An interesting talk from Dr. Jim Wild of Lancaster University's Space Plasma Environment and Radio Science Group recently highlighted the ever present threat from the Sun. I'm not talking about the risk of sunburn, it will take a little more than factor 15 to mitigate this risk.

Our planet is constantly bombarded by charged particles emitted from the sun. It is these particles which interact with the ionosphere to cause the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights).

Every now and then the Sun will discharge a massive burst of these particles into space associated with Solar flares, and sometimes these flares are directed towards Earth.

Now normally our planet is pretty well protected against solar radiation by a force field (not invented by the writers of Star Trek as you might suppose)  which has been protecting our planet for millions of years - the Earth's magnetic field.

The danger comes when particularly massive solar flares occur. The stream of electrically charge particles is effectively a DC current flowing through our upper atmosphere. This current is grounded as it travels along the lines of our magnetic field which direct it towards the poles. This induces a corresponding current in the Earths crust and it is this current which can take out power infrastructure on a continental scale. An event such as this is now thought to have been responsible for the collapse of Quebec's power grid in 1989 leaving six million people without power, and this isn't just a case of resetting a trip. DC currents flowing through ac transformers can destroy the transformers, which are not trivial to replace, so the grid can be out for weeks if not months (good news for transformer manufacturer's though).

Actually there is not much you can do to mitigate against this, but when you are doing you business continuity / disaster recovery planning be aware that infrastructure you rely on on a daily basis could very easily and with little or no warning just not be there.

For further reading and better science than my explanation go to ...

http://www.sunearthplan.net/3/16/Space-weather

Jim Wild's website

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