NASA’s orbiter is sending back evidence of massive volcanism, strange impact craters and magnetic tornadoes that funnel plasma directly from the sun to the planet’s surface. We’re seeing a very dynamic planet that has a lot going on today.

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“global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision-making.”

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 A NASA-funded study describes how extreme solar eruptions could have severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth.

Severe Electrojet Disturbance Scenerio

The National Academy of Sciences in Washington conducted the study. The resulting report provides some of the first clear economic data that effectively quantifies today’s risk of extreme conditions in space driven by magnetic activity on the sun and disturbances in the near-Earth environment. Instances of extreme space weather are rare and are categorized with other natural hazards that have a low frequency but high consequences.

“Obviously, the sun is Earth’s life blood,” said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “To mitigate possible public safety issues, it is vital that we better understand extreme space weather events caused by the sun’s activity.”

Besides emitting a continuous stream of plasma called the solar wind, the sun periodically releases billions of tons of matter called coronal mass ejections. These immense clouds of material, when directed toward Earth, can cause large magnetic storms in the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. Such space weather can affect the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems.

Space weather can produce solar storm electromagnetic fields that induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines, causing wide-spread blackouts and affecting communication cables that support the Internet. Severe space weather also produces solar energetic particles and the dislocation of the Earth’s radiation belts, which can damage satellites used for commercial communications, global positioning and weather forecasting. Space weather has been recognized as causing problems with new technology since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century. 

NASA: 2003 Solar Flare

A severe space weather event is likely when an intense flare occurs on the Earth-facing side of the sun. In 2003, this flare (left image) is followed immediately by an enormous interplanetary blast wave (right image) called coronal mass ejection or CME that propagates rapidly away from the sun towards Earth. Depending on severity and nature of the storm, the collision with Earth’s magnetic field called a geomagnetic storm can affect satellites, air travel and power grids. Credit: NASA

 A catastrophic failure of commercial and government infrastructure in space and on the ground can be mitigated through raising public awareness, improving vulnerable infrastructure and developing advanced forecasting capabilities. Without preventive actions or plans, the trend of increased dependency on modern space-weather sensitive assets could make society more vulnerable in the future.

NASA requested the study to assess the potential damage from significant space weather during the next 20 years. National and international experts from industry, government and academia participated in the study. The report documents the possibility of a space weather event that has societal effects and causes damage similar to natural disasters on Earth.

“From a public policy perspective, it is quite significant that we have begun the extremely challenging task of assessing space weather impacts in a quantitative way,” said Daniel Baker, professor and director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Baker chaired the panel that prepared the report.

“Whether it is terrestrial catastrophes or extreme space weather incidents, the results can be devastating to modern societies that depend in a myriad of ways on advanced technological systems,” said Baker. “We were delighted that NASA helped support bringing together dozens of world experts from industry and government to share their experiences and begin planning of improved public policy strategies.” 

NASA: Geomagnetic Storm Image

The geomagnetic storms’ effects can be visualized over the U.S. by showing changes of the electron density in the Earth’s outermost atmospheric layers. The before image shows the ionosphere electron density as high over wide parts of the lower 48 states. The after image shows electrons strongly diminished over the central and northeastern parts of the U.S, and increased over the northwest. Extreme, rapid changes in the ionosphere can inflict strong currents in the power grid that may lead to blackouts. Credit: NASA

The sun is currently near the minimum of its 11-year activity cycle. It is expected that solar storms will increase in frequency and intensity toward the next solar maximum, expected to occur around 2012.

The Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington provided funding for the study. The division seeks to understand the sun, its solar processes and the interaction of solar plasma and radiation with Earth, other planets and the universe. Understanding the connections between the sun and its planets will allow better prediction on the impacts of solar activity on humans, technological systems and even the presence of life itself in the universe.

The National Academies are chartered by Congress to provide independent technical and scientific advice to the federal government.

 Source:  Visit NASA.GOV for more information on this article and related topics

 

I’m sure that in our human stupidity we are probably contributing to the heating of the planet in many ways, but for the most part, the dramatic changes in weather and climate are caused by the natural rotation of the earth around its oblong axis. Surely everyone was paying attention in high school science, right? Didn’t your mother ever teach you that you would need that education some day?

The earth rotates around the sun in an elliptical pattern rather than a circular one. When the orbit is highly elliptical, one hemisphere will have hot summers and cold winters; the other hemisphere will have warm summers and cool winters. Many different things affect the motion of the earth as it rotates on its axis. Let’s face the truth here, this is Science 101.

Nutation is a slight irregular motion in the axis of rotation of earth (and other planets in our solar system). The process is slow, but cumulative. If the Earth were a perfect sphere, there would be no precession. Nutation occurs because the tidal forces which cause the precession of the equinoxes vary over time, so that the speed of precession is not constant. This leads to periodic climate changes known as the Milankovitch cycle. The Milankovitch cycle equals about a 1 degree change every 71.6 years. Another disturbance of the Earth’s rotation is called polar motion. Polar motion is influenced by various unpredictable things such as ocean currents, wind systems, and motions in the Earth’s core. Changes in these factors can cause radiation levels to rise all the way to 15% at high latitudes… so in simple terms, the ice plates start melting, the ocean temperatures change, wild weather starts occurring and we all become warmer.

If you study the patterns of earth, it is very simple to understand that over the next 10,000 years, northern hemisphere winters will gradually become longer and northern hemisphere summers will become shorter. The closer we tilt toward the sun, the hotter we get, the further we tilt away, the colder it gets (as in the ice age). This is just the nature of our planet.

In other words…. the earth is only going through its own self-healing process (imagine that) and there is nothing we can do to slow it down or stop it, at least nothing that will make a huge impact as some people imply.

God is in control and always has been!

SO there Al Gore