 Cycle
23 is popping up on the radar screens of the same survival-preparedness
gurus, seers and doomsayers who sounded alarms about the prospect
of a cataclysmic Y2K computer crisis. In a newsgroup devoted to
the 16th century seer Nostradamus, one prophesy aficionado proclaims
— apparently, sans scientific evidence — that the solar
maximum’s electromagnetic effects “could induce tempers
raging out of control, emotions flaring beyond restraint, bad
decisions being made, and wars being launched.”
Watching all
this with interest is Ted Daniels, a Philadelphia-based researcher
with a doctorate in folklore, who heads the Millennium Watch Institute
and is the author of the The Doomsday Reader, published by New
York University Press. He says that the solar maximum is a particularly
appealing event for apocalyptic thinkers, for whom other solar
events, such as eclipses, already have great symbolic significance.
“People are treating it as an omen,” he says. “They
predict it’ll block out the whole electromagnetic spectrum
and bring society to its knees. Typically, in turn, this will
be an opening wedge for the Antichrist to take over the planet.”
But don’t
resign yourself to delivering your wireless PDA, flip-phone and
dashboard GPS into the clutches of the Beastmaster just yet. Scientists
and engineers have been studying solar weather and working on
ways to cope with its effects for years. In 1999, NASA scientists
announced that they’ve found a way to forecast solar storms
a few days in advance; they’ve discovered an S-shaped structure
on the sun's surface, presumably caused by a twisting in its magnetic
field. Dubbed a sigmoid, the appearance of this twisting curlicue
of solar material herolds the imminent release of a flare. That
knowledge gives them a way to forecast solar storms a few days
in advance, giving Earth time to prepare.
Satellites
and the communications technologies that depend on them may be
at the most significant risk. It’s possible to shield satellites
against radiation and to use components that are "hardened"
to withstand solar storms. But such precautions are expensive,
in part because they add weight to rocket payloads, and some satellite
makers have decided to risk getting by with less. As a result,
the trade journal Aviation Week and Space Technology has reported
that many newer satellites are far more vulnerable to becoming
solar toast than those launched 10 to 15 years ago.
But utilities,
hopefully, will be in better shape. Following the 1989 Quebec
outage, for example, electric industry officials formed the Sunburst
Project, in which a dozen or so companies installed monitors on
main transformers in an attempt to get a more precise idea of
the impacts of solar activity on their equipment. Data collected
in the New England region during a solar storm last spring suggests
that a solar maximum’s flares may cause strains on the grid,
but manageable ones.
"We don’t
expect it will be a cataclysmic problem," says Edison Electric
Institute’s Paul McCurley. "If you have some advance
warning, there are operational things you can do." Utility
companies can manipulate their power flow, he notes, and in ways
that can mitigate a solar flare’s impact; in addition, generator
cores and other equipment can be reinforced to keep them working.
If that doesn’t work, he notes, "the damage is always
repairable." Even so, he and other engineers will probably
be glad when, in a few years' time, the sun quiets down.
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