We Have Two Hours to Protect the Electric Grid From an Extreme Solar Storm. The Recent Auroras Prove It

On May 10, a powerful geomagnetic storm covered half of the planet in auroras. Scientists are still studying it to predict the next Carrington event, a solar impact so extreme that it could catastrophically damage the power grid.

Auroras are more than just a visual spectacle. This celestial dance of green and red lights occurs when the Earth’s magnetic field interacts with charged particles from the Sun.

During a solar storm, the Sun shoots substantial amounts of plasma that can hit the Earth. When these particles reach the Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic field that protects us directs them toward the poles, where they collide with oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, producing light emissions.

If the shot from the Sun, known as a coronal mass ejection, is powerful, it can compress the magnetosphere, reducing its size on the side of the Earth with daylight (the one facing the star). Consequently, the magnetic field lines stretch and connect at latitudes lower than usual, which can cause auroras in those regions.

A potential threat to the electric grid. Auroras also warn of an imminent threat to our electrical infrastructure. And May’s powerful event has helped scientists better predict the level of risk, thanks to the angle of the Sun’s impact.

Specifically, a team of NASA researchers found that solar storms that directly hit the Earth’s magnetic field can induce more intense geomagnetic currents, like those that set some telegraph lines on fire in 1859.

The research was published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. The study was led by astrophysicist Denny Oliveira of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. This study issues a warning on how these solar shocks can overload and damage the electrical grid and all types of infrastructure with a certain conductivity, such as gas pipelines.

Measurements on a gas pipeline in Finland. Oliveira’s team compared solar storm data with measurements of geomagnetically induced currents in a gas pipeline in Mäntsälä, Finland.

Their research showed that solar particles hitting the Earth’s magnetic field at an angle produce less intense currents than frontal shocks because they compress the magnetic field more, generating stronger currents.

One of the reasons the scientists chose Mäntsälä is the openness of its data. Still, the widespread lack of information forced them to rule out many correlations with solar shocks. “It would be good if power companies around the world made their data available to scientists for studies,” Oliveira said in a press release.

Two hours to protect our infrastructure. More data would mean more knowledge about how long it takes for the impact of a solar storm to induce a magnetic current. However, with the available data, the researchers concluded that frontal shocks are more powerful and predictable because telescopes are always pointing at the Sun.

It’s not much to celebrate, but the study says that scientists can predict the angles of these shocks up to two hours in advance. This finding opens a crucial window for implementing protective measures to the power grid and other infrastructure, such as gas pipelines.

“One thing that operators of electrical infrastructure could do to protect their equipment is to manage only some specific circuits when a discharge warning is issued,” Oliveira explains. “This would prevent geomagnetically induced currents from reducing the life of the equipment,” he adds.

This article was written by Matías S. Zavia and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.

Image | Ben (CC BY-ND 2.0)

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