National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.
Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.
Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.
“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.
“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”
There’s nothing wrong with a generalised warning that our modern systems are dangerously exposed to damage from solar energy pulses that are normal but way in excess of those seen since that Carrington Event.
The trouble is that it is then irresponsible to speculatively pin down the timing of the next such event in light of our poor understanding of solar behaviour.
Proposing that it will happen during the supposed upcoming maximum of the current rather weak solar cycle is dangerous because if it does not then happen it will be harder to get people to take the issue seriously afterwards.
For short term personal attention those chaps are damaging science itself and it’s relationship with the general public.
“The heliocentric distribution of particularly the inner planets, is critical as to when solar storms occur, and so likey times for these events can be determined.”
O no, not that astrological claim again…!
I suppose the best thing we can do, is to be on the opposite side of the planet when it happens, or deep underground protecting ourselves from the intense hot or is that cold, maybe I could emulate Al Gore and sell horsetrading permits or plans for the new and latest fast pony transport, guaranteed not to electronically decombobulate or whatever.
And think of the possibilities, one of us could corner the horsetrading market and become the new Bunker Hunt by buying up all the nags of the world and even if they get fried on one half of the world think of the great horsemeat hamburgers we could export to the USA (its been done before) from the shady side of the planet!!
Perhaps best of all, we could insist on the next scary predictionist put up a billion dollar bond, just in case their prediction does not eventuate, sort of a get out of jail free card fund, that should sort the serious from the hopeful.
Hmn might invest in one of them aluminum collander things or sell tin foil umbrellas to reflect the flare, I could become rich just like Al.
Now I wonder what costly solution science can find, hope it doesn’t involve buying carbon indulgences from the guvmint!! Then again it could be a fizzer and something else git us!!
But still much less chance of that happening than during our lifetime. 😉
Is funny how they make it sound like we will experience the most active solar cycle in our lifetime, while the opposite is really the case.
Though all they are really saying is that we are returning to solar max and that big solar storms could also happen during times of low sunspot activity.
There is always the chance that history will repeat itself. Our current deep solar minimum closely resembles the deep solar minimum of 1856 which was followed by the Carrington Event of September 1859, the largest known solar flare to strike the earth in modern history which then gave some telegraph operators the shock of their lives.
Perhaps it is more likely that the next big super-flare broadcast by the sun will go off in some other direction and miss the Earth, but this sounds a lot like a game of Solar Russian Roulette.
I have seen estimates, perhaps alarmist, that it might take several years to restore service and repair our modern electrical power distribution system after the widespread damage caused by the flow of huge surges of direct-current induced by the event. Perhaps our only defenses would be to disconnect as much of the system as possible in the short time before the flare reached the Earth and to be prepared with a year’s supply of candles.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/
It would provide a convenient excuse to deny FOIA requests.
To be fair NASA are in a bit of a no-win situation here. If they keep quiet and there is mayhem there may be congressional hearings about a cover-up with the possibility of people going to jail. On the other hand if you keep crying “wolf”, then sooner or later your prediction will come true. Having said all this I can’t help being reminded about the Y2K issue.
Scientific Theology, scaremongering prophetic science is now the accepted norm. Words like better, ok, normal, positive, good have been banished from the scientific vocaubulary. Now only catastrophic, annihilate, doom, man-made, are allowed to describe scientific findings. While science has changed, it is more the scientists themselves that have morphed into theologians without recognizing it. Maybe better communication, the internet, science fiction, the movies have brought about a new breed of scientist where fear has become bigger than the scientist himself. It is really ironic that while conventional religion is in decline, the traditional preacher has been replaced by scientific theologians making even bigger claims and prophecies than the traditional theologian. Scientists have become the prophets they showed much disdain for in religion over the years. All sense of normality in science is dead. It must be a tremendous burden on normal scientists working in science today being completely overshadowed by this new breed of scientist theologian.
What’s scary is not that there are alarmist predictions, we always have those…
What’s scary is that it is NASA that is making them.
We trust NASA only because of the successful Apollo missions. But those people are gone…
Jean Meeus says:
June 17, 2010 at 4:37 am
“The heliocentric distribution of particularly the inner planets, is critical as to when solar storms occur, and so likey times for these events can be determined.”
O no, not that astrological claim again…!
http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/Citations.aspx?id=330
ABSTRACT:
A solar storm is a storm of ions and electrons from the Sun. Large solar storms are usually preceded by solar flares, phenomena that can be characterized quantitatively from Earth. Twenty-five of the thirty-eight largest known solar flares were observed to start when one or more tide-producing planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Jupiter) were either nearly above the event positions (<10° longitude) or at the opposing side of the Sun. The probability for this to happen at random is 0.039 percent.
I hope this scare will make them all forget about their catastrophic global tax fraud.. Oh – maybe they’ll try and tax us on Solar flare events as well.
DAMN!!
We’re impotent, we’re incompotent, we’re doomed…
I believe we’ve heard this over and over since the beginning of time. It is true. And with any luck, we’ll –some of us– live on to see another day. Life would be very boreing without the fickle finger of fate; it’s really just a crap shoot. There really is a boogy man.
A cynic could easily note that since money for promoting CAGW is waning, NASA believes it is time to try and try out fear-of-the-sun as a new source of funding.
Yes, the sun is going to have a CME event that will fry a lot of electronics.
Linking it to this cycle- the most quiet and uneventful of the last 100 years or more- seems a bit desperate on the part of NASA.
Science, or at least the promotion of science, seems indistinguishable from the marketing efforts of anything else when scientists rely on such transparent and emotional tactics.
Can’t these people just get funding for space exploration without the hysteria?
#
pgosselin says:
That’s how it works, doesn’t it?
Bank crisis? Take it over.
GM crisis? Take it over.
CO2 crisis: Take over energy.
BP crisis? Take it over.
Health care crisis? Take it over.
______________________________________________________________________
You forgot one
Food Scare crisis? Take it over?
Old Henry Kissinger’s formula
Food borne illness crisis =>WTO derived Food Safety Laws =>control food => control people
CAGW crisis => Cap & Trade Laws =>control energy => control whole continents
Economic Crisis =>“Financial Stability Board” =>control money => control the world
Another Kissinger quote: “Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries. “ http://www.billionquotes.com/index.php/Henry_Kissinger
While this report is a typical “Hey, look at us” NASA blurb, there is stuff we should do for the next direct hit like the Carrington event. Laugh at NASA if you will, but don’t turn your back on the Sun.
Links to coverage here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/25/compared-to-the-suns-power-we-are-a-fly-speck-on-an-elephants-butt/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/05/07/a-reminder-to-us-flyspecks-on-an-elephants-butt/
derise says:
June 17, 2010 at 3:35 am
NPR does this on a regular basis, it’s called a “Fund Raiser”. Charitable organizations have bake sales and raffles. I guess bake sales are a little low class for NASA….
______________________________________________________________________
NASA can not have a bake sale because the government has made bake sales illegal.
PA Church Ladies Raided by ‘Food Safety’ Cops
“On the first Friday of Lent, an elderly female parishioner of St. Cecilia Catholic Church began unwrapping pies at the church. That’s when the trouble started… After it was determined that the pies were home-baked, the inspector decreed they couldn’t be sold. The problem is the pies are illegal in Pennsylvania….
They say, “as American as apple pie.”
Our freedom as Americans appears to have come down to homemade pie. And a glass of whatever milk we choose to wash it down. Our democracy appears to have come down to whether we remember and will defend our unlicensed, unhampered, un-infringed, un-monitored, un-surveilled, unregulated, un-criminalized, unlimited, full and free right to homemade pie and a glass of milk. Including seconds.”
If Apple Pie is now illegal at church suppers, I guess this is no longer the USA.
Does this mean that all of the solar panels will all go poof at once while all the windmills accelerate and take off? What is the world to do. But wait my science adviser has a Nobel and he says build a Faraday cage containment over all your electronic stuff.
Science has missed two important facts:
One the Sun rotates at a high rate of speed(and this is just the corona we see).
Two our solar system also travels at a high rate of speed.
Since no experimants have been done on this:
Throw astroid and meteor debris at the sun. The near misses WILL pull gases and the hits would generate a spot in the corona where the gases are now parted.
They must feel kind of being forgotten in these days of the OIL SPILL, they are crying for attention, eager for recognition, however they have failed in everything and their scaring scenarios seem kids´cartoons which kids don´t like either.
Hey buddies, either you fire your WRITERS or you should revise your most dear and beloved theories:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=ah63dzac
KenB says:
June 17, 2010 at 4:54 am
I suppose the best thing we can do, is to be on the opposite side of the planet when it happens, or deep underground protecting ourselves from the intense hot or is that cold, maybe I could emulate Al Gore and sell horsetrading permits or plans for the new and latest fast pony transport, guaranteed not to electronically decombobulate or whatever.
And think of the possibilities, one of us could corner the horsetrading market….
______________________________________________________________________
I already have, 18 equines and 14 horse drawn vehicles, not including the plow, disc and manure spreader.
Time to put a Faraday cage around all your electronics you can not live without.
Wanna call everybody´s attention?, shut down your GISS, you´ll save a lot of money and everybody will thank you.
This warning follows the template for Y2K. Too bad all of the billions of us that barely survived swine flu are becoming less gullible every time.
Given their success (or lack there of) in predicting the sun’s behavior over this last cycle, I would not bet on this forecast being verified
♫♫♫
What goes up must come down
spinning wheel got to go round
Talking about your troubles it’s a crying sin
Ride a painted pony
Let the spinning wheel spin
You got no money, and you, you got no home
Spinning wheel all alone
Talking about your troubles and you, you never learn
Ride a painted pony
let the spinning wheel turn
Did you find a directing sign
on the straight and narrow highway?
Would you mind a reflecting sign
Just let it shine within your mind
And show you the colours that are real
Someone is waiting just for you
spinning wheel is spinning true
Drop all your troubles, by the river side
Catch a painted pony
On the spinning wheel ride
Someone is waiting just for you
spinning wheel is spinning true
Drop all your troubles, by the river side
Ride a painted pony
Let the spinning wheel fly
♫♫♫♫♫