Solar Cycle or CME to cause global natural disaster?

It`s a lot of talk about Solar Maximum and Geomagnetic change and Planet alignments, but not much of that is holding real steady ground I believe. But one of the theories actually have scientific back up and that is the upcoming Solar Cycle events. Which could be a devastator. We could be in for a huge firework display in 2012 according to several of scientist`s. The Sun will be approaching the peak of its 11-year cycle, called “solar maximum”, so we can expect a lot of solar activity. Some predictions put the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 even more energetic than the last solar maximum in 2002-2003 (remember all those record-breaking X-class flares?). Solar physicists are already getting excited about this next cycle and new prediction methods are being put to good use. But should we be worried? I`m actually more worried about a huge CME myself…

According to one of the many Doomsday scenarios, we have been presented with in the run-up to the Mayan Prophecy-fueled “end of the world” in the year 2012, this scenario is actually based on some science. What’s more, there may be some correlation between the 11-year solar cycle and the time cycles seen in the Mayan calendar, perhaps this ancient civilization understood how the Sun’s magnetism undergoes polarity changes every decade or so? Plus, religious texts (such as the Bible) say that we are due for a day of judgement, involving a lot of fire and brimstone. So it looks like we are going to get roasted alive by our closest star on December 21st, 2012! As life on Earth depends on the Sun. It is the solar activity that can show influence on climate changes on Earth. The solar cycle currently moves towards its maximum. Can it cause any problems to humans? Scientists say that it should not lead to global disasters because they have never occurred in 400 years of observations.

The solar activity implies the appearance of spots on the Sun. The number of those spots may reach their maximum and then reduce to minimum during certain periods of time. For the first time in history, sun spots were discovered in 1611. The discovery became a surprise for astronomers: they previously thought that the sun was something unchangeable. It was later determined that the number of sun sports changes, albeit not chaotically: they multiply at first and then decrease in number. Such a cycle may last from eight to fourteen years, although most often it continues for eleven years.

Solar cycles may differ from each other from the point of view of their intensity. Sometimes, a maximum of such a cycle is very hard to distinguish from its minimum. Such situation was observed from 1645 to 1715 – the so-called Maunder Minimum (after English astronomer Edward Walter Maunder, who discovered the phenomenon). The number of spots on the sun reduced considerably: there were only 50 of them instead of the usual amount of 40-50 thousand spots. The lion’s share of sun spots is located in the southern hemisphere of the Sun. This coincided with the so-called Little Ice Age that lasted from the 14th to the 19th centuries. That was the period of unusually cold weather on the territory of Europe and America (average temperatures during the recent 2,000 years were the lowest). The weather was relatively smooth and warm from the 10th to the 13th centuries, with mild winters and no droughts. During the 1310s, heavy rains and severe winters destroyed harvests and fruit gardens in England, Scotland, France and Germany. Frequent ground frosts and snowfalls occurred even in the south of Europe. The weather on the east coast of the USA became a lot colder, whereas in central and western areas the climate conditions were extremely dry, with dust storms.

During the 16th century, average temperatures raised, winters became milder. In the 17th century, global temperatures dropped by 1-2 degrees Centigrade. The Thames, the Danube, the Adriatic Sea and the Turkish Straits would freeze in wintertime. In spite of the fact that the Little Ice Age lasted longer than the Maunder Minimum, it presumably occurred because of the reduction of the solar activity. The theory was subsequently confirmed through the analysis of carbon-14 and other isotopes (beryllium-10, for example) in trees and glaciers. Interestingly enough, the Maunder Minimum coincided with the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715), who was known as the Sun King. Thus, according to scientists, 18 minimums of solar activity have occurred during the recent 8,000 years. The Spoerer Minimum (1450-1540) and the Dalton Minimum (1790-1820) were the most notable ones. The reasons that led to the appearance of sun spots became clear to scientists only in the first half of the 20th century. It was discovered that the spots were of magnetic nature. The magnetic substance inside the Sun is not stable: it moves and may sometimes come to the surface of the star, which may lead to the displacement of poles. The full cycle, when the poles return to their places, lasts for 22 years. The cycle of eleven years is known to science a lot better because it is easy to detect it with the help of calculations and observations.

Now, the solar cycle moves towards its maximum. The solar activity will reach its peak between the end of 2012 or by the beginning of 2014. Afterwards, the activity will begin to decline. The minimum is to occur in 2020. This current cycle is special because it is the slowest in the history of space observations. Scientists assumed that there would be a relatively small amount of sun spots during the next solar maximum period while other believe it could be devastating.

What I`m really afraid off is maybe not the solar cycle so much, but a super CME scares me bad! CME – stands for Coronal Mass Ejection and is a Natural Disaster of biblical proportions. A CME is a mega burst from the surface of the sun of highly charged energy particles of plasma and electromagnetic radiation.  Also known as a geomagnetic solar storm, it can fly through space at an incredible speed of miles per second.  When this energy burst hits the earth’s magnetosphere, it compresses it to the point where it releases energy in the Terra-watt range into the upper atmosphere, resulting in burning out all electronics like an EMP.

A natural disaster of this caliber, will be far worse than an EMP attack because it can bring down the entire world wide power grid and be a Mega Global Disaster.  Due to an ultimate worst case scenario, the world wide power grid would be down not for years but decades, putting the entire world back into the dark ages. Just imagine for a moment what life would really be like right now with no electricity? No ATM’s, no Cell Phones, no Computers, no Gas pumps, no Microwave Ovens, no Radio’s, no Refrigeration, no Running Water, no Texting, no TV’s and no Vehicles moving on the streets. everything would be quite! When the entire power grid goes down, any country in the world would be just 72 hours from total anarchy. Because when you look and think about it, what will happen in the first 72 hours after the power grid goes down permanently?  What will happen within the first few months?  What will happen within the first year?

Solar cycles & CME and effects

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2012 Solar Peak Will Be Severe – NASA Scientists Explains

Yet another report that points to very serious happenings to come around 2012. At a recent press conference, NASA scientists explained that while they previously thought that more solar particles (radiation) entered Earth’s magnetosphere when the sun’s field was oriented southward, in turns out the exact opposite is true. Essentially our planet’s magnetic shield is at its strongest when scientists had thought it would be at its weakest. And vice-versa. Our shields will be down in 2012 – the next solar maximum – when NASA scientists figured they would be up. While this will alter calculations regarding the consequences of the next peak, all that has changed is our understanding. The Sun will keep peaking every 11 years, as it appears to have done historically.

Scientists have found two large leaks in Earth’s magnetosphere, the region around our planet that shields us from severe solar storms. The leaks are defying many of scientists’ previous ideas on how the interaction between Earth’s magnetosphere and solar wind occurs: The leaks are in an unexpected location, let in solar particles in faster than expected and the whole interaction works in a manner that is completely the opposite of what scientists had thought. The findings have implications for how solar storms affect the our planet. Serious storms, which involved charged particles spewing from the sun, can disable satellites and even disrupt power grids on Earth.

The new observations “overturn the way that we understand how the sun’s magnetic field interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field,” said David Sibeck of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., during a press conference today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The bottom line: When the next peak of solar activity comes, in about 1.5 years, electrical systems on Earth and satellites in space will be very vulnerable.

How it works

Earth’s magnetic field carves out a cavity in the sun’s onrushing field. The Earth’s magnetosphere is thus “buffeted like a wind sock in gale force winds, fluttering back and forth in the” solar wind, Sibeck explained. Both the sun’s magnetic field and the Earth’s magnetic field can be oriented northward or southward (Earth’s magnetic field is often described as a giant bar magnet in space). The sun’s magnetic field shifts its orientation frequently, sometimes becoming aligned with the Earth, sometime becoming anti-aligned. Scientists had thought that more solar particles entered Earth’s magnetosphere when the sun’s field was oriented southward (anti-aligned to the Earth’s), but the opposite turned out to be the case, the new research shows. The work was sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation and based on observations by NASA’s THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) satellite.

How many and where

Essentially, the Earth’s magnetic shield is at its strongest when scientists had thought it would be at its weakest. When the fields aren’t aligned, “the shield is up and very few particles come in,” said physicist Jimmy Raeder of the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Conversely, when the fields are aligned, it creates “a huge breach, and there’s lots and lots of particles coming in,” Raeder added, at the news conference. As it orbited Earth, THEMIS’s five spacecraft were able to estimate the thickness of the band of solar particles coming when the fields were aligned — it turned out to be about 20 times the number that got in when the fields were anti-aligned.

THEMIS was able to make these measurements as it moved through the band, with two spacecraft on different borders of the band; the band turned out to be one Earth radius thick, or about 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers). Measurements of the thickness taken later showed that the band was also rapidly growing. “So this really changes our understanding of solar wind-magnetosphere coupling,” said physicist Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley, also at the press conference. And while the interaction of anti-aligned particles occurs at Earth’s equator, those of aligned particles occur at higher latitudes both north and south of the equator. The interaction is “appending blobs of plasma onto the Earth’s magnetic field,” which is an easy way to get the solar particles in, said Sibeck, a THEMIS project scientist.

Next solar cycle

This finding not only has implications for scientists’ understanding of the interaction between the sun and Earth’s magnetosphere, but for predicting the effects to Earth during the next peak in the solar cycle. The Sun operates on an 11-year cycle, alternating between active and quiet periods. We are currently in a quiet period, with few sunspots on the sun’s surface and fewer solar flares, though the next cycle of activity has begun. It is expected to peak around Dec 2012, bringing lots of sunspots, flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). CMEs can interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere, causing problems for satellites, communications, and power grids and may effect earths magnetic shield.

This upcoming active period now looks like it will be more intense than the previous one, which peaked around 2006, some scientists think.
The reason is the changes in the sun’s alignment in the center of the galaxy. During the last peak, solar fields hitting the Earth were first anti-aligned then aligned. Anti-aligned fields can energize particles, but in this case, the energy came before the particles themselves, which doesn’t create much of a fuss in terms of geomagnetic storms and disruptions. But the next cycle will see aligned, then anti-aligned fields, in theory amplifying the effects of the storms as they hit. Raeder likens the difference to igniting a gas stove one of two ways: In the first way, the gas is turned on and the stove is lit and you get a flame. In the other way, you let the gas run for awhile, so that when you add the gas you get a much bigger boom.

“It should be that we’re in for a very tough time in Dec 2012 and the next 11 years to come after that,” Sibeck said.

When it happens!

Nasa warns : Solar flares from huge space storm will cause world wide devastation!

I believe that soon we have to start taking some of these SOLAR Cycle warnings seriously!

Nasa warns : Solar flares from huge space storm will cause world wide devastation!

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 2012. 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 service’s 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 many of the world`s governments.

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” said Dr Richard Fisher, the director of  Nasa’s Heliophysics division.

“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 whole world. “Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he added: “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.” A “space weather” conference in Washington DC last week, attended by NASA scientists, policy makers, researchers and government officials, was told of similar warnings. While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher’s comments are the most comprehensive warnings from NASA up to date.

Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause the Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person’s life. Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots or flares hits a maximum level every 11 years. Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2012 to produce huge levels of radiation. He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months. Another scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have “fragile” power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for days. He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be.

“I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependent on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred,” he said.

The National Academy of Sciences warned two years ago that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could “all be knocked out by intense solar activity of this kind”.

Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids and allow development on satellite “safe modes”.
“If you know that a hazard is coming and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble,” he added. His division, a department of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington DC, which investigates the Sun’s influence on the earth, uses dozens of satellites to study the current threat.

The government has said it was aware of the threat and “contingency plans were in place” to cope with the fall out from such a storm. These included allowing for certain transformers at the edge of the National Grid to be temporarily switched off and to improve voltage levels throughout the network.

NASA also confirms 2012 prediction – The deterioration of Earth’s Magnetosphere during Sun’s Polar shift.

Scientists have now accepted that the intersection of 2 problems first the deterioration of Earth’s Magnetosphere during the Sun’s Polar shift in 2012 as recently discussed will be the real concern as we approach 2012 : and here’s the reason why:
Scientists have found two large leaks in Earth’s magnetosphere, the region around our planet that shields us from severe solar storms. Now in 2012 the suns poles will reverse , during this time a massive solar storm will wreck havoc on earth usually this causes no problem but now due to the ‘cracks’ in it.

Earth’s protective Magnetosphere may fail us, so the violent solar and electromagnetic radiation will make it through and cause many problems to life as we know it today (ex: disabling communication satellites, mobile phones, effective sleep patterns, & radiation poisoning of humans) Also as earth has to absorb extra radiation & energy this will cause possible changes within the earth’s core with energy being re dissipated from the earth with new volcanoes formed and crust movement.

Catastrophic sun storm possible, NASA warns!
A once in a century solar storm would threaten catastrophic destruction if a worst case scenario event transpired, a new NASA report has found.

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