Posted on 05/17/2011 6:56:07 AM PDT by jda
GENEVA (AP) -- A senior official at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says solar storms pose a growing threat to criticial infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation systems and electrical transmission equipment.
NOAA Assistant Secretary Kathryn Sullivan says the intensity of solar storms is expected to peak in 2013 and countries should prepare for "potentially devastating effects."
Solar storms release particles that can temporarily disable or permanently destroy fragile computer circuits.
Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space, told a U.N. weather conference in Geneva on Tuesday that "it is not a question of if, but really a matter of when a major solar event could hit our planet."
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Good grief! There are several FReepers who feel it is their duty to police everything that doesn't quite strike them right - misspelled words, dangling participles, snarks that they don't understand, non-sequiturs, etc., etc., etc. You sound like liberals - mad at everyone and feeling victimized by everything.
Conservatives should be a light to drive out the darkness, a breath of fresh air. And, especially when it comes to fellow conservatives - lighten up!,
P.S. The "snark" was to tweak our climatist friends who seem to blame everything on global warming.
And it happens every 11 years regular as clockwork. So we have had plenty of experience with it.
Solar storms must be defeated.
It’s what the enviro-nuts dream of.
” Imagine a world where your telephones doesn’t work, your car won’t start and there’s no electricity. “
If you haven’t already given at least some thought to such a scenario, you probably haven’t been paying attention to political and economic trends lately...
Granted, a natural - even extraterrestial-natural - event could have the same effect....
will women and children will be hardest hit. . .?
....and of course, the price of oil goes up due to fear over the solar storms....
Some Freepers live to snark, it would seem that they have nothing to add to the over all conversation so they just snark everything.
Hey, I resemble that remark.
Bush and those damned SUVs.
Womyn and minorities will be hardest hit.
Snark is totally justified. NOAA’s own predictions of the strength of the upcoming solar maximum have dropped and dropped and dropped over the past few years. Check out http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/27/nasas-sunspot-prediction-roller-coaster/
Let your smile be your umbrella! That will keep the excess sun off of you! No snarkiness here!
Then why is the U.S. government wasting money on food stamps and welfare ? All that money should be spent on preparing for sun storms.
That is a very real threat that we are not nearly prepared for.
All of the billions of dollars being diverted in Global Climate Change schemes would be far better spent trying to come up with ways to protect our global communications systems from the very real and natural threat of massive solar flares.
A solar flare big enough to wipe out most of our satellite communications system will hit the Earth someday. It has happened before. It will happen again. It is not a question of if, just when.
“It’s nothing to laugh at. But I will be laughing when it does hit and everyone cellphones go out”
Its going to be worse than your cellphone going out if we get one like 1859 where all the telegraph wires fried. Something like that would blow out a lot if not all of the large transformers on the grid. They take 2 years to build and they are built in another country. Part or all of the USA could be without electricity or with minimal electricity for 2 years or more. It would create havoc and daily life would be a struggle. A lot of people would not make it.
We are taking it very seriously and planning for an alternative electrical system, probably solar and not tied to the grid.
This is not about climate change. The solar activity runs in natural phases and we are entering a very active phase. The chances for a large solar flare in 2012 or 2013 are very real. It is definitely something to be concerned about.
Yeah, it’s basically like a huge EMP event. I doubt even generators would survive it.
We need to put lead back into our gasoline so we can create a lead shield in our upper atmosphere to block out these evil rays from the sun.
An added bonus would be if we added high gloss lead to the gasoline so the lead particles could reflect IR rays from the sun which would then cool the planet.
Maybe we could adjust the amount of lead so that rather than cap and trade to steal money from us we could simply adjust the planet temperature with the proper mix./sarcasm>
“Yeah, it’s basically like a huge EMP event. I doubt even generators would survive it.”
If the generators are disconnected, shielded and held in reserve until after the event, they should survive just fine. The bigger problem is storing enough fuel, long term.
“Yeah, it’s basically like a huge EMP event. I doubt even generators would survive it.”
We have researched it pretty well. You will get about 48 hours notice that its coming so you will have time to protect your cell phones, laptops etc by putting them in a farraday cage but it will probably take out all the satellites so the phones and internet won’t work anyway. If you have a Solar system it will give you time to go up on the roof and cover the panels up with Mylar film which you can buy by the roll pretty cheaply. That will protect them. Remove the inverter or controller and put them in a Mylar wrap or a farraday cage and un plug everything and wait for it to pass then hook the Solar system back up. You could probably protect your home generator if you disconnected it and wrapped it in Mylar. There is a lot of stuff you can do to protect your electronics especially if you have a couple of days warning which you will get.
I imagine in the case of a really bad solar flare the government will simply turn off the grid a few hours in advance of the storm hitting Earth. Then they will hope to crank it back up but given the way its cobbled together that could be sporadic and lengthy.
We have been researching various ways to become somewhat independent of the national infrastructure. Any type of serious event that might happen is likely to affect the grid and its just a good idea to prepare to be independent if necessary. If you can live on your own for 12 months you will likely be able to get through any of the probable events that may occur.
“potentially devastating effects.”
OMG! PASS A TAX! QUICK!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.