The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has forecasting tools which can reveal

when solar storms are heading for Earth.

What is a solar storm?

The huge bursts of energy are composed of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) emitted from
all over the sun’s surface. Although these increase in number roughly every 11 years, synchronized with
the sun’s solar magnetic activity cycle, they’re even more unpredictable than the weather systems on
Earth.

Not all solar storms are created equal. Their composition can vary wildly.

While a solar flare is an explosion of x-rays, energy and extreme-ultraviolet radiation that travels across
space at light-speed, a CME is a massive cloud of slower-moving charged plasma particles emitted from
the sun’s surface. These combine to cause a variety of effects as they bombard the Earth’s ionosphere,
ranging from the visual aurora known as the Northern and Southern Lights to geomagnetic storms that
generate huge surges of electrical current capable and overload power grids and black out entire cities.

Given the potential for such phenomena to disrupt GPS and communications networks, cause radio
blackouts and destroy satellites – it’s thought the solar panels of the $450 million ADEOS II research
satellite may have been knocked out by a solar flare in 2003 – an effective early-warning system isn’t just
an immensely valuable tool, it’s also increasingly necessary, given our reliance on technology and
electrical systems.

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It’s not always just computers or electrical cables are at risk, either. Studies have correlated the arrival of
solar storms with increased incidences of anxiety or sleeplessness in humans. It has been suggested that
the change in magnetic fields may be to blame. Talking to New Scientist in 2008, Kelly Posner, a
psychiatrist at Columbia University, explained: “The circadian regulatory system depends upon repeated
environmental cues to [synchronies its] internal clocks. Magnetic fields may be one of these
environmental cues.”

For those few humans living beyond the protective shield of the earth’s atmosphere, the radiation from
solar flares can have other side-effects. On 4 November 2003, one of the most powerful solar flares ever
registered caused astronauts to cower in the deepest recesses of the International Space Station.
Despite this precaution, it was reported they experienced visual distortions and mild symptoms of
radiation exposure.

The different types of solar storms

Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X according to the peak flux (in watts per square metre). A and
B are the lowest class of flares, ranging up to the more powerful X. On average, X-class solar flares are
thought to occur around 10 times a year, typically during solar maximum (a point when solar activity is at
is highest) rather than solar minimum.

Solar storms themselves are then categorized into three main impacts:

 Solar flares: These are large explosion that take place in the sun's atmosphere. Made of
photons, the flares are "belched" out from the flare site and they only impact Earth when the
flare site is on the side of the sun facing our planet.

 Coronal Mass Ejections: CMEs are "clouds" of plasma and electromagnetic radiation that erupt
from the sun and are carried towards Earth on solar winds.

 Solar wind streams: Solar winds emanate from so-called coronal holes on the sun.

The dangers of solar storms

It is rare that solar flares, CMEs and solar winds cause significant damage to Earth. They need to be
powerful enough, and be on the optimum trajectory, to hit the planet with any force.

When this does happen, solar flares have been linked to damage to satellites, which of course can have a
financial cost, while charged particles can disrupt airlines by disturbing Earth's magnetic field.

When Coronal Mass Ejections strike Earth they cause geomagnetic storms and an increased chance of
seeing the aurora, but can also potentially disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical
systems.

At their worst, X-class flares can cause currents that knock out or disrupt electricity grids and energy
supplies