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 EventsSocietal 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 forecastinga 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."
The sun is not the sole determinate, human effects aside, on the earth's temperature. There are effects from the earth's orbit, the precession of the axes and some other orbital and axial tilt effects. We can both be entering a period of increased solar activity, and decreased overall temperature on the earth. Besides, activity and heat/light output are not necessarily the same anyway.
I think we are all already dead.
LLS
Could keep our space shuttles busy repairing them if it turns nasty.
Oh, wait.....
Well it is entering its next 5.5 (average) year up cycle but all indications are it is going to be much weaker than anything we’ve had for a long, long time.
Ra is pissed off.
Ra is pissed off.
There is a well known sunspot/solar activity cycle. Typically the period is about 11 years. We have been in the low of the cycle the last couple years so it was due to change. These cycles have been observed for hundreds of years.
Ask any ham radio operator if you are still skeptical.
I tries to post a reply on this thread, so far it was not appeared. FR must having issues again.
Technically we’re at the very start of solar cycle 24, and it’s two years late already. Solar flux numbers — the measure of solar output — are still at extremely low levels; 72 as of right now. Anything above 100 is moderate and above 150 is high. At maximum, readings of 200 are not uncommon.
Cycles run approximately 11 years, but 23 and the trough between 23 and 24 have gone on for a lot longer than normal. There’s NO sign of any serious solar output and we’ve only experienced a small handful of noticeable solar disturbances in the last 2 years, none of which had the potential to do any damage whatsoever.
That said, big X-10 class flares, coronal mass ejections and the like can indeed cause major headaches and if they can find a way to forecast them accurately, great.
Now, however, solar forecasters only exist to make weather forecasters look accurate in comparison IMHO.
This is weird. You can WRITE TO, but not READ FROM FR.
Hm, this must be the ion storm that always plagued the ol’ Enterprise under Captain Kirk...
But seriously, I thought that we had entered a weak sunspot cycle? That would mean 28 years of cooler temps, not hotter!
NASA lies.
bflr
“Besides, activity and heat/light output are not necessarily the same anyway.”
YES, I KNOW THAT!
I find the damned timing of this, the coincidence, when the Obama administration is going to start pushing hard the ‘Cap & Tax’ legislation, too convenient. I think it is being used as propaganda.
” FR must having issues again.”
Double, triple posts.
It’s from solar activity!
Look at the charlatans surrounding Al Gore--flush with hundreds of millions of Google dollars, trying to ruin the standard of living for the US middle class.
It is really time to clean house. Those climate "skeptics" who have held true against the mega-dollar energy interests (Soros, et al) need to step up and start naming names and following the money.
The politically-correct scientists are corrupt, and need to be thrown out and their butts sued. There is a mechanism in US law that allows a lawyer to go after any academic who has filed for federal grant under false pretenses. I'd say that would be all the phonies around Al Gore. The lawyer gets to keep a percentage of the take. I don't know why I'm not reading about them being filed en masse.
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