 Solar
flares emit high-speed particles that cause auroras when they
reach Earth, a phenomenon known in the Northern Hemisphere as
aurora borealis, or “northern lights.” Benignly beautiful
as they are, these luminous sheets of color once caused consternation;
in A.D. 34, for example, Tiberius Caesar ordered Roman soldiers
to march to the coastal town of Ostia, because he mistook the
glow on the horizon for flames.
Solar storms
also affect life on Earth in more tangible ways. They interfere
with pigeons’ and marine mammals’ ability to navigate.
They destroy atmospheric ozone, exposing humans and animals to
higher amounts of harmful solar ultraviolet radiation. And they
seem to affect plant growth and weather, though these links are
still not completely understood.
But it wasn’t
until the mid-19th century, when Americans began wiring their
nation with telegraph (and later, telephone) wires, that flares
began to show their true potential to vex human civilization.
At times, when pumped up by solar storms, the Earth’s magnetic
field in turn charged telegraph lines with such powerful current
that some operators were nearly electrocuted when they tapped
their keys. In the 20th century, the advent of radio, aircraft
and radar made humans even more vulnerable. During one solar storm
in the 1940s, British anti-aircraft radar was overwhelmed with
radio signals — leading the British military to fear that
Hitler’s scientists had developed some new radar-jamming
technology and that a massive air attack was imminent. In February
1958, during the most intense solar maximum to date, a flare wreaked
havoc with trans-Atlantic phone cables that lay, seemingly protected,
on the ocean floor.
Relatively
mild solar weather in the 1960s and 1970s may have given humanity
a false sense of complacency, as we began to launch communications
satellites into orbit and became increasingly hooked on computers
and television. By the 1980s, as solar cycles began to increase
in severity, we were more vulnerable than ever. In 1984, as then-President
Reagan was en route to China on Air Force One, a solar flare disrupted
communications with his plane for hours. When a flare whacked
out Quebec’s power grid during the 1989 solar maximum, it
was a wake-up call.
So what disruptions
could happen during the millennial solar maximum? Again, nobody
can make more than an educated guess. But here are some possibilities.
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