The Sun is about to burp! Be afraid, be very afraid!
Posted on 12/16/2014 10:38:01 AM PST by blam
Monica Bobra, Scientific American
December 16, 2014
A couple of months ago, the sun sported the largest sunspot we've seen in the last 24 years.
This monstrous spot, visible to the naked eye (that is, without magnification, but with protective eyewear of course), launched more than 100 flares.
The number of the spots on the sun ebbs and flows cyclically, every 11 years. Right now, the sun is in the most active part of this cycle: we're expecting lots of spots and lots of flares in the coming months.
Usually, the media focuses on the destructive power of solar flares — the chance that, one day, a huge explosion on the sun will fling a ton of energetic particles our way and fry our communication satellites. But there's less coverage on how we forecast these things, like the weather, so that we can prevent any potential damage.
How do you forecast a solar flare, anyway?
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
So she says. They've said that for several years now.
10% chance of X-class solar flare TODAY.
Would be nice if they gave us the whole picture, especially if this involves very difficult science such as predicting solar flares.
/mark
The Carrington scaremongers trot this out at every solar cycle peak. Yes, a real Carrington event would likely screw our technological civilization badly. However, missing from every one of these articles is the point that this latest solar cycle is by far the weakest in a generation, and the next cycle promises to be weaker yet; the number of sunspots associated with this cycle is much lower than previous ones, and most of the ones we’ve had have been much smaller and weaker than in the past.
We are not at the threshold of some new, terribly active phase of the sun’s behavior. The sun is going to sleep, which is likely to wreak just as much if not more havok on civilization than sunspots. No sunspots means a weaker magnetic field, so more radiation hits the earth; it means degraded communications, and there’s good evidence that it means colder winters and poorer growing seasons. We can live without TV; we can’t live without food.
We are indeed at the peak of the present 11-year cycle.
What isn’t mentioned is that it is the smallest peak since the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830), when it was so cold that you could walk across Long Island sound. In 1816, there was the ‘year without a summer’ (when lakes and rivers in Pennsylvania had ice in July and August)
Accuracy Rating less than 20%
I’m beginning to think the Hurricane Prediction people have gone over to the solar flare office.
Our tax $ pays these nitwit PhD morons to try to predict flares and spots??? Are you kidding? That would be like creating a fractal equation to predict which hippo in which mud pond will create a fart mud bubble to pop and splash mud on a neighboring rhino in the same mud pond. To quote a Japanese businessman, “that would be very difficult”...that means, there ain’t no way that is gonna happen.
Thanks KoRn, extra to APoD.
The Sun is about to burp! Be afraid, be very afraid!
Yup.
I cancelled my subscription after a particularly galling GW article.
I said "drop me a line if you all decide to get back into science."
:’)
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