NOAA article on 2013 severe solar storm disruptions

[Indigo]

Interesting. Have any of you seen these recent articles on solar storms from NASA and NOAA? I came across this by accident today.

The Huffington Post:
Solar Storms Could Have 'Potentially Devastating Effects': NOAA Official
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/1 ... 62923.html

[Another Dimension60]

its been on tv and in Nat. Geographic -- where do you think Ramtha gets his info?!

[Ockham]

We are currently in the middle of solar cycle 24 (the number of approximately 11 year cycles that have occurred since scientists started keeping track). Cycle 24 has perked up a little of late. Up until the "Valentine's Day Flare of 2011," cycle 24 was in contention for an all-time low of solar activity measured in 1907. Cycle 24 is still in the running for the weakest solar activity in 100 years. Please see this reference: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml

What has changed is that our social fabric is more depedent on earth satellite technology, especially in our dependence on the US Navstar Global Positioning System. Not only do many people rely on GPS to get around, but our CDMA cell phone system can not work without synchroniztion to accurate time provided by GPS.

Power systems can be knocked out by geomagntic storms, but the recovery will probably be days, not months or years as is suggested in the RSE-recommended book, One Second After. Canada and parts of the US suffered did indeed suffer a solar induced power outage in 1989.

Long distance terrestrial and over seas telephone traffic is largely fiber optic now and may be less affected than the old days of copper wires and geostationary satellites.

Cell phones are possibly one of the more vulnerable infrastructures due to their dependence on GPS, however the GPS satellites are well shielded due in part to the desire to try to assure survivability of a man-made electica-magnetic pulse from a nuclear attack. There are also at least 24 GPS satellites that are constantly moving in orbits about 12,000 miles above ground. Hopefully not all 24 satellites would be taken out by a single solar outburst.

I believe the Huffington Post article over sensationalizes the risk, however the risk is not entirely zero.

[ex]

the scenario before the latest doom included solar storms which should have wiped all electric devices out. was announced for last year?

[Indigo]

Interesting. NASA also has articles on this situation, and, I did a research paper in Universty, many years ago, on sun spots around this time, and their potential effect on the earth, but I am not a scientist.. This NOAA input just caught my attention. I guess we will wait and see what happens. Thanks for the replies.

[Ockham]

Hi,

Thanks, Indigo, for bringing up the topic. Solar flares are a good tool for Judy to use in the Ramtha presentation because they're a pretty much for-sure event so there is low risk in predicting them because they happen every few days. There are also a lot of scary looking pictures of giant luminous tendrils of stuff shooting out of the sun, even on official government web sites. This is perfect stuff for feeding Judy's, "the government is in on it," stories. We're also still on the up side of cycle 24 and the cycles are very regular every 11 years, so it is completely safe for the Ramtha to, "predict," that sun spots will increase significantly through 2013.

The thing that Judy is leaving out of the story is that increasing significanty from hardly anything at all can still be a small number.

What we need to think twice about is the random big flare that could happen any time that could damage the GPS system. Luckily, telecommunications engineers, not just Ramtha, know about solar flares, and they do take steps to try to harden the system. Occasionally things still go wrong. Just last year, the Galaxy 15 satellite went rogue, and started drifting into the oribital slots of other geosynchronous satellites over the US. One theory is that solar radiation scrambled the satellite's computer programming. It took almost a year, but scientists were finally able to reboot Galaxy 15 in March 2011 and command it to move to a proper orbital location. Galaxy 15's job is to broadcast TV (might not have been a bad loss) and to provide a WAAS signal that helps planes use GPS for accurate instrument landings.

This is one thing that Judy's sort of correct about: we should probably be aware of not being over-dependent on technology and know what to do when technology fails us. I am annoyed that she does it with ridiculously over-blown doomsday talk. I'm sure the Ramtha character would justify the hype by saying that we're too stupid and that the doomsday scenario is the only way to get our attention. So much for Ramtha's smarts at picking his pre-chosen masters for the school!


Galaxy 15 reference: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20004772-17.html

[ex]

i still think the overdoing of possibilities is a form of control of the rse community. if you have doubts about a solar flare burning us back into the stone age you r not a serious student. any doubt or asking for specifics, outs you as an individual with critical thinking still intact. the ones who nod and think about which business opportunity will come from this, ramtha remark, is less troublesome.

[Indigo]

Ockham and Ex: Yes, I think we are in agreement. JZ exaggerates the possibilities the scientists are telling us from their research, and uses them as a way to generate income. it is to her financial advantage to create a fearful, dependent and panicked environment for the students of RSE. However, for those of us who have left RSE, it is prudent, imo, to keep an eye on the happenings with Mother Nature. Lately, there has been a lot going on that will have major impacts down the road. Better safe than sorry is my philosophy, which is probably bent and influenced after my years in Yelm towards over caution. Some of that indoctrination of imminent gloom and doom is hard to shake. In reality, there is little we can do about any major catastrophic event, and worrying about it instead of living life, imo, is a waste of valuable time. We can have our earthquake survival kits, some canned food and water, flashlights, etc., and that's about it, as far as I see. Unless you want to live in a cave or UG for a few years and emerge to what??? Oh, and as a good friend says, be sure bolt down the wine cabinet! LOL. I left RSE before the wine ceremonies, so vino is not a bad word to me.

I do hope those who are living in a state of panic about TDTC find some balance in all of this before long.

Thanks again.

[Ockham]

Well put Indigo. I figure that if the cataclysm is really huge, maybr I'd rather just go in the initial blast rather than to emerge from a shelter into a devastated world. I have a suspicion that if the devastation is on the level of what Judy is pitching, then even a cache of several years of food won't be enough. Just take a look at the decades it took before anything but scrub could live in the St. Helens blast area. There's no way that land would have supported a food crop a few years after the volcanic blast. I don't think Judy or Ramtha know much about civil engineering, and students that follow the suggestions may be digging thier own crypts rather than survival shelters.

I agree that it makes sense for those of us in volcanic, seismic and flood prone areas to have at least a few weeks worth of essential food and supplies. Even a solar flare could cause a pretty big disruption that could make it difficult for grocery stores and government offices to function for several days or longer.

Some disasters have very humble beginnings. In August 2003, a power line started sparking to a tree growing close to the wire in Mansfield, Ohio. The resulting overload started a cascading failure that affected parts of almost a dozen states, a small part of Canada and virtually all of New York City. Parts of NYC were dark for several days until technicians could finish resetting all the circuits. Talk about your, "butterfly effect!"

Grocery stores have a problem if their electricity fails and their price scanners aren't working. Even if the cashiers could add the bill by hand, they wouldn't know what to charge because computers are needed to look up the price. The UPC numbers are printed on the goods, but there usually is not a hard copy list from which the prices corresponding to the UPC could be looked up. It could take days for a grocery store staff to write the prices on goods on the shelves.

[Sad Grandfather]

Well, they could just put some of us old coots in charge. When I was a kid there was no TV, no telephones, no internet and no computers. The products in the grocery store were marked with prices, instead of bar codes. There were no thermostats on wood burning stoves and fireplaces. We heard about the beginning of WWII on the radio.

We'll make it fine, but some of the young techie types might need some extensive training.