Scientists Predict Solar Storm

[Guest]

Scientists Predict Solar Storm

Sunday, 22 August 2010 20:18

What once might have been considered science fiction is now a legitimate concern being looked at by the nation's top space scientists and government leaders. Every 11 years the number of solar flares peaks, and every 22 years the magnetic energy cycle of the sun peaks. In 2013, those two events will coincide, resulting in huge levels of radiation. O.K. so this happens every 22 years - what's the big deal? What makes it different this time is that we've never been so technologically sensitive to solar storms, according to Richard Fisher, head of Nasa's Heliophysics Division. “We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is

going to be,” Dr Fisher told a Telegraph reporter. “It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world." According to the National Academy of Sciences, the effects of a powerful solar storm could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina which cost over 125 billion dollars.

While such an event could result in power grids being down for months, it turns out that solar storms aren't the only potential cause of a massive power blackout. Terrorists could do the same thing to a country - even America, with the detonation of a single device high above the earth's surface.

Such potential disaster scenarios shouldn't surprise us. Although things may not happen as the researchers envision, it behooves us as Christians to consider our own preparedness and how we can position ourselves to do the greatest amount of good in the case of such an event. Back to Enoch will be producing some exciting new preparedness resources to address these issues. If you would like to know about them as they become available, make sure you've signed up to receive our email updates.

http://backtoenoch.org/Back-to-Enoch-News/scientists-predict-solar-storm.html

[Woody]

Did you hear this on Fox?

[Bravus]

While we shouldn't be slaves to fear, these are timely reminders of our vulnerability. The Icelandic volcano showed us that the ease of modern air travel can be taken away in a moment.

There are two facets to the solar storm threat. One is just interference with radio waves on earth - that would take out radio, television, wifi, wireless web, satellite communications (including GPS systems) and so on. We don't realise how much of what we do every day relies on radio communication of various kinds.

The other is much worse: a tough enough storm could actually 'fry' the silicon chips that are in computers, phones, and basically every appliance, and toys and planes and cars and... That would render any such devices that were affected permanently unusable. Can you imagine the effects of *that* on modern society?

We don't know to what extent it is going to happen - it could be negligible, it could be large. And there's nothing we can do about it. (Except, I guess, head out to the country and live the simple life with no electricity... someone in that situation wouldn't even notice!

The terrorist threat mentioned above is extremely remote: it requires both obtaining a nuclear weapon and near-space-launch payload technology. It also requires the wish to harm machines and the economy but not people... anyone think that description fits terrorists? Our worries about terrorists and nukes are about what they've always been. On the other hand, one of the nuclear armed states could detonate a nuke and cause this kind of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) damage to electronic systems... Just one of the many fun side effects of nuclear weapons.

[Dr. Shane]

Sounds like this could be as bad as Y2K.

[Bravus]

Y2K, though, we could do something about, and did, averting the vast majority of it. This we can't.

Not sure if it's what you were saying, Shane, but it drives me nuts when people say "Look, Y2K was hyped up and going to be this huge thing, and then nothing happened" and, by implication, "that means we should ignore all other threats we hear about". Y2K - well, number one, it *was* overhyped by journalists and people with agendas, that's true: planes were never going to fall out of the sky. But number two, it was averted by *action*: billions of dollars and hours of it.

[Dr. Shane]

OK, well if something big happens in 2013 I will probably lose internet service so let me apologize to you in advance. If nothing happens I will still have internet service and you can apologize to me come 2014

[Bravus]

Well, I did try to say as clearly as I could that we just don't know what, if anything, will happen. There's an observed cycle, which we have seen but can't really explain, of activity from the sun, and it's not massively regular anyway - it's kind of like the sun's weather/climate, and while we know the overall climate of a place it's notoriously hard to predict an individual weather event. So it's quite possible that nothing at all will happen. I still think it's worth knowing about the possibility, but as I also said, there's really nothing we can do to prepare, so just the usual stuff of making sure we're right with God every day, then.