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Don't panic over those reports that solar storms could cause high-tech disruptions in 2013. But don't ignore them either. That's the word from NASA Headquarters' top guy for solar science.
Concerns about the potential for an unprecedented assault from space were stoked last week by a report in London's Telegraph, warning that a super storm could cause "catastrophic consequencies for the world's health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken."
The warnings focus on the 2012-2013 time frame, because that's when the 11-year solar activity cycle is expected to peak. Back in 2006, solar scientists said the coming peak, known as solar maximum or "solar max," could be 30 to 50 percent stronger than the last one, based on a computer model that looked at how plasma circulates between the sun's equator and its poles.
Since then, additional reports have added to the concern: In 2008, a National Academy of Sciences study said a severe geomagnetic storm could cause $2 trillion in damage and require as much as a decade of recovery time. In comparison, the damage estimate for Hurricane Katrina is a mere $80 billion or so.
Amid all the hype about a 2012 Maya apocalypse, there's been increasing talk about the potential for a solar superstorm on the scale of 1859's "Carrington event," which shorted out telegraph wires, sparked fires and set off auroral displays as far south as Cuba. The fear is that the damage would be more severe in this world of GPS navigation, satellite communications and mobile devices.
The Telegraph's article quoted Richard Fisher, the head of NASA's Heliospheric Division at the space agency's Washington headquarters, as saying that a superstorm would "cause major problems for the world."
"It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigation, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic," he told the Telegraph.
When I caught up with Fisher, his forecast was less dire, and less definite: He told me it's far too early to say just how strong the next solar maximum will be. In fact, some experts are now predicting that the intensity will be well below average, based on the fact that the sun has been unusually quiet in recent years.
"The next maximum is anticipated to be somewhere around the lowest ever seen to a little bit higher than the highest that's ever been seen," Fisher said half-jokingly. "I think it was Yogi Berra who said ... the problem with predictions is that they all take place in the future."
But Fisher doesn't joke about the need to be prepared for the potential disruptions caused by space weather. A bad solar storm could easily have a negative impact on everyday life. For example, air traffic over the North Pole has increased dramatically since the previous solar maximum in 2001. If severe geomagnetic storms were to sweep past Earth, those flights would have to be shifted farther south to guard against communication disruptions. This year's Icelandic ash mess suggests how a situation like that might affect global travel and commerce.
"It has a fairly large economic impact on an airline if you have to divert an airliner," Fisher noted.
Fortunately, the methods for predicting space weather have improved over the past decade or two. Satellites such as the Advanced Composition Explorer can spot the signs of a geomagnetic storm up to an hour before it hits our planet, providing valuable lead time for power grid operators. (A space storm in 1989 sparked a nine-hour electrical blackout in Quebec, affecting 6 million customers and costing the power company more than $10 million.) Other observing instruments, which measure seismic activity originating on the far side of the sun, can provide a couple of weeks of warning about active sunspot regions.
So how bad does Fisher think things can get in 2013?
"I think there's a relatively high probability that there will be a solar event that will have some effect over hours to tens of hours. That's pretty high in the next 10 years," he told me. "I think that it's a low probability but a very high-impact circumstance for a large solar event that disrupts infrastructure for periods of longer than a day or two."
He doesn't advise preparing for Armageddon, but he does suggest that you have an emergency supply of food, water and the other things you need to weather a disaster. Which is good advice whether or not a superstorm hits in 2013.
"In modern life, you want to understand how vulnerable you are," Fisher said. "A good big winter storm will knock out the local power delivery for hours to a day or two. I keep a little water around the house in case that situation happens. There are alternate systems for providing power to hospitals, critical records and things like that. I think it'll be inconvenient, as opposed to ... well, not necessarily deadly, for goodness' sake."
Update for 9:15 p.m. ET: Just how vulnerable are our satellite-based communication systems to outbursts from the sun? For another perspective on the superstorm hype, I checked with Joseph Mazur, associate director of the space science department at The Aerospace Corp.
"At Aerospace, when we're working with our national security customers and commercial customers and even NASA, we're really focused on the space systems working throughout the extremes of the space environment," Mazur said. "So we do our work before the spacecraft is launched."
The Aerospace Corp. works with satellite builders and operators to make sure their spacecraft can stand up to the worst-case scenario for space weather. That scenario is based on previous observations, and not on hypothetical speculation about how bad things might have gotten in 1859. "There's not much information about what the specific hazards were like for that event. ... In mission design, there is currently no way to account for an event that exceeds the previous worst case," Mazur said.
Mazur wanted to clear up a couple of misconceptions about outbursts from the sun: First of all, he said, "I really have a problem with the whole phrase 'solar storm,' because in the public literature, it connotes something that comes from the sun. ... The problem is that you can't just put all of space weather into one term." In reality, space weather takes in a spectrum of phenomena - ranging from outbursts of radio interference that travel at the speed of light, to eruptions of electrically charged particles that take more than an hour to reach Earth and interact with our planet's magnetosphere.
Another misconception is that space weather events occur only at solar max. "Impacts from the space environment aren't really correlated with the solar cycle very well. ... What we try to advise our customers is that there are space environment hazards that are there all the time," he said. "Some occur with higher probablility in the years around solar maximum, but nobody really plans their missions around the sunspot number."
In fact, a significant geomagnetic event occurred just a couple of months ago, in April. Was there any impact on satellites? "There may have been," Mazur said. "There's nothing I can tell you in this forum. It was an enhancement of the environment that we haven't seen for a number of years, since December of 2006."
Bottom line? Once again, it pays to be prepared, in 2010 just as much as in 2013.
The lead federal agency for space weather is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency that has the National Weather Service under its wing as well. Click on over to the Space Weather Prediction Center to find out what's up, learn how a G4 storm is different from an R4, and sign up for e-mail alerts. Another must-see website is SpaceWeather.com, which provides solar activity updates as well as fantastic pictures of sights in the sky.
Join the Cosmic Log corps by signing up as my Facebook friend or hooking up on Twitter. And if you really want to be friendly, ask me about "The Case for Pluto."
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Good story on solar flares, sucks trying to get attention comparing it to dooms day sayers. B.S..
At the very most, all that will happen is that all the nut cases will come out to warn us of the end of the earth,[Again.] Remember the year 2000 when every computer on earth was to crash? Never happened! Every year something is to end life on earth. It's been that way forever. It was every time before and still is today 100% bull. drug thru the streets by fear happy nut cases. Oe day we will look back at just how nuts times are. Like the Salem trials. or the days of Hitler. Nope the sky is not falling Heney Penny!!!
"There's always an Archelion Battlecruiser or Intergalactic Deathray or something about to end life on this miserable little planet, it's just that they just don't KNOW about it" Men in Black the movie
What about the guy who passed all the psychological profiles and suddenly snaps in the red button room?
Y2k computer disaster never happened because thousands of people all over the world worked to re-program the computer systems. An averted disaster is not the same as never having a problem.
If the techies can put the fix on our antiquated power grid in time, or turn it off when the warning comes-then you can keep watching your cartoons and pretend nothing happened. Just don't go out in the sun without your hat on, or make statements about things for which you have no knowledge.
Somebody should check in with the Mayan leaders. They don't think their calender is about doomsday at all. In fact, their view is more optimistic than this article. The article doesn't tell me any more than, it might not be/but it could be/we really do not know. I personally think we are in for more surprises from the sun and other cosmic forces. And no, I don't think most of us will be prepared, but that is human nature. Prepare enough not to be afraid. That is what science tells me.
Yes, that's the bottom line... And it's clear that this solar cycle has nothing to do with the Maya or any of those woo-woo predictions. Here's more about that Maya angle:
Even the Maya are getting sick of 2012 hype
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33261483/
Jerry
No way to check with the Mayan Leaders, they were wiped out by the spaniards in the 1500's. But we can check with historians and archeologists.
2012 is the end of what Mesoamericans (which include Mayans, Zapotec, Mixtec, Toltec and Aztec civilizations among others) call the long count. This has happened 5 times before in their own counts and each was called the "Creation of a new Sun". Does not ever mean the "End of Times" "Apocalypsis Now" or whatver Doomsday Prophets want to call it.
I read yesterday that scientists are surprised by the decrease in solar spots since this is a "calm" that was not expected in the aformentioned 11 year cycles.
There appearts to be some knowledgable people on here, any opinions?
to m Green yes it is a solar cycle that is smaller than the previous two and we survived them quite well , yes a solar flare is possible and the last one that was really big happen in the mid 1800's and we even survived that one and to all the doom sayers about 2012 , the Maya did not say the world would end just that we would enter into another cycle as a lot of other religious and philosophical beliefs also say , not annilation of the human race or destruction of the world , just the beginnings of another cycle
Dale may i laugh so hard because if that's true we need mental check. lmao. maybe we need to stop buying into every thing we're told and look into the hard fact like you. before we spread the word of the dead line of the world. i believe it will be like Y2k it's just something starting over again without even a whisper of i told you so. by the time we meet that doom clock. a good amount of us be on the moon because if you check these msn articals. we mite have found water. yep think about in a thousand year we will at least know some more solar sytems then our own. if i'm wrong about this who cares we're all crispy bacon in a pan anyway. so there's my thoughts on the matter.
CMEs are just a fact of nature, it is a wonder we don't have a technique to use them in helping discern exoplanets!!....As a ham (N3TWU), note that this coming weekend is field day, your local ham club most likely will set up a remote site, invite the public (always good food!), and operate amature radio communications for 24 hours straight....In the event of an emergency that disrupts normal emergency channels (yes, cellphones for example,digital radios 2)...you may very well find amature radio operators pitching in to help!!.....some scientists do say sol a-periodically tosses out a devastating wave of energy, others not so much so...as a computer scientist, I myself despise computer controlled vehicles, the toy pickup I currently drive has one transistor, and one only to fail!!...the voltage regulator on the alternator, in a pinch a paperclip would solve a no go situation!!...I have always wondered how many teslas it would take to disrupt modern technology and hope we only ever know via NRL's high energy controlled lab experiments....in the meantime...aluminum hats ain't gonna help, el contrar!! (think baked potato)...and solar events are not neccesarily electrons at hi E...protons and by-products are part of the equation too!!..something not as considered as one would hope....gamma ray bursts immediatly pop to mind!...these are not as cool as they sound (multiple puns intended)...anyways, surely this ain't it folks...unlike our forefathers who may have climbed out side the cave to look at the pretty lights, most of modern society would most likely stay in their condo's oblivious to stellar events (much as today...yea another jab, so what)...providing the sats for tv get moved aside that is, If we start now the grid will not be finished in time (murpheys law #113)...in fact, just like modern hiway construction, would never be finished, but that is a seperate issue...between now and whenever CME-MAXIMUS occurs, there will be a lot of books written, please buy someone else's book(s) instead!!...don't encourage them...as well, I can think of at least two movies feeding the buzz now...if hollywood does not have more lined up, well then (metaphor too silly to print)...(I take that back)..I'll back a silly asteriod mission as the best possible use of Americas hard won space superiority!!..that'll be a cold day in haites...literally....knowing that the real issue of the bermuda triangle is a weak spot in earths magnetic field allowing protons to reach the surface, maybe it could be a cold day in haiti!!...but doom?...not likely.....we got it all over them fishes, so the whales and dolphins can keep on dreaming, they had their day...doomsday?...not worried, got 12au6's, plenty of water and some canned tuna...keep the laptop charged and a few sol cells and the c# programmers guide...I should be ok for a few hours....now if you said VOGANS?...yea, that could be a little dicey.....schultz is right, I never bought into that y2k stuff, tried telling people that most computers don't give a darn about the day....most had to see it to believe it though....those few systems that did have issues usually had other issues the programmer had been patching for J-security.....now the astronauts on the iss and those who may supposedly be on their way to Ceres?? (lol, really...LOL)...they may have a problem....I wish I wish I had a way to acquire and correlate data on the new vasimirs recently installed on Iss....maybe a partial solution exists there!...ionized xenon plasma umbrellas?..sounds iffy, maybe we can all get rich selling terra firmians the replacement to the tin foil taupe...ehhe...In the meantime..GET those astronauts some BORON SHEILDING and some STRONGER ELECTROMAGNETS!!!
RELAX RAY,
take a breath bro! I got the 42 thing. But what you do not understand is 42 may be right! Buy extra water and watch out for your family guy. I am not doomsayer either. And please have a beer or something!
9 out of 10 commenters say the 10th one should really chill the @!$%# out. partan my french but yea i agree with morrito here. plus if you think it's the end. live every day like your last "go sky diving. rocky moution climbing..."i forgot the rest of the words. the point is chill out stop worrying and just live your life ignore the dooms day talk. if your healthy and breathing stop worrying and if you have a cold stay home. if your obessed over it get medical help really there's enough crazy people on the streets with signs we don't need anonther one with a doom sign.
Nice pic
stop this nonsense. i am of mayan and nahuan descent, and i know about these prophecies, my ancestors who devised the calendar said there would be change and spoke in parables just like the bible speaks in parables. so things should not be taken out of context and overblown!!! what is the fascination of western society and doomsday????? they talked about it during the 1st millenium, then the 2nd millenium and then during 9/11, etc. stop swallowing garbage written by sensationalists i hate these new agers and these people that disrespect our culture and traditions and create hype in order to make money!!!!!!
I do so agree with you masat! I do believe it is a cultural inability to relax and contemplate, the complexities of life, the universe and everything have no sum. you will never be able to quantify them in a single equation. Although if we could that would be awesome in some ways, but in some ways not! That would remove free will and love. For if you actually could quantify that,we all would be doomed. That is why I say it is NOT 42 but 37! (this will keep them going for years! He he he!)
agreed. Who can predict the behavior of anything so random as our Sun. With millions and millions of random nuclear explosions happening on it daily. They say we are 93 million miles from the sun. Who measured this? For all we know we can be locked in a deteriorating orbit around the sun with no escape. There are things in this world that the human mind is incapable of figuring out and the sun is probably one of them
morrito i want to be your best friend because i'm loving your logic.
Bruce, what do you think about Fibonacci then?
How ever the ancient Mayans discovered or were shown by a ET or enlightened individual the cycles of time, I seriously doubt modern 'mayans' have that knowledge, no-how or fully grasp those concepts. It is rather one of the greatest crimes against humanity for the christian leaders and their puppet soldiers to have destroyed such a great deal of that ancient knowledge, slaughter the people and loot their hertiage and belongings. The beginning of a new great cycle was mathematically predicted by the Mayans, later day scientists have confirmed the accuracy of the ancient Mayan measurements. If there were recorded history on the previous start of the great cycle many thousands of years ago, it appears to have been destroyed. With the greatly accelerated discovery's and movement in the previous century, I'm hopeful the next great cycle will be very positive and beneficial.
Nonetheless and closer to the point in this article. Two very highly regarded spiritual and extremely psychic individuals in modern times (Edgar Cayce, Franz Bardon) both independently made the same observation, during periods of Solar Max, war's broke out. It also seemed that such period's amped the stress and violence in the human race. There are already two wars ongoing, although they should be largely wound down by the time the next Solar Max peaks. There seems to already be plenty of violence across the world, however that also seems to have gone down the last two years.
Richard Dawkins, please call your office.
uuum point maker "can anyone count how many wars have we fought over the life span of man kind" i think it's spread over thousand and thousand of years ago in a galaxy of our own. really we have record of wars so far back and so spread out. we forget how violence we really are and all for different reasons. we don't have record for all the wars in the world but if we did library of congress wouldn't find room for it all. and stress levels my god! think about how many intern in companys around the USA who think of homasidalthoughts about the chain of blame in there jobs every day. yet you mostly hear about drive-bys. case and point.
masat,
I would wish to converse with you, at your pleasure , I respect your house.
NASA predicted the liklihood of a Carrington event, not an Aztec harmonic convergence. Carrington observed and reported on the worldwide burning of telegraph wires as a result of solar flares in 1859.
The great Canada, New york Blackout .
They could be one and the same. Granted . I however will not run screaming from the streets just yet... however I think you should always stock up on food and water . That is always good advice my dear.
Dear mister A Smith,
It seems you have calmed down a little, but contrary to popular belief, the Mayans are all around us. You may work with one, dear sir. What you do not understand is social etiquette. Instead of rampaging for gold, how about actually hearing what they have to say? wow! what a concept! I for one will listen with an objective mind dear sir.
I meant what I said Marat,
It would be my pleasure to converse with you upon this subject. I know it is irritating to the extreme,but I promise my house to yours, I shall remain calm. With utmost respect dear sir.
We arrived early to take over this planet, I have all my army waiting to inslave you waist of human kind. NOT the end but the begining of harsh treatment for this race! space man Ortuz signing off
We are doom. The world is coming to an end. What´s happening right now is the begining of the end. Planet earth will be inhospitable by the year 6666. Yea that´s it. That´s my prediction. Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja
It's all a matter of odds. The sun has the potential to wipe out civilization but the odds of it happening anytime soon are really small. I could win the lottery but the odds are really small. La Palma could fall apart and wipe out the U.S. east coast but the odds.... Earth could encounter a gamma ray burst and get fried but the odds....
Wanna worry about something real and inevitable? Try global warming. It's here, it's real, it's happening and there's apparently nothing we can do to stop Wall St and the carbon companies from killing us. Want something more immediate? A nuclear event can generate an EMP big enough to fry all your solid state toys, your car, your phone, your ac. Instant anarchy. The list goes but the sun's not even in the top ten.
They can't even predict hurricanes accurately - and we all know that 2013 (see the 13) plus 5 become 2018 - and 18 divided by 3 equals 6 - that's three sixes - 666. Didn't see that one did you? Uh oh!... that's not what I wanted to prove - darn it! What year was the world going to end... again!?!?!?
Good One!!
just wait till the lord comes back and then talk, i mean the ones in the first resurection, pitty those in the second, just wait.
wait till the lord comes and settles this
No need to worry about the end of the world. The activities of the human animal will cause its elimination long before the end of our planet. We are well on our way.
Oh well, off to the grindstone people. Have a blessed day.
The Earth will be here regardless of what we do, unless we reduce it to a smodering sphere of ash the earth will recover, it is us, the human species that will end not the planet.
The whole save the planet slogan is a load of crap, it should be save humanity because regarless of what we do to the planet it will recover and heal itself in a extremely short time in geological terms.
What is funny if for all our supposed superior acheivements after a couple thousand years or so there would be very little left. After 10 thousand years, the planet owuld be virtually clear of all our creations.
The moon would be the place that the things we have built would stil lbe standing.
Time will erase proof of our existance if we become extinct.
I really don't see possible an end to the human species. Decline, perhaps, but extermination, how exactly (aside from a catastrophic event where the whole planet and the underground becomes completely uninhabitable) ? Also, you are optimistic when you say that humans cannot do real, lasting damage to the planet. They can, and they do every day. There is no guarantee that this transformation will ever cease, so it will never heal.
You are thinking in Human terms, the only way mankind can do unhealable damage to the planet is if we exterminate all life (that means microbial simple celled organisms ect) If we dont the earth will change yes but it will recover and a different or new ecosystem will replace the old.
But the damage we do will never be forever, if we were to launch all our nukes in 100-200 thousand years that planet would recover.
Time my friend when you measure it by geological time, not human understanding will heal anything. It will be changed, different or whatever but then thats the nature of our planet.
The planet and life will still be here.
But never say never when it comes to mankind exterminating themselves, or nature doing it.
nature? didin't the do-do bird die off and panda's stop reproducing? really are we to blame for every thing. blame your fore-fathers why don't you? you known as the cavemen who made fire. because if it wasn't for fire we wouldn't made steal to chop down trees to make house ,then make skycrapers and apartment complexe. and to send nasa to the moon in big metal tubes. which probably helped with the idea of platic and computer chips which are in your computer right now. so if you would like to comment on mankind exterminating themselves. remember your man your on a computer and your helping so please go on. i love to hear. case and point.
So what they're saying is don't panic... but panic? Seriously, though, our man-made satellites are HUGE points of vulnerabilities for our modern worldwide society. Are our satellites really secure from the things that threaten them most? And if a large majority of them are put out of commission, is there any emergency response plan to replace them or will we be set back ten, even twenty, years? If every satellite humans put up just stopped working tomorrow, where would we be?
I remember the blackout of the 60's.It blacked out the eastern seaboard as well as canada.Well folks we made it thru that one and the next one that is coming.Do put up some non perishible foods and water because it will take longer to get the power on this time as we have more of an infrastructure.Don't panic-THINK!
masat, i think the fasination with doomsday starts with the death (or the lack of not knowing). You see, for as long as time and events have been recorded, one thing remains constant; we don't know what happens after we die. Some religons have tried to give us ideas and hope, however no true answer. Also, concerning western civilization, I think its more the fear of no salvation before the end. People want to have some kind of idea when the end will come, why? Maybe there worried that they have strayed so far from there beliefs that if they knew when it will all come to an end, they would have enough time to repent and save there souls. In truth, you are supposed to live every day rightously, that way you have no worries when the time comes. So, instead of worring about the end, live your life the way it is intended to be lived, do right by your fellow man, and insure that you are right with your lord!
Mans fasination with Doomsday is nothing more then mans obcession with Drama, just look at TV, Movies, and Gossip.
By the way not everyone believes in the Lord, I believe in God but I am a Deist not a Christian.
Everyone has to find their own truth, if that is God, Jesus, Allah, Buddah, or what ever other deity is out there. If it fills your heart and is right for you then do as you will as long as it doesnt harm another.
But spiritual growth (and I am talking about having a positive impact on those around you not religion) as a species is all important.
i think it's more of our mortality that fasinates us.
Live in fully the Present Moment. That is how we enter into Eternity. That is what Jesus was trying to tell us, and all the great Spiritual Leaders before and after Him. And love your neighbor, meaning your fellow human being, not just the guy who votes like you or looks like you or speaks your language. If we can master the Art of Loving, everything else will take care of itself.
Its very funny but concerning that so many of you think this is all just a bunch of hype, Solar storms have happened before and they'll happen again, maybe weak, maybe strong, thats what they dont know. I know one thing though, ive got my 500 pounds of rice and 2000 bottles of water, with all the other goodies needed to outlive most of you if there ever was a catastophre, plus the 500 acres of prime hunting grounds in the quachita mnts will do nicely, thanks pops for thinking ahead. LOL
Not if I come take it from you hehe ;)
It does not matter what the percentages are.
The Gulf Oil Spill proves that Profits are king and pre-planning will never happen in today's Greedy Business World. Companies would much rather cry "This is unprecedented" after the fact. BP could have used pre-plannning to avoid the horrible consequences in the Gulf, but they are greedy and don't care. Other countries with preplanned safety precautions in place would have stopped this mess already and probably haven't had the failure in the first place for the same reason.
Our interconnected world by way of electronics IS totally at risk to he Sun's powerful storms. These massive shut downs ARE possible. But unless a Lawyer Sues the Sun for a corporation or one corporation sues another for not telling it the truth about the sun, forget it. The whole possibility will be ignored because the cost of preparation might reduce dividends and bonuses & produce jobs that must stay in America.
Greed is an understatement when it comes to subjects like this. Gluttonous fits better.
greed and stupidity is all