'Space storms' will cause 'widespread power cuts' and cripple phones, satellites and railway signals

Mail Online  02.10.2013

Britain is facing crippling power cuts sparked by space storms that could scramble signals used in mobile phones, railways and satellites. The Earth is beginning an 11-year peak in solar activity which a report claims could wipe out power at any moment.

Massive increases in the numbers of sunspots are expected to cause changes in the Earth's ionosphere, the shell of plasma at the top of our atmosphere. There are fears because the current generation of satellite navigation technology has never experienced a 'solar max', and changes in the ionosphere could cause problems with GPS and other signals from space.

The effect on radio systems includes signal delay – a major problem factor for satnav, where ranging is based on timing accurate to a billionth of a second – and signal-scattering ‘scintillations’ rendering the signal unstable. Tom Bolt, of insurance company Lloyd's, said: 'Space storms are not science fiction — they can affect everything from hospitals to banking,' The Sun reported.


But scientists are gearing up for the fierce solar storms by setting up a worldwide chain of monitoring stations to study the so-called 'solar maximum'. The solar maximum is the period of greatest solar activity in the Sun's 11-year cycle. The Sun's magnetic field lines are the most distorted at this time due to the magnetic field on the solar equator rotating at a slightly faster pace than at the solar poles

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