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- OTTAWA (CP) -- Save those
sighs of
relief at having survived the Y2K bug, another menace looms: a
surge in
solar winds that could wreak havoc with pipelines, pagers and
power
grids.
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- No
one is urging a rerun of Y2K hysteria, but the coming
peak in the sun's
sunspot cycle is getting lots of attention in the scientific
world.
Some have dubbed it the Year 2001 Problem.
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- Solar winds associated with
sunspots can disrupt Earth's
magnetic shield, causing problems for many
modern technologies, says David
Kendall of the Canadian Space Agency.
"When the sunspots peak there
are more eruptions on the sun, these
eruptions are more violent, and there
is more material which is ejected
into space, and we feel the effects,"
he said in an interview
Wednesday.
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- The solar wind is a stream of electrons, protons and
heavy
ions, which interact with Earth's magnetic field.
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- In January 1994, a geomagnetic
storm destroyed circuits
in the $286-million Anik E-1 satellite,
leaving the craft unable to focus
signals on Earth and causing chaos in
Canadian TV, radio and data transmissions.
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- On March 13, 1987, a magnetic
storm caused the collapse
of the Hydro-Quebec power system, leaving six
million people without electricity
for hours. Many other incidents have
been blamed on rough space weather.
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- David Boteler of the Canadian
Geological Survey said
utilities and corporations are learning from
experience and taking precautions,
but space weather is difficult to
predict.
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- Sunspots -- gigantic storms on the solar surface --
have been
studied almost since the invention of the telescope, but remain
poorly
understood.
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- The cycle of sunspot activity ranges from nine to 13
years, for
an average of 11 years. The current cycle will peak between
2000 and
mid-2002.
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- As technology becomes more sophisticated, vulnerability
to
electromagnetic disturbances increases. For example, automatic bank
machines and pagers rely on satellites.
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- Canada is especially vulnerable
because electromagnetic
storms affect polar regions most. Such
disturbances can dramatically increase
the rate of corrosion on
northern pipelines. "The increasing technological
advances, as
well as the movement of populations northward, has dramatically
increased the susceptibility of the conduct of human affairs to solar
disruptions,"
says N.C. Gerson of the U.S. National Security
Agency, writing in the latest
issue of Physics in Canada. "In
addition to communications, the transport
of power via cable or the
transport of gas via pipe also tend to be adversely
affected."
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- There is an upside to the increase in sunspot action:
Canadians
can look forward to spectacular displays of the northern lights,
caused
by interactions of solar plasma and Earth's atmosphere.
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