Author Information

Tristen WannerFollow

Is this project an undergraduate, graduate, or faculty project?

Undergraduate

individual

What campus are you from?

Daytona Beach

Authors' Class Standing

Wanner: Junior

Lead Presenter's Name

Tristen Wanner

Faculty Mentor Name

Nykyri, Heidi

Abstract

Geomagnetic storms are a common space weather phenomena and the probability of relatively powerful storms, like that of the Carrington Event in September 1859, hitting Earth in the near future is high. The Carrington Event’s coronal mass ejection (CME) caused the largest geomagnetic storm on record and was recorded to have caused severe disruptions in early communication technologies by creating powerful geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) in the surface of the Earth that were transmitted though the telegraphing infrastructure and caused sudden, permanent damage. Today, with so many vital functions of modern society in the US being handled entirely on the power-grid (from communications, to banking, to healthcare), extreme GICs caused by powerful CMEs have the ability to create permanent damage to and blackouts over massive areas in the US private and public power systems and could have severe implications for the homeland security of the US. This paper introduces the mechanics of such CMEs and GICs, analyzes the likelihood of a Carrington-like event occurring in the near future, and explores the implications of such an event using data and simulations from other studies in space weather and GICs conducted in Sweden and projections of the possible geoelectric field magnitudes for extreme GIC scenarios.

Did this research project receive funding support from the Office of Undergraduate Research.

No

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Effects of Carrington-Scale Storms Creating Powerful Geomagnetically Induced Current on the US Power Grid

Geomagnetic storms are a common space weather phenomena and the probability of relatively powerful storms, like that of the Carrington Event in September 1859, hitting Earth in the near future is high. The Carrington Event’s coronal mass ejection (CME) caused the largest geomagnetic storm on record and was recorded to have caused severe disruptions in early communication technologies by creating powerful geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) in the surface of the Earth that were transmitted though the telegraphing infrastructure and caused sudden, permanent damage. Today, with so many vital functions of modern society in the US being handled entirely on the power-grid (from communications, to banking, to healthcare), extreme GICs caused by powerful CMEs have the ability to create permanent damage to and blackouts over massive areas in the US private and public power systems and could have severe implications for the homeland security of the US. This paper introduces the mechanics of such CMEs and GICs, analyzes the likelihood of a Carrington-like event occurring in the near future, and explores the implications of such an event using data and simulations from other studies in space weather and GICs conducted in Sweden and projections of the possible geoelectric field magnitudes for extreme GIC scenarios.

 

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