(If I can remember where I put it.)
Posted on 09/29/2006 2:38:15 PM PDT by blam
Solar flares will disrupt GPS in 2011
14:29 29 September 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Jeff Hecht
Navigation, power and communications systems that rely on GPS satellite navigation will be disrupted by violent solar activity in 2011, research shows.
A study reveals Global Positioning System receivers to be unexpectedly vulnerable to bursts of radio noise produced by solar flares, created by explosions in the Sun's atmosphere.
When solar activity peaks in 2011 and 2012, it could cause widespread disruption to aircraft navigation and emergency location systems that rely heavily on satellite navigation data.
Particularly intense solar activity occurs roughly every 11 years due to cyclic changes to the Sun's magnetic field – a peak period known as the solar maximum.
Solar flares send charged particles crashing into the outer fringes of the Earth's atmosphere at high velocity, generating auroras and geomagnetic storms.
Radio noise
Charged particles from solar flares also produce intense bursts of radio noise, which peak in the 1.2 and 1.6 gigahertz bands used by GPS. Normally, radio noise in these bands is very low, so receivers can easily pick up weak signals from orbiting satellites.
In 2005, however, Cornell University graduate student Alessandro Cerruti discovered a puzzling failure in GPS reception while operating a receiver at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientisttech.com ...
To me it says WILL disrupt gps signals and Could be widespread.
Semantics I guess.
IIRC, the Science channel had a show on where a solar flare cause total outtage in a huge section of Canada.
Rain is also a certainty. But can weather forecasters with any reliability say in 2011 there will be major floods that will disrupt commerce, farming etc.? Of course not!
The Sun is far more complex that our earth weather. We know little of the solar cycle other than it exists. There is big debate if were are at the bottom of the cycle right now... or if it won't happen until the spring of 2007.
In 2000 we had a direct hit by an X5 solar flare (hugely bigness). I think that the GPS systems and everything else handled it just fine.
Cycle 24 looks like it will be strong but as far as I see it, no reason to serve fear burgers just yet.
Boy, I can't wait until Al Gore tries to blame THIS one on either W or the Internal Combustion Engine!
Yep, there ought to be some good DXing on the old shortwave.
March 13, 1989. The entire electrical grid of Quebec was shut-down for nine hours.
(If I can remember where I put it.)
Earth's Magnetic Pole Drifting Quickly
Dec 09 7:28 PM US/Eastern
By ALICIA CHANG
AP Science Writer
Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America and toward Siberia at such a clip that Alaska might lose its spectacular Northern Lights in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday.
Despite accelerated movement over the past century, the possibility that Earth's modestly fading magnetic field will collapse is remote. But the shift could mean Alaska may no longer see the sky lights known as auroras, which might then be more visible in more southerly areas of Siberia and Europe.
The magnetic poles are part of the magnetic field generated by liquid iron in Earth's core and are different from the geographic poles, the surface points marking the axis of the planet's rotation.
Scientists have long known that magnetic poles migrate and in rare cases, swap places. Exactly why this happens is a mystery.
"This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada," Joseph Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University, said Thursday at an American Geophysical Union meeting.
Previous studies have shown that the strength of the Earth's magnetic shield has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years. During the same period, the north magnetic pole wandered about 685 miles out into the Arctic, according to a new analysis by Stoner.
The rate of the magnetic pole's movement has increased in the last century compared to fairly steady movement in the previous four centuries, the Oregon researchers said.
At the present rate, the north magnetic pole could swing out of northern Canada into Siberia. If that happens, Alaska could lose its Northern Lights, which occur when charged particles streaming away from the sun interact with different gases in Earth's atmosphere.
The north magnetic pole was first discovered in 1831 and when it was revisited in 1904, explorers found that the pole had moved 31 miles.
For centuries, navigators using compasses had to learn to deal with the difference between magnetic and geographic north. A compass needle points to the north magnetic pole, not the geographic North Pole. For example, a compass reading of north in Oregon is about 17 degrees east of geographic north.
In the study, Stoner examined the sediment record from several Arctic lakes. Since the sediments record the Earth's magnetic field at the time, scientists used carbon dating to track changes in the magnetic field.
They found that the north magnetic field shifted significantly in the last thousand years. It generally migrated between northern Canada and Siberia, but it sometimes moved in other directions, too.
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I have to "baby" my Garmin when I download Geo/Terracaches from my iMac as it is, and now this? Geezzz....
Solar flares are not something to be taken lightly.
That is a major flare, seen in the light of hydrogen-alpha.
Thanks President Bush... who else's fault could it be?
LORAN is in the process of a rather impressive upgrade under the current proposal. Stunning accuracy for 100KHz signal. To contain massive data in the pulse "manipulations". All with land-based unmanned XMTR stations that won't be the expected 1st thing taken out in a heavy conflict, like most of the GPS birds will most certainly be. Portables stations can be reset in hours instead of years to put up a new sat. Not line of sight, 100KHz is. Cheap, reliable, accurate, rapid XMTR replenishment, backup nav.
I hope the USCG approves it or the DOD picks it up.
Didn't you place it next to your meteor?
So you're one of those people??
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