trends can be broken.
- nozzlegear 2y agoThough the constant doomerism one encounters when they speculate about breaking such trends can discourage anyone from thinking it’s worth pursuing.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoAre we not prepared though? Given other posts in this thread it seems to me that the effects are all calculated, expected and accounted for. I mean if it's strong enough to fry off-grid electronics then it's a different matter entirely, but consumer electronics has some protections against that, right?
- RedShift1 2y agoIn the past consumer electronics came in metal boxes that were earthed, I sure those will be fine. But these days everything's made out of plastic and not grounded.
- surfpel 2y ago> I mean if it's strong enough to fry off-grid electronics then it's a different matter entirely Last big storm in 2003 did damage grid level transformers. They also don’t just have those lying around and they’re quite expensive so it’s particularly devastating. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u33/finalBoulderPresentation042611%20%281%29.pdf https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u33/fin... > but consumer electronics has some protections against that, right? Much more complicated to answer, but no consumer electronics aren’t safe. Also not much use if the communication systems and electrical grid are down
- 77pt77 2y agoAlso excels at destroying the cassandras if you will.
- 7373737373 2y agoI'd like to see an actual investigation of the effects on (computing) hardware like processors and memory. Can these be damaged/interfered with irreversibly? Measurements and actionable information.