A solar storm like the Carrington Event could knock out the Internet
www.astronomy.com
A geomagnetic storm on the scale of the Carrington Event could potentially knock out the backbone of the Internet.

Spoiler - though they were both G5 storms, they weren’t really that comparable.

Also, big as the Carrington Event was, it’s likely it was absolutely dwarfed by one about a millennium ago, the Miyake Event

  • @towerful
    20•28 days ago

    Trees!
    Trees store lots of environmental and atmospheric data in their trunks. When they get fossilized a lot of that information remains intact.
    Also, ice cores. Layers of ice protect previous layers of ice from further contamination, so are a pretty good snapshot of the environment/atmosphere at a given point in time.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/67074940

    Wiki has more detailed information on how Miyake Events are “stored” in trees and ice cores.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyake_event