Severe Space Weather Events Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts: A Workshop Report (2008) / Chapter Skim
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7 Future Solutions, Vulnerabilities, and Risks
7 Future Solutions, Vulnerabilities, and Risks
Pages 76-85
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From page 76... ...
This chapter addresses the evolution of current technologies and systems and their vulnerability to space weather, anticipated new technologies that may be more, or less, vulnerable to space weather than currently, and the estimation of future risks. Session panelists were asked to examine their industry with the understanding that we do not know the full range of possible space weather as demonstrated by the Carrington event of 1859, whose effects on Earth's magnetic field were far greater 1 than those of any magnetic storm in the space era, and by the solar radio burst on December 6, 2006, which was 10 times more intense than any previous solar radio burst recorded over the past 50 years.
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From page 77... ...
In particular, transformers experience excessive levels of internal heating brought on by stray flux when GICs cause a transformer's magnetic core to saturate and to spill flux outside the normal core steel magnetic circuit. Kappenman stated that previous well-documented cases have involved heating failures that caused melting and burn-through of large-amperage copper windings and leads in these transformers.
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From page 78... ...
grid operational procedures are based largely on limited experience, generally do not reduce GIC flows, and are unlikely to be adequate for historically large disturbance events. Historically large storms have a potential to cause power grid blackouts and transformer damage of unprecedented proportions, long-term blackouts, and lengthy restoration times, and chronic shortages for multiple years are possible.
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From page 79... ...
Economic and societal costs attributable to impacts of geomagnetic storms could be of unprecedented levels. For example, consider the following cost estimates: • August 14, 2003, Northeast blackout: $4 billion to $10 billion, 3 • Hurricane Katrina: $81 billion to $125 billion,4,5 • Future severe geomagnetic storm scenario: $1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year, and • Depending on damage, full recovery could take 4 to 10 years.6
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From page 80... ...
All GPS users are vulnerable to loss of availability during extreme events such as radio-frequency interference from solar radio bursts and loss of reception of many or all GPS signals due to scintillation. Additional threats to robust CNS include loss of high frequency for oceanic reporting and disruption of the national power and telecommunications infrastructure during an extreme event.
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From page 81... ...
and L5 signals are expected to be operational by the 2016-2018 time frame. The second approach to mitigating space weather impacts is to maintain backup navigation systems independent of GPS -- which is required even without space weather because of the threat from intentional interference.
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From page 82... ...
As Hegarty noted, "Ionospheric effects tend to be stronger at lower frequencies where the L2C and L5 signals are located." Added robustness is expected, especially with respect to ionospheric gradients and ionospheric ranging errors. The added robustness with respect to the fading caused by scintillation and solar radio bursts is less clear, in part because these space weather phenomena are not adequately characterized and in part because the space weather impacts on the new signals and code have not been analyzed.
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From page 83... ...
Northrop Grumman is examining LCROSS-based space weather mission concepts that utilize this secondary payload approach for access to space. This approach can offer much lower launch costs and provide a vehicle with enough propulsion to get it to an ideal location to perform space weather measurements.
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From page 84... ...
Fennell remarked that "we many not be measuring what we would classically call Dst when you get down in this part of the probability distributions." Additionally, the above conclusion assumes that the Sun's variability is statistically unchanged over the time it has been observed and into the foreseeable future. Summary As society becomes more interconnected, and as its systems become more efficient and connected, with risk transferred among them, as noted by James Caverly in an earlier session of the workshop, space weather impacts on electric power grids, satellites, and GPS are going to affect almost every area of our lives.
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From page 85... ...
Barth, and R.A. Mewaldt, Model for cumulative solar heavy ion energy and linear energy transfer spectra, IEEE Trans.
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