Warnings have been voiced for the last two years: the sun is waking up and it could be very destructive.
Recently, the strongest solar flare in four years hit Earth a glancing blow and caused havoc in China, splashed a rare display of the Northern lights over the UK and prompted aviation officials to route planes away from the higher polar regions.
The sun is waking from a long quiet period and this go around it may prove to be very, very active.
That’s not a good thing.
Scientists strongest predictions of a worst case scenario for the new solar maximum falls into the category of a “global Katrina” possibly plunging the world into an extended financial depression and a loss of two trillion dollars or more.
Now again scientists have underscored their previous warning by issuing another at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
“We have to take the issue of space weather seriously,” said Sir John Beddington, the UK’s chief scientist at the gathering. “The sun is coming out of a quiet period, and our vulnerability has increased since the last solar maximum.”
The previous solar maximum occurred about a decade ago and saw flares with greater intensity than any that had ever been measured.
“Predict and prepare should be the watchwords,” agreed Jane Lubchenco, head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “So much more of our technology is vulnerable than it was 10 years ago.”
The last massive cycle that occurred in 1859 brought catastrophe and caused telegraph lines around the US to burst into flames.
The day the Earth stood still
In the recent article titled, “NASA warns solar flares from ‘huge space storm’ will cause devastation” The Daily Telegraph illustrates the step-by-step destruction of the first world countries.
Among all the countries with exposure to the solar devastation, the United States is the most susceptible.
As The Daily Telegraph writes, “National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power… “
Mammoth magnetic storms
Experts on the sun are very concerned as they see the sun awaking from its unusually long slumber with a violence unseen for generations. That violence could be in the form of mammoth magnetic storms. Those storms hitting the Earth will be like a giant’s fist slamming into the fragile electronic technology that runs the world. Hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis pale by comparison.
“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of NASA’s Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. “It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigation, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.”
The NASA scientist and his European counterparts are very concerned that no government has taken steps to protect the infrastructure. Time has almost run out and the worst case scenario would catapult the world from the 21st Century to the 19th Century in the blink of an eye.
The solar effect and ‘frenetic calm’
“Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect,” Fisher added.
Since the sun’s last upheaval caused worldwide disruption and destruction in 1859, civilization has rapidly advanced a society based on a technological infrastructure that can be whisked away in moments by a severe geomagnetic storm.
Similar in many respects to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can be employed as a weapon to rip away the technology of an enemy country during warfare, massive solar flares achieve the same effect by shorting out electrical circuits, burning wiring, overloading generators and zapping computers.
As a heliophysicist recently remarked, the underlying emotion of space experts is one of “frenetic calm.”
Back in 2008, the National Academy of Sciences issued their dire report: “Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts.” The report outlined, in excruciating detail, the potential demise of America’s 21st Century technological base—and the resulting havoc to the economy and society.
It spelled out how people in the first world countries rely heavily upon technologies at risk from solar storms—a technology that empowers financial systems, electrical power grids, water plants, air travel, farming, transportation, GPS navigation of aircraft and sea–going vessels…even the daily operation of government at all levels.
Technological collapse
After the solar blast all most communication will fail; power will fail. Cities will be left without light, water and food will run out. Civil unrest will become rampant as society collapses in a matter of days. The US federal and state governments will be hard-pressed to restore order amongst 300 million people as mass starvation begins and sources of potable water dwindle.
Restoration of the infrastructure could take years, even a decade or more. During the interim more than a billion people could die worldwide—more if warfare breaks out between countries desperate for resources.
This time around the sun’s fury could bring technological Armageddon: The near total failure of 21st Century technology leading to the total collapse of the financial, transportation and government infrastructures and subsequently the entire Western economy.
And because we’ve painted ourselves into a technological corner, there’s not a damn thing anyone can do to stop it.
