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March 2, 2012 04:05 pm

One In Eight Chance of a Financially Catastrophic Solar Storm By 2020


An anonymous reader writes "A privately employed solar scientist named Pete Riley estimates there's a 12 percent chance of a massive solar storm comparable to the Carrington Event in 1859 which resulted in breathtaking aurorae across the United States and other temperate regions of the globe. The electromagnetic surge from the 1859 event caused failures of telegraph systems across Europe and North America. A similar storm today could knock out power grids, GPS and communication satellites, data centers, transportation systems, and building and plumbing infrastructures and wreak $1 trillion or more of economic damage in the first year alone, according a 2008 report from the National Academy of Sciences."

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Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Bzqz7NVDKfs/one-in-eight-chance-of-a-financially-catastrophic-solar-storm-by-2020

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