Solar storms or coronal mass ejections are known to cause damage to power grids and cause blackouts, but experts believe they could also negatively affect Internet infrastructure and cause a global Internet outage.
NASA
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This was revealed by Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi of the University of California, Irvine, at last week’s SIGCOMM 2021 data communication conference. She revealed, in her research, which although local and regional Internet infrastructure would have a low risk of damage during extreme solar storms, as they mostly use fiber optic cables and are not affected by geomagnetically induced currents. Even short stretches of cable that are susceptible to these storms are grounded regularly, eliminating the possibility of damage.
However, the same cannot be said for submarine cables connecting continents. Although most of these continents are connected by fiber optic cables, repeaters that amplify the current at regular intervals are highly susceptible to failure., and if most of these repeaters on a network are disconnected, it might be enough to create an Internet shutdown in a particular country that relies solely on Internet from submarine cables.
Abdu Jyothi said in a conversation with him ONLINE, “What really made me think about this is that with the pandemic we saw that the world was not ready. There was no protocol to deal with it effectively and it happens with resilience on the Internet. Our infrastructure is not ready for a large-scale solar system. event. We have a very limited understanding of the extent of the damage. “
Read also: The powerful solar storm today can disrupt Earth’s satellite communications
One of the main reasons this fear exists is because of the limited amount of data we have on our hands. The severe solar storms recorded above include those that occurred in 1859, 1921, and the most recent in 1989.
During the event of 1859, there were no power grids as they do today, however, historical literature reveals that storms caused the compass needles to swing uncontrollably and that many saw the aurora borealis, which was only seen at the poles of our planet, in Columbia, at the equator.
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The most recent solar storm in 1989 knocked down Hydro-Quebec’s power grid and caused a nine-hour blackout in northeastern Canada. And after seeing decades-long low-storm activity, experts fear we could soon be about to experience another massive solar storm.
Also read: Sun launched the largest solar flare in four years, causing a brief blackout of the radio on Earth
Abdu Jyothi added: “There are currently no models available on how this could work. We have more knowledge of how these storms would affect energy systems, but that’s all on earth. It’s even harder to predict in the ocean. “
Although Internet connectivity is designed so that if a route fails, it has a way to redirect the network (at the expense of speed) and maintain connectivity. Experts believe that with a massive disruption, most networks could be disconnected, limiting the Internet to create the necessary link.
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