https://www.independent.co.uk/space/solar-storm-cme-internet-apocalypse-b1915462.html
2 different headlines by the UK's The Independent in the last 2 weeks !
Do they like 21 so much?
In New York City, it was from a switch-board at the Brewster station that quickly spread to destroy the whole building, and in Sweden, operators at Karlstad exchange first experienced equipment malfunction and faint smoke, then after a period of quiet the main fire started, leading to extensive equipment damage, studies say.
Similar reports emerged from various parts of the world, including India, the UK, and New Zealand of disturbances in electrical equipment and the then-nascent electric and telegraph wires.
These were due to magnetic fields generated on Earth by one of the biggest solar storms to have impacted the planet – known as the 1921 New York Railroad Storm.
“The effects were in terms of interference to radio communications, telegraph, and telephone systems, all of which were used in 1921,” Jeffrey Love, a Geophysicist in the Geomagnetism Program of the US Geological Survey (USGS), tells The Independent.
Target risk: Public behaviour impacts Risk parameter: No consensus on quantitative parameters at this time, but keep under review.
Rationale: Infrastructure failure following an extreme space weather event may result in behaviours such as public disorder or stockpiling that might be expected in a major crisis.
Suggested worst case: Lack of public awareness/confidence combined with very severe event (widespread power blackouts, major interruptions to GNSS-based services). Worst case duration Several days? Worst case spatial extent All of UK. Similar problems in other affected countries.
**Anticipated effects **
Rejection of scientific understanding in favour of conspiracy / rumour
Reframing of the event with negative consequences for social cohesion
Stockpiling (sometimes called ‘panic buying’)
Millenarianism