Your Weather, Our Weather (4 Viewers)

[Huntn]

Since June we (East Texas) have been running mid 90s to low 100sF (32-40C) with with hear indexes about 110F, lows of 85F (29C) at night. A high pressure dome of heat parked over the Central US bringing no rain (at least to Texas) for several weeks and high temps. Comparing F to C. I prefer the spread of F over C, but consider I grew up with F. A recent trip to Corpus Christi we saw large large fields of immature brown/dead corn.
An alarming report is that the Oceans are turning green (more plant matter growing) due to the rise of temps, sharks are reported as dying. Another report said that El Niño usually causes a reduction of Atlantic hurricane activity, but with oceans heating up, that may change.

I never thought I would be living in such a transitional period for the Earth. We have been warned for 40 years, yet as a species, we just blunder along until we are smacked upside the head.

 

[SamAndreas]

Over the years we have had many solar storms and flares. I know it has caused problems, but what evidence is there that a solar storm could melt the grid? One of the approaches I've heard to improve power-grid resilience is rooftop solar. Would it also melt them too?

I regard this along the same lines as with EMP's, and that is that it is largely science fiction.

For everyone's entertainment here's the Russian comedy movie Bite the Dust. It's about how the folks on an Island in Russia deal with the news that a solar flare is going to kill them all.

It has a cow in it for the added comic value of having a cow in it.

 

[LA - L.A.]

I regard this along the same lines as with EMP's, and that is that it is largely science fiction.

It's not science fiction. In 1859 a solar storm knocked out a lot of the telegraph networks. The modern power grid is more vulnerable to solar storm activity than the telegraph networks.

A Perfect Solar Superstorm: The 1859 Carrington Event | HISTORY

In 1859 a massive solar flare spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth, wreaking havoc on telegraph networks.

www.history.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

It's not science fiction. In 1859 a solar storm knocked out a lot of the telegraph networks. The modern power grid is more vulnerable to solar storm activity than the telegraph networks.

A Perfect Solar Superstorm: The 1859 Carrington Event | HISTORY

In 1859 a massive solar flare spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth, wreaking havoc on telegraph networks.

www.history.com

Seems I read an article once that said we are one big solar storm away from being thrown back to the Stone Age

 

[SamAndreas]

It's not science fiction. In 1859 a solar storm knocked out a lot of the telegraph networks. The modern power grid is more vulnerable to solar storm activity than the telegraph networks.

A Perfect Solar Superstorm: The 1859 Carrington Event | HISTORY

In 1859 a massive solar flare spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth, wreaking havoc on telegraph networks.

www.history.com

Your link is to the History Channel.

I think what actually happened back in 1859 was it was 100 years prior to my own birth, kind of like a worried foretold thing.

Sparks flew, I'm sure the ground shook as well.

 

[Taurus]

Your link is to the History Channel.

I think what actually happened back in 1859 was it was 100 years prior to my own birth, kind of like a worried foretold thing.

Sparks flew, I'm sure the ground shook as well.

Who would you believe? NOAA? NIH?

It was a very well documented event. Predictions of what a similar storm would do today are just math.

 

[SamAndreas]

Who would you believe? NOAA? NIH?

It was a very well documented event. Predictions of what a similar storm would do today are just math.

It apparently caused an outage of telegraph service for about the duration of that solar storm. A few people got a jolt. I guess some sparks fell in some trash and lit it afire at a telegraph office. Pretty much everything else in that information at that link appeared to me to be added narrative to make it sound more exciting.



I was here, and then was forced to evacuate for the Telegraph Fire back in 2008. That one was scary. I saw a wall of fire climb the north side of Mount Bullon at what had to be 60 miles an hour. Then embers flew through the sky and spread that fire to three new spots, one being two miles away. All of a sudden we had a four headed monster fire on two sides of us at the same time.

They had about 6,000 firefighters working on that one, and it lasted for a couple weeks. The state spent about 40 million to put it out.

Telegraph Fire (2008) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Cal Fire reported that at least 38 injuries to firefighting personnel and civilians occurred;[10] at least 22 of the injuries were minor and suffered by firefighters during the suppression effort.[11]"

"In addition to the $37.6 million in fire suppression costs, the Telegraph Fire resulted in "millions of dollars" of damage to property.[12] This included at least 21 homes,[13][14] or according to other reports as many as 30.[7] Another 75 outbuildings were reportedly destroyed.[13] Cal Fire records the total structural toll as 30 structures destroyed and 100 damaged.[10]"

"The number of evacuees at one point reached about 500.[9] At least 350 homes lay in mandatory evacuation zones in Midpines and Coultersville.[15] All residents were able to return to their homes by August 1.[14]"

 

[MT15]

Who would you believe? NOAA? NIH?

It was a very well documented event. Predictions of what a similar storm would do today are just math.

My son who teaches college physics has talked to me about the issue. He doesn’t doubt it either. He keeps some cash at his house at all times for this reason I think, because he never uses cash for anything.

 

[Taurus]

It apparently caused an outage of telegraph service for about the duration of that solar storm. A few people got a jolt. I guess some sparks fell in some trash and lit it afire at a telegraph office. Pretty much everything else in that information at that link appeared to me to be added narrative to make it sound more exciting.



I was here, and then was forced to evacuate for the Telegraph Fire back in 2008. That one was scary. I saw a wall of fire climb the north side of Mount Bullon at what had to be 60 miles an hour. Then embers flew through the sky and spread that fire to three new spots, one being two miles away. All of a sudden we had a four headed monster fire on two sides of us at the same time.

They had about 6,000 firefighters working on that one, and it lasted for a couple weeks. The state spent about 40 million to put it out.

Telegraph Fire (2008) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Cal Fire reported that at least 38 injuries to firefighting personnel and civilians occurred;[10] at least 22 of the injuries were minor and suffered by firefighters during the suppression effort.[11]"

"In addition to the $37.6 million in fire suppression costs, the Telegraph Fire resulted in "millions of dollars" of damage to property.[12] This included at least 21 homes,[13][14] or according to other reports as many as 30.[7] Another 75 outbuildings were reportedly destroyed.[13] Cal Fire records the total structural toll as 30 structures destroyed and 100 damaged.[10]"

"The number of evacuees at one point reached about 500.[9] At least 350 homes lay in mandatory evacuation zones in Midpines and Coultersville.[15] All residents were able to return to their homes by August 1.[14]"

That's what I meant about math.

The energy necessary to cause a 19th century telegraph line to spark and melt itself is a given quantity.

Just take that many joules and apply it to modern internet and communications lines.

 

[LA - L.A.]

Seems I read an article once that said we are one big solar storm away from being thrown back to the Stone Age

If the planet ever loses half of it's electricity production all at once, it will set off a cascade of infrastructure and supply chain breakdowns that will either be impossible for civilization to recover from or it will take many decades to recover from it. The world of The Postman is a fairly accurate depiction of what it would be like.

 

[SamAndreas]

That's what I meant about math.

The energy necessary to cause a 19th century telegraph line to spark and melt itself is a given quantity.

Just take that many joules and apply it to modern internet and communications lines.

That 19th century telegraph line was an early less elegant design than the power lines of today. I would view that event as the worst case. The in the "raw" problem.

You've probably heard the age old chemistry phrase "like dissolves like". It kind of applies here as well. A power line which emits RF energy, and creates RF interference is more likely to be affected by RF interference from outside of the system.

So what I'm saying is it's a work in progress and always will be, but by and large the problem you are chasing has already been fixed. A little gap here and a little gap there have been found and fixed due to folks calling the power company complaining that their power lines are messing up radio and TV devices over the last 100 years.

Below os a link to a long detailed overview of how to find the little gaps in the grid hardware, and how to fix them so that they don't interfere with the RF spectrum. My point being with each repair to prevent the power grid from emitting RF, one is also at the same time hardening the grid to repulse RF impulses coming into the system from the sun.

There are some exceptions and caviughts as well, not all of shielding which is needed will be dealt with by cleaning up the emissions from the line. But most of the problem will be fixed that way.

Power Line RFI

The Issue of Power-Line Noise A Smarter Approach I. Introduction (By Mike Gruber, ARRL Laboratory) Although the problem has been around since the dawn of radio communications and broadcasting, powe…

wd7ale.wordpress.com

 

[Eeyore]

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

These tweets couldn't be from real people! I refuse to believe that there are people out there are that stupid.

 

[SamAndreas]

These tweets couldn't be from real people! I refuse to believe that there are people out there are that stupid.

Catturd is a noteorious skunk. It would be left up to you to decide if skunks are real people.

I think the Christina who looks like a Brady girl, and believes in large fans, she might not be real.

 

[LA - L.A.]

That 19th century telegraph line was an early less elegant design than the power lines of today. I would view that event as the worst case. The in the "raw" problem.

You've probably heard the age old chemistry phrase "like dissolves like". It kind of applies here as well. A power line which emits RF energy, and creates RF interference is more likely to be affected by RF interference from outside of the system.

So what I'm saying is it's a work in progress and always will be, but by and large the problem you are chasing has already been fixed. A little gap here and a little gap there have been found and fixed due to folks calling the power company complaining that their power lines are messing up radio and TV devices over the last 100 years.

Below os a link to a long detailed overview of how to find the little gaps in the grid hardware, and how to fix them so that they don't interfere with the RF spectrum. My point being with each repair to prevent the power grid from emitting RF, one is also at the same time hardening the grid to repulse RF impulses coming into the system from the sun.

There are some exceptions and caviughts as well, not all of shielding which is needed will be dealt with by cleaning up the emissions from the line. But most of the problem will be fixed that way.

Power Line RFI

The Issue of Power-Line Noise A Smarter Approach I. Introduction (By Mike Gruber, ARRL Laboratory) Although the problem has been around since the dawn of radio communications and broadcasting, powe…

wd7ale.wordpress.com

Shielding electric lines to prevent radio frequency interference is not sufficient to harden the power grid against a massive solar storm.

Just like a submarine with some holes in it can't keep water from getting into the submarine, a power grid with any holes in it can't keep a massive solar storm from getting into and disrupting the power grid.

You laughed at the History Channel. I hope you find these sources less laugh worthy. The bold emphasis is mine.

It Can Light Up the Sky and Shut Down the Grid: The Aurora Borealis

Geomagnetic disturbances can hurt communication and power systems, but Dr. Jonathan Snodgrass, Dr. Thomas Overbye and their research group are researching ways to mitigate their impact.

engineering.tamu.edu

"Solar storms create a mostly direct current (DC) in the electric grid. Normally, the grid uses alternating current (AC) to produce and distribute power. When DC is on top of AC, it can cause issues with transformers, causing parts of the electric grid to trip. Depending on the category of the solar storm (G1-G5), the power system is affected, sometimes to a very large degree, pushing the Northern Lights farther south. Typically, a G1 is weak and a G5 is severe."​

​

"Our research focuses on answering the question: how bad could it be if we had a superstorm GMD event? How much damage would it do if we had a Carrington-level storm?"​

​

"A solar storm hit Quebec 130 years later in 1989 and caused a blackout for eight hours.​

​

'Until the 1989 Quebec blackout, scientists knew GMDs could affect the electric grid, but they didn't fully realize their impact on the power grid,' Snodgrass said. 'The question is, how do you keep a storm from blacking out the entire grid for hours on end?'”​

​

"Solar superstorms, like the one in Quebec, happen when the sun ejects plasma into space called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that, very rarely, hit Earth. The sun has an 11-year solar cycle, and at the peak of the solar cycle, there are a lot more sunspots, which cause CMEs. There's a higher chance of GMDs (geomagnetic disturbance) happening closer to the solar peak, which we are only one to two years away from."​

​

"In the last 20 years, there have been large CMEs, but none of them have hit Earth. In 2003, there was a much bigger CME that passed right by Earth that might have been as big as the Carrington Event."​

​

Scientists have found evidence of past extreme solar storms—they could be disastrous for technology-based society

In September 1859, the same year that Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," telegraph systems across Europe and North America stopped working and started sparking, leading to fires in some cases.

phys.org

"This storm, later named the Carrington event, was one of the strongest in documented history. However, in a recent article in Nature, we have shown that in the not-so-distant past, the Earth was battered by much more extreme solar storms. Evidence of these storms has come, in particular, from analyzing levels of radioactive carbon—known as radiocarbon, or carbon-14—in tree rings."​

​

"The strength of some past extreme solar storms detected in tree rings suggest they would have played havoc with our technological infrastructure on a scale never seen before. One extreme solar storm known to have occurred in AD774, for example, would have dwarfed the Carrington event."​

​

NOAA Space Weather Scales | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

www.swpc.noaa.gov

​

 

[SamAndreas]

Shielding electric lines to prevent radio frequency interference is not sufficient to harden the power grid against a massive solar storm.

Just like a submarine with some holes in it can't keep water from getting into the submarine, a power grid with any holes in it can't keep a massive solar storm from getting into and disrupting the power grid.

You laughed at the History Channel. I hope you find these sources less laugh worthy. The bold emphasis is mine.

It's not that, I studied Physics and Math in college. It's not about that these phenonium exist, they do. It's that doom and gloom sayers have bady misunderstood and distorted that real data. They have predicted great upset and mayhem as a result.

I shrug and don't worry my pretty little head about it. I have real and present dangers I have to worry about and deal with, like real floods and fires. I don't have time to live fake science fiction horror scenarios.

All of this however is not the same thing as me being against strengthening the grid, I approve of doing that.

They are strengthening the grid all around me, there have been linemen crawling through these woods rebuilding it for 5 years now. I understand what they're doing, and approve of the material and workmanship I've seen.

 

[LA - L.A.]

All of this however is not the same thing as me being against strengthening the grid, I approve of doing that.

That's all that was being discussed. If we don't prepare the world's power grids for when a super solar storm hits, then there will be a global, civilization threatening catastrophe that could have been prevented. That's a scientific fact as told by the scientist who are experts in this field that have conducted years of scientific studies and modeling.

They are strengthening the grid all around me, there have been linemen crawling through these woods rebuilding it for 5 years now. I understand what they're doing, and approve of the material and workmanship I've seen.

They are not strengthening it against solar storms. They are working at making it less susceptible to Earth based weather and maintenance failures to decrease the chances that it starts fires, because they don't want to get sued for starting fires.

Case in point, what level of electromagnetic insulation are they covering the transmission lines with? It's a trick question, because they aren't covering the transmission lines with any electromagnetic insulation except for specific areas were there have been complaints of radio frequency interference. They are not doing anything about the other thousands of miles of transmission lines.

The grid is not being prepared for the next high end G5 geomagnetic/solar storm, because Congress, state legislatures and the power companies don't want to pay for it, just like they don't want to pay to prepare for the inevitable sea level rises that will render many coastal urban areas uninhabitable. An ounce of prevention is better than allowing the uncurable, but preventable, to happen

 

[SamAndreas]

That's all that was being discussed. If we don't prepare the world's power grids for when a super solar storm hits, then there will be a global, civilization threatening catastrophe that could have been prevented. That's a scientific fact as told by the scientist who are experts in this field that have conducted years of scientific studies and modeling.


They are not strengthening it against solar storms. They are working at making it less susceptible to Earth based weather and maintenance failures to decrease the chances that it starts fires, because they don't want to get sued for starting fires.

Case in point, what level of electromagnetic insulation are they covering the transmission lines with? It's a trick question, because they aren't covering the transmission lines with any electromagnetic insulation except for specific areas were there have been complaints of radio frequency interference. They are not doing anything about the other thousands of miles of transmission lines.

The grid is not being prepared for the next high end G5 geomagnetic/solar storm, because Congress, state legislatures and the power companies don't want to pay for it, just like they don't want to pay to prepare for the inevitable sea level rises that will render many coastal urban areas uninhabitable. An ounce of prevention is better than allowing the uncurable, but preventable, to happen

The last high end G5 storm didn't appear do as much damage as a wildfires of the kind we are having around here are.

I say focus on climate change and social issues.

 

[bird]

Do these people have any idea of the forces at work on this planet when it comes to weather? The mass of air that would have to be moved to do any of the idiotic manipulation that they are trying to claim?

Oh, it’s the government doing it to Republicans. Yet, they will stand there with their hands out wanting government help.

HAARP studies the ionosphere and is based in Alaska fercryinoutloud.

Btw, maybe it is God’s response to the shirty treatment of LGBTQ+ people and immigrants by Republicans.