GPS Glitched Across the US by as Much as 33 Feet. Scientists Have Never Seen This Before
In November 2025, a solar superstorm triggered auroras visible across the US, but also caused unprecedented GPS disruptions. Scientists led by Endawoke Yizengaw of The Aerospace Corporation found that strong amplitude scintillation—disturbances in the ionosphere—spanned coast-to-coast, throwing off GPS by over 10 meters in some areas. This scale of mid-latitude disruption has never been observed before, posing risks to precision agriculture and autonomous vehicles.
If the November superstorm onset had occurred during farming season in the American sector, it could have led to significant losses for the American farming and transportation industries.
- chaps
This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to people getting reincarcerated after their electronic monitoring devices mistakenly report them leaving their homes.
Some reporting I did on the topic a few years back: https://chicagoreader.com/news/many-on-house-arrest-in-cook-...
- MarkusQ
TFA article claims: "Indeed, the solar storm of May 2024 is estimated to have cost the US agricultural industry $500 million due to disruptions in precision navigation."
This seems hard to believe. The link provided hand waves through how it maybe could happen, and ends with an Economist just SWAGing that it could have been maybe a dollar an acre or so.
"He estimates that affected farms lost about $1 per acre. Nationally, this equates to an estimated half-billion dollars in lost earning potential, Griffin says."
So yeah, hard to believe was the right call. Very few farms were affected, but if we assume half of the total 900 million acres of farm land were, add 10% to get a round number, and guess it at a dollar per acre, we get the quoted big number.
- f1ay
It seems worth mentioning that the last time GPS had issues like this afaik, it was due to the US utilizing 'selective availability' due to national security issues. We used it somewhat famously during the 9/11 attacks.
Also the page 404's via archive.org, but information formerly from gps.gov can still be found here:
Edit:
The selective availability page moved to
- nwbear90
An interesting warning as Austin is blanketed by Cybercabs. I think a town full of golden driverless cars 33 feet from where they think they should be is terrifying.
- gm678
Related:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500504 Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones (wsj.com) 3 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48606271 Satellite reveals immense scale of GPS signal tampering (space.com) 3 months ago
- 1e1a
Wouldn't RTK help mitigate this, as the base stations would also be affected by the atmospheric disturbance?
- ashleyn
Somehow, Selective Availability returned.
- delta_p_delta_x
*10 metres