Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

The present paper considers prospects for a future global shock caused by an extreme geomagnetic storm and its effect on critical infrastructure for electrical power and satellite-enabled communications, navigation, and monitoring. Following a brief review of the phenomenon and selected risk assessment examples, the paper describes a ―worst reasonable case‖ scenario, potential consequences, and the current state of efforts to mitigate vulnerabilities and consequences. Many such efforts are operational measures relying on adequate warning. In addition to operational and infrastructure hardening measures, mitigation opportunities exist in the form of international cooperation to address critical ―bottlenecks‖ in the replacement of extra high-voltage transformers