NASA and the ESA agree the Earth is going into an extended cooling period in the years ahead. Some experts even believe it could thrust the Northern Hemisphere into a mini-Ice Age lasting decades. But the winter of 2011 to 2012 may shape up to be horrendously bad and it has nothing to do with a cooling sun, but the changing geomagnetic field.
For some time astrophysicists and some climate experts suspected a link between solar emissions and the Earth’s climate. One thing that hinted at a correlation: the sunspot cycle in relation to longer term weather patterns. Although weather and climate are two separate things, a symbiotic relationship between the two exists.
Recently CERN in Switzerland conducted an experiment called Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets (CLOUD) that actually measured the charged particles from the sun interacting with the Earths’ magnetic field and troposphere. The results from CLOUD revealed that the sun does affect Earth’s climate to a significant degree. In fact, what drives planetary weather patterns is the climate and what drives the climate is the sun’s magnetosphere and its electromagnetic interaction with Earth’s magnetic field.
When the field shifts, when it fluctuates, when it goes into flux and begins to become unstable anything can happen. And what normally happens is that all hell breaks loose. That has happened for millennia as the solar maximum approaches.
Solar maximum is approaching and astrophysicists, NASA and the ESA are warning the sun’s coronal mass ejections may be the worst in 150 years. While much of the concern centers around the delicate 21st Century infrastructure that could be damaged by direct hits of solar X-flares, the CERN CLOUD study’s impact on severe weather-related events should also be considered.
Does massive solar energy equal massive superstorms?
Some climate models have proposed that intense solar activity can precipitate significant changes in the weather pattern affecting the Northern latitudes. Air mass patterns, atmospheric electrical density and water vapor, the jet stream, El Niño or El Niña—all can be modified, intensified, or initiated. Normal weather patterns can become exacerbated and normal storms boosted into devastating superstorms.
The winter of 2010 to 2011 saw several intense superstorms break out across North America and Northern Europe. Meteorological experts are predicting far worse for the 2011 to 2012 winter season. Some regions may be trapped in snowfall of historic proportions. The possibility of being snowbound for up to a week or more will increase.
People living in areas that run the risk of being inundated by winter superstorms might consider taking advance precautions. Having enough food on hand is a logical step. For ideas on what to stock up with see “6 foods you can store forever.”
Scientific support
Besides the CERN scientists, other researchers have investigated the correlation between the geomagnetic field and weather-climate. Discussing the magnetic field and its impact on weather, the scholarly paper “Weather and the Earth’s magnetic field” was published in the journal Nature.
Scientists too are very concerned about the increasing danger of superstorms and their impact on humanity.
A Danish study published in the scientific journal Geology, found strong correlation between climate change, weather patterns and the magnetic field.
“The earth’s climate has been significantly affected by the planet’s magnetic field, according to the Danish study that could challenge the notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming.
“‘Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the earth’s magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics,’ one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in western Denmark, told the journal.
In the scientific paper “Midday magnetopause shifts earthward of geosynchronous orbit during geomagnetic superstorms with Dst = -300 nT” the magnetic intensity of solar storms impacting Earth can intensify the effects and increase the frequency of damaging global superstorms.
The superstorm cycle arrived in 2010
The first evidence we have that the dangerous superstorm cycle started is the devastating series of storms that pounded the UK during late 2010.
On the heels of the lashing the British Isles sustained, monster storms pummeled North America. One monstrous superstorm slammed the U.S. and stretched across 2,000 miles affecting more than 150 million people.
Yet even as that storm wreaked havoc across the Western, Southern, Midwestern and Northeastern United States, another hellish superstorm broke out in the Pacific and devastated Australia.
During late 2011, the cycle of storms and superstorms increased, the latest being the historic “Halloween blizzard” that hit the Northeast with a fury not seen since the Civil War.
Cracks
While the geomagnetic field is under assault by the sun, NASA is keeping a wary on another worrisome phenomenon: cracks.
Recently, as the magnetic field continues to warp and buckle, NASA discovered “cracks” in it. This concerns them as the field significantly affects the ionosphere, tropospheric wind patterns, and atmospheric moisture.
All three things have an effect on the weather.
Worse, what shields the planet from cancer-causing radiation is the atmosphere, ozone and the magnetic field. The magnetic field is the first line of defense. It acts as a shield deflecting harmful radiation from bathing the surface of the Earth. With the field weakening and cracks emerging, the death rate from cancer could skyrocket and mutations of DNA could increase as the atmosphere alone cannot shield all harmful radiation from reaching the surface.
Another federal agency, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), issued a report causing a flurry of panic when it predicted that mammoth superstorms in the future could wipe out most of California. The NOAA scientists argued it’s a plausible scenario and would be driven by an “atmospheric river” moving water at the same rate as 50 Mississippi rivers flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.
The ‘Age of the Superstorm’
Superstorms can damage agriculture across the planet. They can lead to famines and mass starvation. The truly massive ones can reshape coastlines, destroy cities, cause billions of dollars of damage, and create millions of homeless—all within a matter of days.
Superstorms can also cause certain societies, cultures or entire countries to collapse, while others may go to war with each other.
Unfortunately, the “Age of the Superstorm” has arrived.
