Between Pat Robertson saying he supports the legalization ofmarijuana and Snooki's confirmed pregnancy, the tinfoil hat crowd may beright: maybe the world will end in 2012.

Latest case in point: solar flare. This was theweek that a solar storm struck Earth, an event that some predicted wouldcrash power grids, airplane routes and space-based satellitenavigation systems. So far, nothing much has happened — but thatdoesn't mean it won't.

Scientists at NOAA aresaying that the storm is the strongest event in nearly 6 years,although it just felt like Thursday from where I'msitting.

Still, risk management experts are taking this oneseriously.

Although instances of solar flare affecting technology date backto at least the 19th century–an 1847 solar flare interruptedtelegraph services in Great Britain–probably the bestmodern indicator of what could happen is a solar storm thatstruck on Mar. 13, 1989, taking out the electric grid in Quebec for9 hours, affecting more than 5 million people and costing more than$2 billion, according to a white paper produced by Zurich risk engineers.

Why wasn't the damage more prevalent? “The impact depends onmany risk factors, such as the length and orientation power linesand also the type, design, windings, grounding and age oftransformers,” said A.V. “Rish” Riswadkar, liability lineof business director of Zurich Services Corporation,coauthor of the white paper. “Several transformers on theHydro-Quebec electric grid were affected by the 1989 solar storm,resulting in a cascading domino shutting down the entireelectric grid system. Since the event did not occur during thepeak load demand hours, the power failure did not cascade beyondQuebec into the United States.”

That event was bad enough, but 1989 didn't have all the techbells and whistles we enjoy today. Aren't we even more vulnerabletoday? “Absolutely,” Rish said. “With our total dependence onelectricity and telecommunication in all aspects of our modernlives, we are more vulnerable than ever. If a solar storm event ofthe magnitude of the so-called 'Carrington event' in 1859 were to occur today, it wouldtotally paralyze the life as we know.” (Carrington wasthe Sept. 1, 1859 solar flare believed to be the strongest inhistory.)

“If key transformer assets and the electric power grid aredamaged by the solar storm, it would be a great challenge torestore power,” Rish said. “With no power and no ability tocommunicate, the cascading effects will adversely impact allsectors of our interconnected global economy.”

And unlike earthbound cats, solar weather is hard to predict andnot fully understood by science, even though specializedsatellites (SOHO, SDO, STEREO)allow experts real-time observation and monitoring of solarsurface activity. The satellites provide the tools forsome forecasting and advance warning to take some mitigationmeasures, such as when airlines re-route flights away from thepolar routes during solar storms to avoid exposure.

However, even these sophisticated tools can't forecast thespecific trajectory of impact on the Earth — specifically, whereand how severe the impact will be and which technical systemsit will strike.

This lack of predictability currently makes ensuring solarflares pretty tough. Because there currently are no specificstand-alone solar storm insurance coverages, insurance dependson specific policy terms in the insurance policies for differentlines of business, Rish said.

So is a solar flare as inevitable as Armageddon? It's hard totell, even for the experts. “For this rare but mega-risk with apotential for a global footprint, the costs and the potentialimpact can be so large and unpredictable that the insurance andrisk transfer is not the most practical answer,” Rish said.“Emphasis should be on raising the awareness of this cascading highseverity-low frequency risk and on developing prevention andmitigation measures collectively.”

In other words: Wear sunscreen.