{"id":20525,"date":"2016-05-08T08:17:38","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T13:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20525"},"modified":"2016-05-08T08:17:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T13:17:38","slug":"ottawa-scientists-prepare-for-disruptive-solar-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20525","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa scientists prepare for disruptive solar weather"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ottawa scientists prepare for disruptive solar weather<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

A tsunami of solar particles could wreak havoc on planet earth<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Solar<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Solar flares on the surface of the sun. (Natural Resources Canada)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If the threats of climate change, a pandemic or nuclear war haven’t given you enough to worry about, how about solar weather?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Large-scale eruptions on the surface of the sun can create solar-particle waves that damage satellites and disrupt power grids \u2014 not to mention the GPS in your car.<\/p>\n

\"Space<\/p>\n

Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre at Natural Resources Canada are testing for the potential of a solar flare hitting the earth. (Steve Fischer\/CBC)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Scientists at the Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre are now preparing for the next big event.<\/p>\n

At their command centre near the Mer Bleue Conservation Area in Ottawa, scientists are using an array of highly specialized instruments to test for geomagnetic activity.<\/p>\n

Heightened levels are an indicator of solar flares and their evil twin, Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs.<\/p>\n

CMEs cause extensive damage<\/strong><\/p>\n

CMEs are massive eruptions on the surface of the sun that send a tsunami of particles into the solar system \u2014 and can dramatically change the earth’s magnetic field once they arrive here.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, a CME in 2012 missed earth but others have hit here with disastrous effects.<\/p>\n

The biggest CME on record to strike our planet came in August 1859, creating an aurora so bright you could read a newspaper by it at night across much of North America.<\/p>\n

Within minutes the event caused extensive damage to the telegraph system, the only large scale telecommunications network at the time.<\/p>\n

Now our dependence on electricity and satellite-based navigation systems make the world, and Canada\u00a0much more vulnerable to\u00a0CMEs.<\/p>\n

Canada especially vulnerable<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ottawa scientists prepare for disruptive solar weather A tsunami of solar particles could wreak havoc on planet earth Solar flares on the surface of the sun. (Natural Resources Canada) If the threats of climate change, a pandemic or nuclear war haven’t given you enough to worry about, how about solar weather? Large-scale eruptions on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[103,3000,3938,604,1574,13779,13778,13777,13776,13775],"class_list":["post-20525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-canada","tag-cbc-news","tag-natural-resources-canada","tag-ottawa","tag-power-grid","tag-satellites","tag-solar-flares","tag-solar-particles","tag-solar-weather","tag-steve-fischer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20526,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20525\/revisions\/20526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}