Report: Chance of a Catastrophic Solar Storm Is 1 in 8; Would
Take Down Power Grid, Food Transportation, Water Utilities,
Financial SystemsMarch 8, 2012 By Mac Slavo According to a
recent study published by Space Weather: The International
Journal of Research and Applications, we have roughly a 12%
chance of getting hit with a solar storm so powerful that it
could take down the national power grid and yield catastrophic
consequences for the general population. Pete Riley, a senior
scientist at Predictive Science in San Diego, is the author of
the study which looks at the probability of the occurrence of
extreme weather events: - Probability of a Carrington event
occurring over next decade is ~12% - Space physics datasets
often display a power-law distribution - Power-law distribution
can be exploited to predict extreme events By virtue of their
rarity, extreme space weather events, such as the Carrington
event of 1859, are difficult to study, their rates of occurrence
are difficult to estimate, and prediction