At https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/01/still-far-more-worrisome-than-glo… … just noticed this one after visiting Anthony Watts place. Solar physicist Leif Svalgaard informed Anthony of the possibility of a Carrington style event (a large CME in 1859). It could bring down the electricity grid system and damage satellites etc (the same thing that regularly pops up when this sort of event is mentioned and surprisingly given short shrift by some of the commenters). What is worse is what it might do to all the computer data stored in digital format – blown away into the ether. All those health records, financial information, passwords and codes – all blown away in a stream of particles arriving from the Sun.
The article is provided by Anthony (from Leif) and he makes the point this threat is more real than anything that can be laid at the door of CAGW. All that hot air on a problem that may not exist and yet an actual real threat to modern society is studiously ignored by the same people appalled by ordinary people being able to outvote them. There is a rich seam of hypocrisy out there – and oodles of self-righteous useful idiots. The full paper is at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016SW001491/full
It seems a big CME event occurred as recently as 2012 – but blasted into space in a different direction than the earth. Ser https://arixv.org/ab/1302.1501 … as well as the better known ones in 775 and 994AD. See also www.leif.org/research/The-Geo-Response-Extreme-Events.pdf … by Leif Svalgaard. Comments to the Watts piece are goo – and not spoilt by arguments between people with different viewpoints that go on too long with their pet views.