What a Major Solar Storm Could Do to Our Planet
Disturbances on the sun may have the potential to devastate our power
grid and communication systems. When the next big storm arrives, will
we be prepared for it?
His official title, one shared by no more than a few dozen Americans,
is space-weather forecaster. Ever since leaving the Air Force, Tegnell
has worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Space Weather Prediction Center, in Boulder, Colorado: ten hours a
day, forty hours a week, three decades spent staring at real-time
images of the sun. Eleven other forecasters work there as well. The
remaining ones are employed by the only similar institution in the
country: the Space Weather Operations Center, run by the Department of
Defense on Offutt Air Force Base, in Sarpy County, Nebraska.
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By contrast, most people have no idea that there is weather in outer
space, let alone what its fluctuations might mean for our planet.
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In 2019, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, surveying the
landscape of possible disasters, concluded that only two natural
hazards have the capacity to simultaneously affect the entire nation.
One is a pandemic. The other is a severe solar storm.
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But "space-weather forecaster" is an optimistic misnomer; for the most
part, he and his colleagues can't predict what will happen in outer
space. All they can do is try to figure out what's happening there
right now, preferably fast enough to limit the impact on our planet
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/04/what-a-major-solar-storm-could-do-to-our-planet
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