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NASA Hathaway: Solar cycles 23-24 (1995-2020)
In a report funded by NASA, NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) has issued a formal, public prediction that “A new active period of Earth-threatening solar storms will be the weakest since 1928 and its peak is still four years away, after a slow start last December, predicts an international panel of experts led by NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. Even so, Earth could get hit by a devastating solar storm at any time, with potential damages from the most severe level of storm exceeding $1 trillion.”
The prediction, published in a report at www.spaceweather.com, continues: “The panel predicts the upcoming Solar Cycle 24 will peak in May 2013 with a daily sunspot number of 90. If the prediction proves true, Solar Cycle 24 will be the weakest cycle since number 16, which peaked at 78 daily sunspots in 1928, and ninth weakest since the 1750s, when numbered cycles began.”
The NOAA solar panel’s predictions appear to lessen the potential risk to the high energy electrical grid system of 2012-13 Solar flares set out in a Jan. 2009 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report. According to a New Scientist article on the NAS report, “The [Jan. 2009] NAS report outlines the worst case scenario for the US. The ‘perfect storm’ is most likely on a spring or autumn night in a year of heightened solar activity - something like 2012. Around the equinoxes, the orientation of the Earth's field to the sun makes us particularly vulnerable to a plasma strike.”
The 2012-13 solar maximum
The NOAA panel has conditionally predicted the 3rd calmest solar cycle since 1755. The report on its findings states, “The panel also predicted that the lowest sunspot number between cycles—or solar minimum—occurred in December 2008, marking the end of Cycle 23 and the start of Cycle 24. If the December prediction holds up, at 12 years and seven months Solar Cycle 23 will be the longest since 1823 and the third longest since 1755. Solar cycles span 11 years on average, from minimum to minimum.
“An unusually long, deep lull in sunspots led the panel to revise its 2007 prediction that the next cycle of solar storms would start in March 2008 and peak in late 2011 or mid-2012. The persistence of a quiet sun since the last prediction has led the panel to a consensus that the next cycle will be ‘moderately weak’.”
2012-13 solar flares & the high energy electrical grid
Still, the report on NOAA’s solar prediction panel refers to the Jan 2009 NAS report's risk assessment, stating: “A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a storm that severe occurred today, it could cause $1-2 trillion in damages the first year and require four to ten years for recovery, compared to $80-125 billion that resulted from Hurricane Katrina.”
Solar force multiplier: the hole in the earth’s magnetic field
The revised NOAA solar prediction does not lessen the force multiplier effect that large holes discovered in the earth’s magnetosphere may have of the destructive effect of plasma from 2012-13 solar flares. An April 1, 2009 article by Seattle Exopolitics Examiner.com on the risk of 2012 solar flares stated, “According to a December 16, 2008 report, NASA’s THEMIS spacecraft has discovered a hole in earth’s magnetic field which is 10 times as large as previously thought. The magnetosphere, which is designed to protect earth from the plasma of solar flares, now has a hole in it four time the size of the earth.
“According to the NASA report, ‘Northern IMF events don't actually trigger geomagnetic storms but they do set the stage for storms by loading the magnetosphere with plasma. A loaded magnetosphere is primed for auroras, power outages, and other disturbances that can result when, say, a CME (coronal mass ejection) hits.’
“The solar maximum is expected in 2012. University of New Hampshire scientist Jimmy Raeder states, ‘We're entering Solar Cycle 24. For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway. It's the perfect sequence for a really big event.’”
The Obama administration, solar cycle 24 and new energy
Though lessening the risk of probability of solar storms in solar cycle 24 (2009-2020), the conclusions of the April 1, 2009 Examiner.com article as to the vulnerability of the high-power electrical grid system still stand. “The Obama administration and most modern governmental energy departments in the 192 U.N. member nations have focused on reducing dependence on conventional energy grids (petroleum, coal or nuclear power) by introducing renewable energy sources such as wind, geo-thermal, and tidal power. These alternative sources are thought to supply about 10% of current energy needs. For example, the Obama policy with regard to the electrical energy grid is stated its official energy and the environment agenda on the White House website:
‘Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.’
“This policy, which replicates energy grid policy in many advanced industrialized nations, is not adequate for the challenges of 2012 solar flares. The policy does not promote new fuel-less non-polluting energy sources now sequestered in secret, national security and black budget projects, and which have been developed using U.S. tax-payer funds. These included reported anti-gravitic technology and free energy technologies, based on Tesla technology.
“So here is a key question: Is human society being set up to fail and suffer an effective systems collapse with great loss of life and property if 2012-13 solar flares materialize in the worst case scenario?”
MORE INFORMATION ON SOLAR CYCLE 24:
NASA: Deep solar minimum (2009)
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
NASA: The surprising shape of solar storms (croissant-shaped)
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/14apr_3dcme.htm
EXAMINER.COM: 2012 may bring the “perfect storm” – solar flares, systems collapse
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Comments
In 1913 we had a yearly mean of 1.4 (sunspots)
In 1917 the mean was 103.9
I have my own theory on the cycle, and my prediction is for a much more active Maximum than the NOAA predicts.
The chances for a destructive CME (one that is both powerful and with a trajectory to hit the planet) is random, but with a high level of activity a serious risk.
The Carrington event occured in 1859, the mean of that year was 93.8
Now hold on a minute, we are experiencing the weakest solar max in nearly a century, and yet we must still fear a CME of devastating proportions?? I guess given that the wheels have fallen off the GW bandwagon with 10 years of cooling and 2007/8 wiping out a century of warming we must need to "Fear" the possibility of a CME frying us?? Thanks to clowns like Hansen, and NASA fudging it's own climate data and advocating flawed computer modelling as reality it is losing any credibility it may have once had, if it ever had any to begin with.
Whats the chances the energy utilities will now add on top of carbon taxes, environmental levies and their other money for jam charges a CMEML (Coronal Mass Ejection Mitigation Levy)
I can just hear the spin ...er speech , "We at BigSpark can protect consumers from any such event(by shutting down the grid temporarilly, He He He) but it is the consumer who ultimately must bear the cost of the hardening of the grid to absorb any such event. To put this small added cost into perspective for consumers, should we not take the required measures to protect their supply of electricity, the world as we know it could cease to exist for up to ten years and cost trillions of dollars.....smirk. Imagine say New York with no power for up to a decade, that would be the consequence for not paying more.... turning off....er.... i mean hardening the grid."
CME's?? I'm shaking in my boots......mainly because it's so bloody cold down here in Australia at the moment....Global Warming also means colder weather didnt you know??
This phenomenon is not the same as predicting the sun will rise again tomorrow. What cycle 24? The last blemish was cycle 23. There is no sign the cycle has started. Predictions of catastrophe are the new McCarthyism.
to the skeptics who have commented...
The data I posted in my comment is fact based on historical data. You are entitled to your own assumptions, I just state the obvious risks.
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Make sure that Solar Cycle 24 will have 'weaker' "Solar Flares"...
Getting many solar panels will have protection...
Weaker Magnetosphere + Major Solar Flare in 2012 = Major blackout!!! D:
Stronger Magnetosphere + More Renewable Energy Sources + Weaker Solar Flare in 2012 = Minor brownout anyone?
God, please let Yourself protect us from destruction for once and for all!
Your scientific consensus was wrong. Cycle 24 did not start until Janyary 4, 2010.
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