A Carrington-level solar storm would not just be a blackout. It would expose what we outsourced to electricity.

Posted by Agile-Particular7071@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 43 comments

Location: Northern Norway.

A Carrington-level solar storm would not just be a blackout. It would expose what we have outsourced to electricity.

The Carrington Event of 1859 is often described through its most dramatic details: auroras seen far from the poles, telegraph systems failing, operators getting shocks, sparks from equipment, and in some cases messages reportedly being sent even after batteries had been disconnected.

That is fascinating history, but what interests me is the modern version.

In 1859, telegraphy was important, but most daily life was still local, manual, seasonal, and physical. Food systems, payment, navigation, records, repair, transport, social coordination, and memory were not all dependent on the same invisible electrical and digital layer.

Today they are.

A severe solar storm does not have to destroy everything to become a civilizational crisis. It only has to interrupt enough of the systems that quietly coordinate modern life: power grids, satellites, GPS, radio, banking, payment systems, logistics, fuel distribution, water treatment, refrigeration, hospitals, supply chains, internet access, and the countless small systems nobody thinks about until they fail.

What I find interesting is that the collapse would not look the same everywhere.

In a major city, the first crisis might be payment, transport, water, elevators, refrigeration, medical systems, communication, and public order.

In a remote coastal region, the first crisis might be different: fuel, spare parts, radio communication, weather information, ferry routes, fish storage, medicine, diesel pumps, generators, and whether people can still move by boat without the systems they have become used to.

And after the first shock, the deeper question might be local memory.

Who still has paper charts and maps?
Who knows the old routes, harbors, wells, tracks, fuel tanks, workshops, farms, and storage places?
Who can repair engines without ordering parts online?
Who can read weather without an app?
Who can preserve food, keep animals alive, maintain tools, organize people, and keep written records by hand?
Who has radios that still work, and who knows how to use them?
Who knows which neighbors are reliable?

I think about this partly through fiction, but the question is real beyond fiction.

If a Carrington-level solar storm hit today, what would fail first where you live?

And maybe more importantly: what local knowledge would suddenly become valuable again?

Sources / further reading:

NOAA, historic solar events and the Carrington Event:
https://www.noaa.gov/heritage/stories/five-historically-huge-solar-events

NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, geomagnetic storms:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms

European Commission Joint Research Centre, space weather and power grids:
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC86658/lbna26370enn.pdf

Thomson et al. 2010, geomagnetic hazards to national power grids:
https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/10860/1/TenThingsPaper_v4.pdf

UNOOSA / NASA presentation on extreme space weather and satellite effects:
https://www.unoosa.org/pdf/pres/stsc2011/tech-14.pdf

Cambridge Judge Business School, socio-economic impacts of electricity transmission failure due to space weather:
https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/wp1801.pdf

NOAA cost-benefit analysis for space weather monitoring and mitigation:
https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/72845/noaa_72845_DS1.pdf

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Homeless-Joe@reddit

To make it fun, iirc, the Carrington Event wasn’t even particularly strong, the sun can and does produce stronger coronal mass ejections (CME).

To make it extra fun, we are currently undergoing a pole shift which is weakening the Earth’s magnetic field, which protects us from CMEs.

So, we could be hit by an even stronger CME, but even if it’s at the same level of the Carrington Event, the damage would be much worse, since our shield is much weaker.

Imagine every electrical line, is at a high risk of catching on fire.

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Bignizzle656@reddit

We are a results of extreme events that are nothing short of unbelievable in some cases. Bottleneck populations and amazing recovery has bought the earth to this point in time and space.

Doesn't matter how slim the odds are, if it can happen, it will happen. It's just a matter of when.

We know about the Carrington Event because it's recent history, barely even a lifetime ago really.

The cosmic dice get rolled all the time.

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Frozty23@reddit

We are a results of extreme events that are nothing short of unbelievable in some cases.

I read Rare Earth years ago. Have never forgotten it.

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TenOfZero@reddit

Imagine the forest fires that would start.

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Wulfkat@reddit

Imagine all the houses that burn to the ground because no one flipped their circuit breakers.

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Homeless-Joe@reddit

Not sure the circuit breakers matter. The CME itself will energize the lines, causing them to catch fire. Every car with electronics, all appliances, devices, batteries, fucking cooked.

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refusemouth@reddit

Yep. The telegraph lines, which they shut of power to during the Carrington Event, could still be operated in some instances just because of the charged atmosphere. It would be a real mess if this happened today. It would cripple society for a really long time.A lot of people would end up starving

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TenOfZero@reddit

I think cars would be fine no, you need really long wires to be affected, based on what I've read (I'm not an expert) cars and other things not plugged into the grid, like your cellphone would be largely unaffected by a large EMP.

quadralien@reddit

The most widespread sample of this I've ever experienced was only 2 days for most people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 . On the first day, everyone rushed to drink their cold beer and eat their popsicles and it was a bit fun. It's hard to imagine what would have gone wrong if the grid was damaged, critical systems like hospitals also lost power, and there was no way to recover... but it will definitely be less fun once we run out of beer and popsicles.

deinoswyrd@reddit

A few years back we had a hurricane that knocked out power. But it killed all the phone towers too. No one could make calls, not even to 911, it was a mess We had to drive an hour out to a still functioning tower to call my dad (who lived in an unaffected area but was freaking tf out about us)

8Deer-JaguarClaw@reddit

I remember it well. I was working in midtown (55th and Park Ave) when the power went out. After about an hour of sitting on the 10th floor in a stuffy office, we all just left. I lived in Staten Island at the time, and I hear the ferry was still running (it's diesel). So I walked from 55th street all the way to the SI ferry terminal, which is the southernmost point on Manhattan island. And it was HOT. And I was wearing long pats, a long sleeved shirt, and a tie (which I promptly removed). It was about 80-ish blocks in total (about 4 miles). It was an insane situation overall, as I'd never seen that many people walking anywhere ever.

hardy_and_free@reddit

It was horrific. People were stuck in the subways, hordes of people were walking over the GWB back to Jersey, feet bleeding and blistered.

2coocooforcats@reddit

Ah, yes. This did cause some disruptions. I was moving from NYC to DC. My ex accused me of cutting our power too early and our movers couldn’t get to us. Fun times.

thedonkeyvote@reddit

Miyake events also exist. Which are likely to be stronger than Carrington events by orders of magnitude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmyyUEGJFho

Zero7CO@reddit

If you want to go down an interesting rabbit hole, look up “squatter man”.

It was the world’s most prevalent unknown hieroglyph, noted on 4 or 5 continents and hundreds of examples.

A string hypothesis is the squatter man is what people saw on the sky during a Miyake-level event.

Essentially, these solar storms are so strong that they create filaments of plasma that connect to the surface of earth. Anyone under these “plasma bolts” would not have a good time.

For what it’s worth, the squatter man has been recreated in lab environments.

Ecliphon@reddit

https://mru.ink/squatting-man/

FraGough@reddit

That's clearly just a really popular ancient fire-poi performer who got around.

RottenFarthole@reddit

Reminds me of me, but bigger explosion and even more toxic

Was this not the only recorded instance of God saying “can someone open a door?”

Uncommented-Code@reddit

John Michael Goldier my beloved

Always happy to see him linked. Such a cool channel.

yanicka_hachez@reddit

People are acting as if electrical engineers aren't aware and planned for a solar storm. Would it be affected, sure but we aren't living in 1800.

Hairy_Coconut2022@reddit

Our grid isn't as susceptible as it was during Carrington, the worst thing would be the Kessler Syndrome that kicked off from the solar storm.

rematar@reddit

What grid are you referring to in 1859? Edison tested the first light bulb in 1879. The first power station was opened in 1882.

https://electricityforum.com/a-timeline-of-history-of-electricity

The telegraph lines which were their own type of grid.

Power grids face the most immediate danger. When a CME compresses Earth's magnetosphere, it induces quasi-DC currents in long transmission lines. These currents weren't anticipated when most grid infrastructure was designed. They cause transformer cores to saturate, leading to overheating, excessive reactive power consumption, and in severe cases, permanent damage. A single large transformer can cost $10 million and require 12-18 months to manufacture and install.

But here's the sobering truth: comprehensive grid hardening would cost billions globally and take decades to complete. A 2017 study estimated that upgrading just the U.S. power grid to withstand a Carrington-level event could require $10-30 billion in infrastructure investment. Very few utilities have implemented comprehensive protection despite the known risk.

https://space.sciencearray.com/protecting-earth-solar-storms-carrington-event

kismethavok@reddit

10-30 billion is nothing at that scale, literally pennies.

True. But it takes time and planning, which the previous administrations - who seemed to pretend to care about other people - did not appear to bother with.

SpadeGrenade@reddit

Fuck off with the AI slop.

Creatve1@reddit

You should check out the book One Second After by William Forstchen. This is the premise and it explores what happens next in a small town cut off from the rest of the world.

draxes@reddit

Author writing style is sufferable even though the premise is really interesting. The followup books are waaaaaaaaaaay worse.

SGPrepperz@reddit

Yeah. Interesting ideas. Couldn’t read past the first chapter. They definitely need a better editor

Just be prepared for the overt jingoism of this story. It's "patriot army" fan fic.

MadamePouleMontreal@reddit

Have you looked up the 1998 ice storm? That was tough. Especially on farmers.

TenderLA@reddit

I thought a lot about GPS going out this winter when I was plying the Aleutian Islands in my fish tender. We rely so much on electronic charts and gps location. I don’t remember the last time I bought a paper chart. Definitely made me brush up on actually using the compass to set a course and plotting our position on a paper chart. The younger generation would have a rough go as most have only used computer chart plotters.