How solar storms affect life on Earth

Officials from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in a statement warned that “strong geomagnetic storms” have been observed or solar storms that are considered life-threatening on planet earth.

According to their report last Sunday they detected an explosion of charged particles emitted by the Sun, this caused a geomagnetic storm or a disturbance of the earth's magnetosphere.

NOAA recorded this event as a storm located on the G3 scale that, according to experts, is considered to be “strong” in the range from G1 to G5 and which manifested itself as a bright northern lights that could be observed from Maine to Washington, states located in the north of the United States.

Apparently, the storm and the aurora originated from the coronal mass ejection, also called CME, which are plasma explosions that usually accompany solar eruptions. According to the report, it exploded on April 3 and subsequently traveled to earth and hit the magnetic field in its magnetic field, a situation that later caused these disturbances.

According to a report by the National Center for Geographic Information, the Sun presents an activity that varies according to periods of 11 years of duration, an effect known as the “solar cycle”, and which is quantified according to the number of sunspots that the star presents.

The impact of this phenomenon according to NOAA is measured using a scale that allows the intensity and effects of geomagnetic storms to be quantified. It consists of five possible values (G1 to G5) related to the values of the Kp index (indicator of global auroral activity on a scale from 0 to 9) achieved, and indicates the average frequency with which they appear in each solar cycle.

“Geomagnetic indexes are used to quantify the size of geomagnetic storms. Of these, the most widely used are the Dst index, which indicates magnetic activity from a network of four geomagnetic observatories located near the magnetic equator, and the hourly indices that indicate geomagnetic activity at three-hour intervals. Of the latter, the most used is the K index, which is a quasi-logarithmic geomagnetic index that indicates the disturbance of the geomagnetic field at the local level, taking as a reference the daily variation curve of a calm day of the geomagnetic observatory in which it is measured, at intervals of three hours”, explains the document of the National Centre for Geographic Information.

Such storms can cause damage to infrastructure and people, for example, satellites can be affected by energy-laden particles that can cause damage to their operation. In fact, it could affect the navigation system or communications satellites which would be reflected in economic losses in all infrastructures that depend on these systems.

Electricity distribution networks could also be affected and underground metal pipelines could cause transformers to overheat and in the worst case even burn them, as happened in 1989 in the “Quebec Blackout”.

They also put people's lives at risk when traveling by plane, which is why planes are often diverted in polar areas, due to severe geomagnetic storms, in fact astronauts must stay inside the ship until the effect wears off.

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