ANN ARBOR,Mich.—On Sept. 1, 1859, the Earth was immersed in a magnetic storm the likes of which could cause a power outage equal or greater than the Aug. 14, 2003 blackout. Aware of the threat such storms present to modern, technological society, scientists, supported by federal programs, have worked persistently for a decade to improve forecast tools that predict their occurrence thereby enabling warnings to lessen the impact.

On Oct. 2-3 space scientists from around the world will gather at the University of Michigan Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences Department for a two-day workshop where they will test the accuracy of these forecasting tools by applying them to the great 1859 “Carrington Storm.” The event is open to the public.

“If we can get this one right,” says Tamas Gombosi, chair of the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences at U-M and organizer of the workshop, “we have a good chance of getting the next big one right.”

Compared to the large space storms, known as superstorms, which occurred during the recent solar cycles, the 1859 storm was ten times stronger. At that time, aurora, commonly called northern lights, were seen as far south as Rome and Havana and it disrupted telegraph communication, then an indispensable technology, world-wide.

Workshop attendees include Michael Heinemann of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Y. Kamide, Director of Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory at the University of Nagoya in Japan, Vytenis Vasyliunas, director of Max-Planck Institute for Aeronomy in Germany, and Richard Wolf, professor emeritus, Physics and Astronomy Department at Rice University, as well as other representatives from the space industry and academia.

Other workshop organizers are Aaron Ridley, associate research scientist at U-M and George Siscoe, former chair of the Department of Atmospheric Science at UCLA.

What is now known as the Carrington Event or Carrington Storm was observed when Astronomer Richard Carrington, a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, observing spots on the sun through a telescope, made the first-ever observation of a white-light flare—a huge explosion erupting on the solar surface. The explosion observed by Carrington signaled the ejection from the sun of an interplanetary hurricane directed at Earth. Approaching at 5 million miles per hour, it struck 18 hours later and immersed the planet in the biggest magnetic storm ever recorded.

The workshop will be held at the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences Auditorium, Space Research Laboratory, 2455 Hayward St. The Space Research Laboratory is on North Campus.

North Campus Map

For more information, contact Tamas I. Gombosi at (734) 764-7222 or tamas@umich.edu.

Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences Department