Solar Maximum

by mind blown 25 Replies latest social current

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  mind blown

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VVYb-snvJ8

  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/taste-solarmax.html

  Forecasters say Solar Max is due in the year 2013. When it arrives, the peak of 11-year sunspot cycle will bring more solar flares, more coronal mass ejections, more geomagnetic storms and more auroras than we have experienced in quite some time.
  
  On the weekend of July 14, 2012, sky watchers around the world got a taste of things to come.
  
  › View animated model
  Click on this image to view an experimental NASA computer model of the incoming CME, predicting its arrival at Earth on July 14, 2012. Credit: Goddard Space Weather Lab It was mid-Saturday in North America when a coronal mass ejection or "CME" crashed into Earth's magnetic field and triggered the most sustained display of auroras in years. For more than 36 hours, magnetic storms circled Earth's poles. Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into the United States as far south as California, Colorado, Kansas, and Arkansas. In the southern hemisphere, skies turned red over Tasmania and New Zealand, while the aurora australis pirouetted around the South Pole.
  
  The source of the CME was giant sunspot AR1520, a seething nest of tangled magnetism more than 15 times wider than Earth itself. On July 12, 2012, the sunspot's magnetic field erupted, producing an X-class solar flare and hurling a billion tons of electrified plasma toward our planet.
  
  NASA’s twin STEREO probes and the European Space Agency’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory monitored the CME as it billowed away from the sun. Using those data, analysts at NOAA and NASA successfully predicted the cloud’s arrival time. It would take almost two full days for the CME to cross the 93 million mile void between Earth and sun.
  
  The CME’s impact sharply compressed Earth's magnetosphere, briefly exposing geosynchronous satellites to solar wind plasma. The shaking of Earth's magnetic field caused compass needles to swing--just a little--and prompted electrical currents to flow through the soil at high latitudes. Fortunately, the strike did no harm; satellites survived and power grids stayed online.
  
  Next came the light show. As the CME's wake washed across Earth, the polar regions of our planet lit up like a Christmas tree. Red, green, blue and purple auroras capped both ends of the planet, glowing, dancing, and ultimately spreading to places where auroras are seldom seen.
  
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  This view of the aurora and the planetary conjunction was witnessed in Colorado. Image courtesy of Robert Arn. › View larger
  Aurora over Arkansas. Image courtesy of Brad Emfinger.
  
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  Aurora at the South Pole Amundsen-Scott research station. Image courtesy of Robert Schwarz.
  
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  Aurora as seen in Wisconsin. Image courtesy of John Welling. In Arkansas, for instance, "there was a faint glow off and on for most of the night," reports Brad Emfinger from a little town called Ozark. "Around 3am there was an outburst of red and purple plainly visible to the naked eye." (photo right, top)
  
  In Pawnee Grasslands, Colorado, photographer Robert Arn saw the Northern Lights for the first time ever: "As soon as I stepped out of the car, the sky looked like it was on fire. Then the Moon, Venus and Jupiter rose together in the east. To see the conjunction and the auroras side-by-side was incredible!" (photo above)
  
  Meanwhile at the other end of the planet, "auroras were going crazy over the South Pole," reports Robert Schwarz at the Amundsen-Scott south pole research station "We enjoyed the show under crystal clear skies with an air temperature of minus 105 degrees F." (photo right, center)
  
  In Ashland, Wisconsin, on the other hand, John Welling watched the show in his shirt sleeves: "Tonight was absolutely the best with a comfortable temperature of +78 degrees F and Northern Lights dancing overhead. The X-flare definitely lived up to the hype." (photo, right, bottom)
  
  From one end of the planet to the other, spanning more than 90 degrees of combined north-south latitude, 183 degrees of temperature, and 360 degrees of longitude, this was truly a global space weather event.
  
  And it was just a taste of things to come.
  
  Dr. Tony Phillips
  Science at NASA
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  mind blown

  http://thedailyjournalist.com/headlines/the-unexamined-cause-for-massive-blackouts-solar-flares-and-outdated-power-grids/

  The Unexamined Cause for Massive Blackouts: Solar Flares and Outdated Power Grids

  Posted about 2 days ago

  This year’s active solar storms have come and gone without much public concern. Some solar observers, however, are looking to the sky for answers to problems on our home planet.

  Last week, over 670 million people were without power all around India,spanning from its Northern tip to its Eastern edge. According to a New York Times article written a day after the event, this massive blackout “trapped coal miners, stranded train passengers, and caused huge traffic jams” in New Delhi. Apart from these locational inconveniences, the blackout also caused concerns over the city’s food and water supply.

  The official explanation for this sudden, devastating power failure was an overconsumption of power on behalf of the country’s system. Experts consider farmers the culprit for drawing too much water to cover their fields. This explanation simply doesn’t hold up on its own with the synchronicity of solar weather events impacting Earth at the same time as the blackouts.

  There is a looming possibility that the intensity of recent solar activity could have sparked the failure in addition to the fragility of the nation’s power grid.

  Just a few days before the massive blackout in India, an M6- class solar flare erupted on the sun, causing a coronal mass ejection to launch towards Earth’s magnetic field. This impact, estimated to hit on July 31 st , could have caused an intense geomagnetic storm capable of disrupting India’s power system and creating the blackouts on August 1 st .

  

  Pictured above is the M6-Class Solar Flare, taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

  The sun is in “Solar Cycle 24”, deemed by NASA’s reports a “below-average” cycle, which is estimated to birth a mere 90 sunspots before 2013. Despite its classification seeming harmless, such cycles are known to yield surprisingly severe solar weather.

  If this solar event is related to the incident in India, what could that say about Earth’s future?

  In a 2009 article by NASA, the panel chairman of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center noted that the “Carrington Event”, a well-known geomagnetic storm in the mid 1800’s, “electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their…glow.”

  

  Above is the sketch of the “Carrington Event” sunspots by Richard Carrington on September 1st, 1859, courtesy of the Royal Astronomical Society and Richard Carrington via NASA.

  The NOAA predicts a cycle in 2013 that shares a similar resemblance to the one that held the “Carrington Event”. Instead of setting fire to telegraph offices, however, the consequences in modern times could be much more daunting to face. According to an article expounding upon a 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences, “if a storm similar to the storm of 1859 occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages and require 4 to 10 years for complete recovery”.

  To download and read the National Academy of Sciences report (Severe Space Weather Events–Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts), click here.

  As evidenced by last week’s outages in India, many nations’ power grids are simply not capable of surviving an event of that scale. In that instance, it would be up to the people to sustain themselves and prepare for longer outages. In conjunction with the solar flares’ potential effect on power grids, last week’s events brought attention to the outdated grids that exist around the world, becoming a concern for many countries.

  Even the U.S. Department of Energy admits there are “many hazards associated with operating the 20th century grid in the 21st century” and that “the grid is struggling to keep up” with consumer demand.

  The combination of these faulty power grids with atypical space weather could result in a perspective-changing energetic event capable of limiting (or even crippling) national economies.

  To keep an eye on the sun’s activity, visit www.spaceweather.com.

  
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  Refriedtruth

  apocolomania -Now that is a cool word. 2013 is a 12 year cyclic peak sunspot plasma eject year which the worst in modern time was during the telegraph era the systems then got fried. If this happens again the satellites and many electronics are gone. WORST every power line transformer on the poles will be busted and will take two years to replace no jobs no electricity no power at gas station pumps no trucked in food no food refrigeration at supermarkets in North America .This would be apocalyptic indeed and the sunspot cycles happen every 12 years.One little burp from the sun totally fried the crude hardened old fashioned telegraph system a mere 140 years ago. If we get another carrington event we will all die and their is nothing I can do to save my family so I won't worry about it. Bunkers stored with food? Take tens of thousands of dollars to prep and a guy with $20.00 of cheap commie AK47 ammo will just take it. This would truly be the great tribulation'. I am not a doomsayer it's just this one thing,and carrington events happen every 100-200 years but in farmer hunter/gather fisherman times it don't matter. In the 1960's we never stop smelling cow manure where i lived we had two acres of garden and canned our food.We are a sorry ass society now. So if I predict *this end of the world* every twelve years some time eventually I will get it right on time. Like with Y2K year 2000 this apocalyptic 2012-2013 date will come and go what is good about it is it will saturate the public on doomsayers and I think will erode the WT credibility is already starting to.
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  mind blown

  Our govenment is a least taking note. This will be the second space launch in two months regarding monitoring the Sun. They are no doubt coming up with solutions.
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  mind blown

  But at the same time things like this can happen.......

  http://www.nycaviation.com/2012/08/alaska-airlines-flight-loses-cabin-pressure-in-catastrophic-electrical-failure/#.UCLUza561WW

  August 8, 2012 1 COMMENT

  Alaska Airlines Flight Loses Cabin Pressure in ‘Catastrophic Electrical Failure’

  More articles by Matt Molnar » By: Matt Molnar
  Tags: Alaska Airlines, Alaska Airlines Flight 539, emergency landings, Ontario International Airport (ONT),San Jose International Airport (SJC), Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA) An Alaska Airlines 737-400 (N772AS) on final approach to LAX. (Photo by Phil Derner)

  An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-400 made an emergency landing in California Wednesday morning after it suddenly lost cabin pressure during flight to Seattle.

  Alaska Flight 539 from Ontario, Calif., made an emergency decent from 28,000 ft to 8,000 ft and diverted to San Jose, The Aviation Herald reported. First responders were told it was the result of a “catastrophic electrical failure.”

  The plane’s transponder also failed, making it invisible to air traffic controllers.

  While no one was injured, the plane is expected to remain out of service until the root of the failure can be determined.
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  nancy drew

  Dr. Robert Schoch has much to say on solar outbursts in our past and future

  A very intelligent and interesting guy