Posted on 06/04/2010 7:19:18 PM PDT by TaraP
June 4, 2010: Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.
Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:
"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."
The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.
Much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers can protect these assets from damaging electrical surges. Preventative action, however, requires accurate forecasting—a job that has been assigned to NOAA.
"Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we're making rapid progress," says Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Bogdan sees the collaboration between NASA and NOAA as key. "NASA's fleet of heliophysics research spacecraft provides us with up-to-the-minute information about what's happening on the sun. They are an important complement to our own GOES and POES satellites, which focus more on the near-Earth environment."
One little sun spot.
One little sun spot.
‘Tis NOT!!!!
It must be.
In that graphic, earth has landed on some inhabited alien shore.
[we’re doomed]
Hey that 737 in the pic is Janet Airways from Area 51
Quick! Let’s immediately give money to the UN and Cap and Trade moguls to solve this massive planetary emergency!
Solar Weather is highly cyclical. Cycle 24 is long overdue.
But what they don’t say:
Being overdue suggests it will be very small. They were very, very late to concede this point, in spite of an incredible amount of evidence that it would be small. Nonetheless, a small cycle means far more severe solar weather than we’ve had since the previous peak in the late 1990s.
FWIW, sometimes we even skip cycles, as happened during the “Dalton Minimum,” which coincided with the “Little Ice Age.” Cycle 24 is so late, I was starting to think we might skip it. Apparently, it is on the way, now, however.
NASA need another seven astronauts. Err, 14 or is it 17? I forget.
NASA need another seven astronauts. Err, 14 or is it 17? I forget.
NASA need another seven astronauts. Err, 14 or is it 17? I forget.
Yup...
12/21/12
I hope, as they’re paying attention to the sun’s power in this regard, they’ll realize that we humans have precious little effect on our climate.
The normal solar cycle. The sun has been dormat, and getting more so since about 2001, now it's time for a wake up. Although the predicted "wake up" is pretty mild.
The sun even has a sunspot (group actually).
However wake ups have in the past not occurred as expected. This one seems to be on track as you can see above, but it's really too soon to tell.
The sun, and the rest of the solar system, is expected to enter a region of the galaxy with a relatively higher concentration of dust and gas than our present location, called the Local Fluff (heh I just report 'em I don't make 'em up) However we may already have done so, although it gets denser as you go in, but the density is not uniform even on the scale of the solar system. There are "clouds" and "voids" comparable in size to the solar system, but they get bigger and denser as you go into the "local fluff". Whether that will do much to the sun, I don't know, but it could have interesting "space weather" effects nonetheless, especially considering that the earth's magnetic field is waning, moving towards reversal of polarity, as it has done many times in the past. Not much happened those other times, but it's not known if we were in something like the "local fluff" at any of those times in the past.
bttt
Actually we’ve BEEN in a cold period for the last 10 years, due to decreased sunspot activity. At some point, the sun will get more active, which will increase the sunspot activity again, and warm the earth. And as the solar activity increases, the danger of Coronal Mass Ejections or ‘solar flares’ also increases.
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