Geomagnetic storms are temporary disturbances of Earth's magnetosphere. They are caused by solar wind shock waves or clouds of magnetic field interacting with the Earth's magnetic field. A severe geomagnetic storm could potentially shut down power grids on a continental scale for months.^[1]

Further reading

Roodman, David (2015a) Geomagnetic storms: using extreme value theory to gauge the risk, Open Philanthropy, July 13.

Roodman, David (2015b) Geomagnetic storms: an introduction to the risk, Open Philanthropy, June 29.

Roodman, David (2015c) Geomagnetic storms: history’s surprising, if tentative, reassurance, Open Philanthropy, July 2.

Roodman, David (2015d) Coming down to earth: what if a big geomagnetic storm does hit?, Open Philanthropy, August 21.

Related entries

global catastrophic risk

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Open Philanthropy (2015) Geomagnetic storms, Open Philanthropy, July.