NRC report warns of severe impacts on infrastructure
As if the growing instability of atmospheric weather resulting from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were not enough to worry infrastructure security professionals, a growing concern centers on geomagnetic storms resulting from cyclical storms in the outer layers of our sun.
Most people know that our sun cycles through 11-year cycles of solar storms in its outer layer, the chromosphere.. The solar storms are associated with cooler vortices of incandescent plasma (the form of matter in which electrons and nucleons are so energetic that they are ripped apart from their normal association into atoms) called sunspots and solar flares, huge jets of plasma that arc upwards into the corona for thousands of miles.
Solar flares generate immense pulses of electromagnetic interference (EMI); indeed, as recounted by Richard E. Kerr in the 26 June 2009 issue of SCIENCE magazine, the intense solar storm of Aug. 28, 1859 had devastating effects even on the relatively primitive electrical communication system of the time: “The sun had blasted a billion-ton magnetic bubble of protons and the like right at Earth. On smashing into the planet’s own magnetic cocoon at several million kilometers per hour, the bubble dumped its energy, pushing the solar-driven aurora from its customary arctic latitudes to overhead of Cuba. This once-in-500-years ‘solar superstorm’ crippled telegraph systems for a day or two across the United States and Europe but otherwise was mainly remembered for its dramatic light show.”
Today, the effects of such a solar storm will be potentially devastating.
The National Academies Press has published a report that should concern everyone involved in the critical infrastructures at the planetary and national scales: Severe Space Weather Events – Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts: A Workshop Report. The entire report is available online free as a single PDF with a simple registration of e-mail address, ZIP code and economic sector. Alternatively, the executive summary is available without registration and the entire text is freely readable through a Web browser.
More on this topic in the next column.
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Join me online for three courses in October and November 2009 under the auspices of Security University. We will be meeting via conference call on Saturdays and Sundays for six hours each day and then for three hours in the evenings of Monday through Thursday. The courses are “Introduction to IA for Non-Technical Managers,” “Management of IA,” and “Cyberlaw for IA Professionals“. Each course will have the lectures and discussions recorded and available for download – and there will be a dedicated discussion group online for participants to discuss points and questions. See you online!
