Scientists warn that solar storms could cause railway accidents in the coming decades

Space weather, changes in the atmosphere that include energy emissions from the Sun, are factors that greatly affect communications and electrical grids on Earth. Many scientists have warned of the potential effects of solar storms on our planet’s communications and energy networks, but now a group of researchers warn that the effects may extend to rail traffic.

Scientists at Lancaster University in the UK have created models of how geomagnetic currents caused by solar storms affect railway signaling systems. We looked at two major British train lines, the West Coast Main Line and the Glasgow-Edinburgh line, which rely heavily on signals (there are over 50,000, all connected to the same system).

The study found that changes in the space atmosphere caused by solar storms affect railway signal circuits, being able to modify them, which could lead to train collisions and other railway accidents. Models indicate that the impacts could occur several times per decade, and in the coming years, according to the Independent.

“Crucially, our research suggests that space weather is able to flip the signal in either direction, turning a red signal into green or a green signal into red. This is obviously very important from a security point of view,” explains Cameron Patterson. , one of the responsible researchers.

“By building a computational model of the signal circuits using realistic specifications and parameters for the various components of the system, we discovered that space weather events are capable of causing failures in these signal circuits, and that such failures are expected in the UK every few days for decades,” the investigator summarized.

In 1859, the world experienced what was called the “Carrigton Event,” where the impact of a solar storm was enough to stop telegraph signals. But we don’t have to go back in time: In 2003, the Swedish city of Malmö suffered a power grid blackout due to the same space weather event.