Carrington-class events as a great filter for electronic civilizations in the drake equation
Open accessAbstract
The Drake equation is a calculation providing an upper bound on the likely number of intelligent species in our galaxy.In order to reconcile a potentially high occurrence of intelligent extraterrestrial species with the current non-observation of them, we frequently resort to some Great Filter which represents some inevitable, cataclysmic fate (such as nuclear war, pandemic, or asteroid impact) that tends to await enough worlds to negate the expectation that the galaxy ought to be teeming with intelligent life.This paper is intended to examine one potential Great Filter for electronic-based civilizations, the impact of a Carrington-class coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun.Carrington-class CMEs are classified as "once in a century" events caused by our Sun; this appears to place a time limit, following the development of a civilization dependent on electronic devices, either for hardening electronics against the geomagnetically induced currents that result from CMEs or for beginning interplanetary colonization.
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A current-day Carrington Event would likely cause widespread electrical failure and disruption lasting at least multiple months, potentially years.
“A current day Carrington Event would likely lead to widespread electrical failure and disruption for multiple months at minimum, potentially years (Eastwood et al., 2017; Loper, 2019; Ritter et al., 2020).”
From A Fate Worse Than Warming? Stratospheric Aerosol Injection and Global Catastrophic Risk (2021) · cites this paper as Loper, 2019
Section 3, “Potential CME Impacts to an Electronically Dependent Civilization” (page unavailable), identifies power-grid failure and wider disruptions as potential impacts of a Carrington-class event. It reports an estimate that such a grid failure could last four to ten years, supporting the possibility of disruption lasting years. But it describes grid failure as a potential impact, not an outcome that would likely occur, so the claim overstates its certainty. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredAn extreme space weather event could lead to severe economic and infrastructural shocks that make continued SAI deployment infeasible.
“An extreme space weather event could lead to severe economic and infrastructural shocks (Loper, 2019) that make continued SAI deployment infeasible.”
From A Fate Worse Than Warming? Stratospheric Aerosol Injection and Global Catastrophic Risk (2021) · cites this paper as Loper, 2019
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References 27 · Cited by 7
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Yermolaev, Y. I., Lodkina, I. G., Nikolaeva, N. S., & Yermolaev, M. Y. 2018, in Extreme Events in Geospace, ed. N. Buzulukova (Cambridge, MA: Elsevier), 99
- Authors
- Loper, R. D.
- Affiliations
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (US)
- Corresponding author
- Loper, Robert D.
- ORCID
- Loper, Robert D.
- Venue
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2019-03-01
- Volume
- 131
- Issue
- 998
- Pages
- 044202
- ISSN
- 0004-6280 (ISSN-L)
- 1538-3873
- OpenAlex
- W2920048244
- Cited by
- 7
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2
- FWCI
- 0.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution
- Keywords
- Great Filter, Drake equation, solar activity, geomagnetically induced currents, extraterrestrial intelligence
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