Solar storms could plunge nation into darkness.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News

* Hurricanes, terrorist attacks and earthquakes can cause devastation and massive losses of life, hut a severe solar storm could plunge the nation back into the 18th Century.

The sun is on the upswing of an 11-year cycle called solar maximum, which is ripe for solar flares. The sun's volatility is expected to reach an apex sometime in May 2013, said William Murtagh, a space weather scientist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Researchers are racing to understand the effects its energy might have on the U.S. power grids in hopes that potential cataclysm can be avoided.

At present, there is no reliable method of predicting when and if Earth will be bombarded by a massive solar storm, or how one would affect the electrical systems on which modem man has become irrevocably dependent. But these storms happen frequently and the big one could be on its way.

"We know these events are going to occur," Richard Andres, senior fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, said at a space weather conference hosted by the National Defense University.

Laura Furgione, deputy assistant administrator for weather services at NOAA, said at the NDIA homeland security conference that forecasts for the next solar maximum call for fewer storms. But patterns have shown that fewer storms means that those that do occur are more intense.

As the nation's power grids have become increasingly complex, little is known about the effects severe solar-generated weather would have on their reliability. Until science has answers, the world is in the crosshairs, said John Kappenman, owner of Storm Analysis Consultants.

"As a society, we are playing Russian Roulette with the sun," Kappenman said. "If you play that game too long, you're going to lose."

The effects of a solar storm are varied and the people who understand them are few, Andres said. NDU's primary mission is to act as a conduit between experts, industry and government to hit on a plan to deal with a potentially crippling solar storm.

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The conference was the culmination of several days of exercises involving industry, government, researchers and defense officials aimed at parsing out what the impact and aftermath of a massive solar storm would look like.

Agencies that monitor the sun's behavior, including the National Weather Service, have a limited ability to predict when solar flares, also known as coronal mass ejections, are earthbound. There is only one...