Analysts at the European Saxo Bank predict solar storms in 2019. It would seem, what does financiers care about natural phenomena? In this case, direct. A solar storm of high power can cause considerable damage to the economy and humanity as a whole. And Saxo Bank's predictions are known to come true, no matter how unlikely things are predicted in them.
Vulnerable electronics
To date, a giant solar storm has been recorded for the last time in 1859. The event is also called the "Solar Superstorm". The solar plasma, having reached the Earth, caused negative phenomena in its magnetosphere. As a result, the telegraph failed. The northern lights were recorded all over the planet. The speed of movement of the solar plasma was such that instead of three to four days it reached the Earth in 18 hours.
Today, in March 2018 there was a strong geomagnetic storm, and in September 2017, the strongest solar storm in the last 14 years was recorded. In both episodes, radio communications were disrupted, there were interruptions in the Internet, a number of satellites were out of order.
In addition to technology, it was bad for humans. Doctors note that solar storms are dangerous for hypertensive and hypotensive patients, those with heart disease. Approximately 70% of heart attacks, hypertensive crises and strokes are recorded during solar storms. A natural phenomenon is accompanied by headaches, migraines, insomnia, pressure drops, and vitality decreases.
Modern science is not able to predict the exact time of the beginning and end of a solar storm - it can only record what is happening. However, enough data has been accumulated to predict the years of greatest solar activity.
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Solar apocalypse
Moving along the path of progress, humanity has become more vulnerable due to dependence on electricity and electronics. Scientists say that we are lucky, as solar flares do not reach their maximum.
American astronomers Abraham Loeb and Manasvi Lingam from Harvard calculated the consequences of a powerful superflare on the Sun. According to the most optimistic forecast, animals and people will survive, but civilization will be thrown back hundreds of years. A global blackout awaits us, when electricity goes out across the planet, radio communications and the Internet disappear, computers and electronic databases suffer. Nuclear power plant control systems will be under threat. Orbital constellations of satellites, including those providing GSM and GLONASS, will fail, which will lead to air and sea disasters.
The most radical scenario involves a violation of the ozone layer, which will lead to the gradual death of all living things under the influence of cosmic radiation.
Returning to the “Solar superstorm, scientists note that its power did not reach even the lowest value during a superflare on the Sun.
The Dst-index of geomagnetic activity (Disturbance Storm Time Index) during the storm of 1859 reached −1760 nT (nano-Tesla is a unit of measurement of magnetic field induction). Solar storms have this power once every 500 years.
However, the strongest storm since the beginning of the space era (since 1957) occurred on March 13, 1989, with the Dst index of geomagnetic activity reaching −640. Serious solar storms were recorded in 1921 and 1960, then radio communications were damaged.
The coming year will bring solar storms capable of destroying most of the satellites in the Western Hemisphere, said John Hardy, head of the fixed income market at Saxo Bank. Potential losses are estimated at about $ 2 trillion.
Konstantin Baranovsky