What class CME was the Carrington Event?

A Carrington-class flare (~X45) would have a radiative energy of ~5 · 1032 erg and a combined bolometric plus CME kinetic energy ~2 · 1033 erg.

What happened during the Carrington event of 1859?

The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking from 1 to 2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations.

How likely is a coronal mass ejection?

The frequency of ejections depends on the phase of the solar cycle: from about 0.2 per day near the solar minimum to 3.5 per day near the solar maximum.

What was the Carrington event of 1859?

The Carrington Event of Sept. 1859 was a series of powerful CMEs that hit Earth head-on, sparking Northern Lights as far south as Tahiti. Intense geomagnetic storms caused global telegraph lines to spark, setting fire to some telegraph offices and disabling the ‘Victorian Internet.”

What happened during the Carrington event of 2012?

The Carrington Event took place a few months before the solar maximum, a period of elevated solar activity, of solar cycle 10 . The solar storm of 2012, as photographed by STEREO, was a CME of comparable strength to the one which is thought to have struck the Earth during the 1859 Carrington event.

How much did the Carrington event cost the US?

In June 2013, a joint venture from researchers at Lloyd’s of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) in the United States used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the cost of a similar event in the present to the U.S. alone at US$ 0.6–2.6 trillion, which at the time equated to roughly 3.6% to 15.5% of annual GDP.

Was the Carrington event twice as big as other storms?

Ice core samples have determined that the Carrington Event was twice as big as any other solar storm in the last 500 years. What would be the impact of a similar storm today?