Solar Storms in 2012

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smokey

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Ok... So I decided to Google the whole Mayan end of the ages thing and see what it was all about. So I got to this website that has a bunch of links to everything 2012 related (and just fyi, I didn't find a decent site explaining things without fricking messed up color schemes :(... ) that had an article to a fox news segment that NASA predicts that we are closing in on a major solar storm. Now it was part fot his wacky website because apparently this solar storm is "really" big and could possibly knock out the power to 130 million people in the US. And telecommunications. etc etc etc.

What I wanna know from you science boffs here... is how likely is it that these solar storms reach such epic proportions. The article did mention it was a worst case scenario, but that the effects would be noticably stronger than in recent times. A little laymans explanation would be much appreciated.

Cheerio!
 
The sun goes through a cycle that repeats about every 10-15 years.

this results in more sunspots and thus more solar activity or storms and flares. They seem to be linked to the sun's magnetic field.

Anyway, The sun ends up chucking a whole lot of particles our way (the solar wind). Normally our magnetic field deflects most of it. When the solar wind it strong enough it will travel along our magnetic field to our planets poles causing the Aurora's.

The Aurora's are basically the solar wind generating an electric charge when hitting our atmosphere.

In the case of a solar flare, the charge generated would be strong enough to travel down from the poles far enough to start effecting some high voltage transfer lines in Canada, Northern Europe and the USA. This can cause some trips, or in some cases some overloads.

There are some doomsday advocates that say a solar flare would strip the air out of our atmosphere. As with all doomsday advocates, they have been wrong 100% of the time in the past, so would you trust them?

We are still here!
 
ummm... Well it wasn't a doomsday activist who reported it. It was on FOX's site and it was from NASA. Not "We're alllllll gonna dieeeeeeeeeeeeee" wierdo from every disaster movie ever made. What they said is that a major solar storm hit (but really major) hits once every hundred years. All I was looking for was an explanation of that phenomena. whether its something new or old knowledge that is just now being put out. It's not a catastrophe on a global scale - hell... those people who are living without electricity until now will be well off. :)
 
Solar/geomagnetic storms have been known to exist for a long time, it's nothing new and strange to us in terms of most other recent astronomical discoveries. The largest one ever recorded was in 1859.

The chances of a geomagnetic storm causing any type of mass extinction through exposure to radiation are, basically close to 0. After all multicellular life has managed to exist on earth for a good billion years without a problem.

If the 1859 storm did hit us today yes, it could cause problems. The most affecting issue being damaged power stations, which would knock us out of power for days at most.

On March 13, 1989, in Québec, 6 million people were without commercial electric power for 9 hours as a result of a huge geomagnetic storm. Some areas in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden also lost power. By receiving geomagnetic storm alerts and warnings, power companies can minimize damage and power outages.
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The fundamentals of how we can generate electricity can not be affected by geomagnetic storms, just the infrastructure which can always be replaced or repaired.
 
The absolute worst case scenerio is indeed that our atmosphere will be blown away when a totally massive solar storm hits us, chances of that happening is extremely small. A Sun spot needs to be in the centre of the Sun when the Sun is pointed at the Earth and then erupt at that precise point. It has to be so severe that it totally overcomes our magnetic field before it can affect the atmosphere.

Chances are much more likely that a solar storm could affect the infrastructre like in the 1859 event, where it knocks out the power grid, satellites, radar and other communication. The thing is that during 1859 society wasn't as technologically dependent as we are now so the impact was minimal. The impact of a similar event occurring in 2012 (or other date) will be much more severe, but the extent is only speculation. Nobody knows what exactly will happen, or how bad it will be if it happens.

The Space Environment Center at NOAA is tasked with monitoring the Sun and solar activity. Once they detect large sun spots they track these and can issue alerts to power companies and satellite companies to allow them to take measures to minimize the impact of a solar storm.
 
I don't know why you people are so worried that a huge solar storm might knock out power in 2012 when we have our own natural disaster that is guaranteed to do worse around that time.
 
Hey guys, thanks for the info. I was aware of the 1800's and 1989 incidents, so I was just looking for confirmation if that was the worst that could happen. I'm sure theres a way to shield electronic equipment from such a storm right? Otherwise if something as bad as 1859 was to happen we'd all be pretty f#cked. Imagine... thinking that our current internet woes would be trebled! :P

Seriously though... what would a power station do to minimize the effects of a strong burst of solar energy? This is seriously interesting because it's a kind of doomsday without the world being ripped apart and everyone dying. Basically just losing a lot of information and the ability to communicate with the entire world.

That NASA report did state that approx. 130million people could be left without power/communications in the US alone. So it probably wouldnt affect the entire US. Anyone in the know who can say (approximately) how much of the Earth could be hit and what areas or are we still hitting in the dark?
 
there's an interesting documentary on the Universe and one of the episodes was on the Sun and they explained how those solar flares works and a whole lot of other interesting info. it was on the History channel and its called The Universe. maybe get hold of the first episode which was the Sun and it should clear up questions you have :)
 
smokey said:
...Seriously though... what would a power station do to minimize the effects of a strong burst of solar energy?...

That NASA report did state that approx. 130million people could be left without power/communications in the US alone. So it probably wouldnt affect the entire US. Anyone in the know who can say (approximately) how much of the Earth could be hit and what areas or are we still hitting in the dark?
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In the event of a solar storm and enough notification power companies can reduce the amount of current (the load) that is being transmitted over the power lines in order to prevent transformers being blown.

Satellites can also be put in sleep mode to prevent damage.

The areas that would be the hardest hit would be those close to the poles. If I'd have to wager a guess it will be the worst in Canada, Europa and the Northern US.
 
Crusader said:
In the event of a solar storm and enough notification power companies can reduce the amount of current (the load) that is being transmitted over the power lines in order to prevent transformers being blown.

Satellites can also be put in sleep mode to prevent damage.

The areas that would be the hardest hit would be those close to the poles. If I'd have to wager a guess it will be the worst in Canada, Europa and the Northern US.
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Cool thanks! That was the info I was looking for. So if I had to do a backup of all my stuff and put it on those 2terbyte SD cards they are predicting will be mainstream around that time - all my data would be safe. It's easy replacing a pc or something else, but data.... wooo boy!
 
Could you provide a link to your Nasa report that you are referring too?
I have also watched a National geographic episode where they mentioned the solar storm for 2012, and the Inca calender overlap. Would like to read more on this.
 
Joker said:
The chances of a geomagnetic storm causing any type of mass extinction through exposure to radiation are, basically close to 0. After all multicellular life has managed to exist on earth for a good billion years without a problem.
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Err what ? Only about 2 billion years ago did single cell life appear in the waters of earth. All your info is wrong. The earth has been wiped out 5 times already, dinosaurs being the last time.

For there to be a E.L.E(Extinction level event) It requires at least two factors to be present. For dinosaurs it was extreme volcanism that slowly caused them to die off, then the K-T impact happened and finished off the dinosaurs with a 3 year dark winter.

I'm not saying the world ends in 2012 or near it, but ill point out a few things.
Two big events need to happened in a close proximity in time for it to wipe out at least 70% of earth life.
Some of these included:
Impact
Earth Axis Shift
Polar Reversal
Extreme Volcanism

Here is the interesting bit. A huge piece of the Antarctic Ice Shelf is expected to break off and if this happens, will raise sea levels a bit and could also change the axis of the earth..
Geologists know that the Magnetic fields are reversing. Its natural, it has happened many times in the past but humans haven't been around when it did. What happens is the two poles reverse so that North is at the bottom and South at the Top. This is due to happen around 2010-2015. This can also contribute to the solar winds getting in.

Another thing to look at is impact. Earth hasn't had a proper impact in many many years. The planet is way overdue a large impact if you look at the history of earth.

You think impacts dont happen ?
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-27.016754,27.435608&spn=0.632744,0.962814&t=k&hl=en - Vredefort Impact Structure. 2,023 million years ago

If you dont know what you looking at, this is the remains of a impact that happened 2,023 million years ago over South Africa. It IS the biggest recorded impact on earth.


http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=-25.408314,28.083651&spn=0.011765,0.022745&z=16 - Tswaing 0,2million years ago

This is about 20mins from PTA. It happened 0.2 million years ago and if it would happen again now, PTA would be destroyed from the shock wave.

Another factor to look at is that most of the big E.L.E happened in the 'late' part of the year we would call it now. nov-dec.

Most of these 'doomsday' events you like to call them, also happen around nov-dec :P And the Mayan calender ends on the December 21, 2012.

Meteors come from a belt between Mars and Jupiter. If one bumps into another and it moves towards earth, that's that. Its nature, it happens, it HAS happened and its not a matter of will it happen again, but when.

And if you think its just nature and we can control it, cause you didn't know that over time, the continents of earth shift away from each other(whats happening now) and they come back together to form a super continent. (Normally cause its easier for life to re-begin with a super continent. And then it will brake apart again.

If you wanna use HUMANS as an excuse for saving us, you wrong again. Most fossils come only from the last extinction and a little behind. So in theory, there could of been even more advanced life on earth before us, who couldn't stop nature.
 
Are you seriously considering backing up all your information smokey? It's similiar to when the millenium hit and everyone panicked and nothing happened.
 
Serqet said:
Are you seriously considering backing up all your information smokey? It's similiar to when the millenium hit and everyone panicked and nothing happened.
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No its not. Y2K, was said that all computers would not work properly because there internal clocks were not built to handle the digit change to the first digit.

It was a myth and nothing came of it. The solar storm is not a myth, and is possible.
 
I don't understimate the fact that solar storms are possible but there is no real evidence to suggest that anything catastrophic is going to happen. It hasn't so far, why would 2012 be any different?
 
Who says it hasn't so far ? The earth has been around for billions of years, i am sure it has happened many times.
 
Serqet said:
Are you seriously considering backing up all your information smokey? It's similiar to when the millenium hit and everyone panicked and nothing happened.
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If there was a way to preserve all my family photos, then why not prepare for the worst? It's not like I'd be doing a backup of the entire internet. It was a NASA source quoted so it's best to be prepared. I could back them all up on one SDdisk in a lead container (if that would work). cheap and efficient.

It's not like I'm Garyvdh or some of those guys out there who would need a server rack in the mountainside to store everything they have :p
 
Serqet said:
I don't understimate the fact that solar storms are possible but there is no real evidence to suggest that anything catastrophic is going to happen. It hasn't so far, why would 2012 be any different?
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It would also depend on what you term as catastrophic. I consider a solar blast that melts us all catastrophic, but NASA never mentioned that - so I'll assume we are fine. However, I would personally consider a wipe of all the telecoms/electricity infrastructure the world over a giant catastrophe for mankind in our present state simply because of the utter reliance on electronics.

Die Hard 4.0 is a point to note.

I am not too alarmed, just that I really really like to play the odd game of DOTA or CSS :( Hate farming as well... :(
 
smokey said:
If there was a way to preserve all my family photos, then why not prepare for the worst? It's not like I'd be doing a backup of the entire internet. It was a NASA source quoted so it's best to be prepared. I could back them all up on one SDdisk in a lead container (if that would work). cheap and efficient.

It's not like I'm Garyvdh or some of those guys out there who would need a server rack in the mountainside to store everything they have :p
Click to expand...

watchit! :cool:
 
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