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It's not the ache in their joints that tells Mark Engebretson and David Murr the weather's about to change. It's sunspots.
The two physicists at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minn. say a revival of sunspots after an unusually long lull is a signal that it could get stormy above Earth. Stormy enough to mess with electrical grids here below and with Global Positioning Satellite systems and other technology that didn't even exist the last time there was a significant solar outburst.
"It's not too soon to have our technological infrastructure be prepared," said Engebretson, who has taught at Augsburg College for 32 years.
From their unlikely base in the Augsburg Science Building, they monitor what they call space weather -- the flow of radiation and charged particles from the sun to Earth.
Pulses from the sun bring us one of the great spectacles of life in the North: the aurora borealis. But they also bring trouble.
The physicists say a significant "coronal mass ejection" -- a burst of electrons, protons and magnetism from the sun -- could take down electrical power grids and disrupt airline radio communications and routes over the poles.
Also at risk is the nation's GPS system, a technology that has blossomed since the last significant solar peak and is now directing pilots, oil drillers, farmers in the field and wilderness campers.
A widescreen computer is the dominant feature in Engebretson's cubby-like office. There, he and Murr can examine the very face of the sun, as well as simulations of the distortions in Earth's magnetic field that can be caused by geomagnetic storms.
They can digest voluminous data from 20 devices they, students and colleagues from other universities have placed around the near-polar regions of the globe, from Cambridge, Minn., to Scandinavia and Antarctica.
The shoebox-size ground magnetometers measure changes in the Earth's magnetic field. "They're one of the oldest ways to study space, and also one of the cheapest," Engebretson said.
Some geomagnetic storms have been more memorable than others. An 1859 event knocked out the entire U.S. telegraph system. A 1989 storm provided a delightful display of Northern Lights as far south as Cuba but also shorted out the entire Canadian province of Quebec, throwing 6 million people into the dark in only 90 seconds.
The last sunspot peak was 2002, though an isolated flare in 2003 was the fourth most powerful ever recorded, by some measures.
This year is near the time of "solar minimum," the period of least sunspot activity in the 11 years between sunspot peaks.
But recent increases in the number of sunspots that accompany solar flares have space physicists getting ready for surges of flares and coronal mass ejections in about three years.
"Soon we'll start to ramp up and rise to the maximum," noted Terry Onsager, a physicist with the National Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo. "We're excited for it to start happening."
John Kappenman, a Duluth, Minn.-based consultant on geomagnetic storms for utilities and government, is already taking precautions. He said he has stocked up on canned goods, water and batteries.
A geomagnetic storm several times as powerful as 1989's is a distinct possibility over the next 30 years, Kappenman said. That could knock out 50 percent to 70 percent of the U.S. power system, requiring repairs that could take years and threatening basic food and water supplies.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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