Have you seen today’s Space Weather?

EVER think to check the space weather forecast? Power suppliers and the operators of oil pipelines and railroads might want to start. Although it would take a truly massive space storm to truly massive space storm to cause a catastrophe. it is becoming clear that even modest solar activity poses a threat in our technology-dependent world. It makes railway signals go haywire and rusts oil pipelines to the point that they may leak, not to mention wearing down key components in power grids, which could drive up the cost of electricity.
If our planet happens to be in the line of fire when the sun belches out clouds of plasma, these coronal mass ejections (CMEs), can greatly disturb Earth's magnetic field. Such magnetic disturbances in turn can generate currents in power transmission lines, which act like giant antennas to pick up the disturbances.
A huge solar burst similar in strength to one observed in 1859, the biggest on record - could wreck the world economy. Big storms that occur about once per decade can also create chaos, like one that caused a 9-hour blackout in Quebec, Canada, in 1989.
Relatively minor space storms now appear to be behind a range of mysterious mishaps - railway signals malfunctioning in Archangel province in north-western Russia, for example, between 2000 and 2005. A study led by Eugenia Eroshenko of the Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magneyism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation in Troitsk, Russia, examined episodes when signals turned red for minutes or even hours though the track ahead was clear, then spontaneously reverted to green.
Eroshenko's team found that 16 malfunctions of this sort observed between 2000 and 2005 coincided with space storms. "We were surprised by such a clear correlation," Eroshenko says.
How could space weather switch railroad signals from green to red? CMEs appear to interfere with circuits used to sense whether a segment of track is occupied. A power source connected to the two rails normally maintains a voltage between them while they are unoccupied. When a train is present, it eliminates the potential energy difference between the rails by allowing electricity to flow from one to the other. Space storms may have the same effect on the rails as a train, generating unwanted electric currents that could cause the voltage between the two rails to drop and the signal to turn red.
Team member Risto Pirjola of the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki thinks that if other countries start examining the timing of unexplained signal problems, they may turn up a similar link to space weather. The evidence of a link to space storms is "very convincing", says Rod Perala of Electro Magnetic Applications, a consultancy in Lakewood, Colorado, that studies the effects of space weather. It would be wise for railways in other countries to check their equipment for vulnerability to space weather, too, he says.
It should be possible to modify railways to prevent these problems. Some sections seem immune to space weather, perhaps because of minor differences in electrical hardware, and the parts used in the problem-prone areas could be changed, Eroshenko says, but funds have been lacking.
Space weather may also make oil and gas pipelines more prone to rusting - a particular concern because rusty pipelines sometimes spring leaks, creating costly and environmentally damaging spills.
The chemical reactions that cause rust require electrons to flow from the pipe into the surrounding soil, so one way to keep corrosion at bay is to create a potential energy barrier that impedes this flow of electrons, using a power source attached to the pipe. Space storms, however, generate currents in pipes that can overwhelm this barrier, allowing corrosion to proceed.
Richard Marshall of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology 's space weather unit found that space storms disrupted voltages in pipelines in northern Australia, which is just 20 degrees from the equator
"Geomagnetic effects are becoming an issue that must be considered for pipelines at all latitudes," says Boteler.Subtle effects of run-of-the-mill space storms may also wear down key components in electric power grids, making them liable to early failure.More recently, there are signs that transformers can be destroyed by smaller currents over a period of hours or more. A long-lasting 2003 space storm delivered only relatively low-intensity currents to the South African power grid, but damaged several transformers anyway, notes US-based storm analysis consultant John Kappenman.