Solar Pains in the Butt

The scoop: Tiny sunspots recently broke out on the sun, ending its calmest "solar minimum" in years. Now full-steam toward "solar maximum," we might expect to see some crippling solar storms around 2011. Astronomer Sten Odenwald weighs in.

Thanks to astronomer's taste for pursuing the macabre, we've basically learned over the years that, well, the human race is up a creek without a paddle. If it's not some wayward space rock that may do us in, you can be sure it will be a kick-ass solar storm.

Every 11 years during "sunspot maximum," solar storms appear every day or so. Most are harmless and send our way nothing more than the pretty Northern Lights, but you can't play Russian Roulette forever. Sometimes the sun belches out a big, honking storm that can trash billion-dollar satellites, jack up your radiation dosages on airline flights (albeit by a smidgeon), and mess with power grids.

We know a LOT more about the sun today than we did during the last solar maximum in 2000 -- when Britney Spears was apologizing to us that she had done it again, or during sunspot minimum in 1996 (when the Macarena was hot). For example, we know that the worst times for solar storms are during solar maximum. The next one will happen between 2011 and 2012 because it follows a cycle we have mapped out for the last 150 years.

Each solar cycle has its own character, and the bets are off over how intense the next one will be -- some estimate it will be one of the most violent on record, while others are in the opposite camp. Yet even the wimpiest cycles can deliver solar storms, though not as often. If you were to place your money on a prediction, the best bet for an early 2012 sunspot maximum is one with about the same strength as the previous cycle (1996-2008). After all, today's weather is pretty much like yesterdays!

So, you might say "Look, I just got finished obsessing about $4.00 gasoline, the presidential primaries, and a tanking economy. Do I really need to worry about solar storms?" My pragmatic answer: No.

Like earthquakes and tsunamis, there is really nothing you can do about solar storms as an individual except pick up the pieces afterwards. If you're lucky, you might get a three-day notice on a power grid-disrupting magnetic storm, and a 24-hour notice on an intense, satellite-damaging radiation storm. So we still have to take out the garbage every Tuesday.

But that's not to say the government and essential industries are off the hook.

To be frank, intense solar storms are a big pain in the ass. They can cause annoying interruptions of electrical and communications services, affecting people differently depending on where they are and what they're doing -- some lives may hang in the balance from losing a particular service for a few days.

As a scientist, I try to remind people about solar storms, but I have to tread a narrow line to not sensationalize my descriptions of what they can do. I'm not alone, though. Congress has heard plenty of testimony over the years from scientists, airline representatives, and electrical utility engineers about how we need more research to warn us about solar storms.

It's not that we don't know how to do the job. The problem is that this work is not funded so that the job can be done properly.

Amazingly, although the electrical utilities pulled in $225 billion in revenue in 2007 -- and the satellite industry made nearly as much off of satellite operations -- the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Space Weather Forecasting Center in Colorado receives only $6 million a year to work its magic. That's $1.00 in NOAA forecasting for every $60,000 in revenue.

Talk about not investing in your future!

I don't think I can over hype this investment problem at all. And I'll be the first one screaming if the next solar storm, like Hurricane Katrina, catches us by surprise in a few years because a key resource at NOAA was shut down or downsized to make more room for other "more pressing" national programs.

Sten Odenwald is NASA astronomer at the Goddard Space Flight Center and Catholic University in Washington D.C., and runs an astronomy education Web site called The Astronomy Café. The views expressed are the author's alone and do not represent the official position of NASA or the Discovery Channel.

Article posted August 22, 2008.

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