Sunspot Cycle 2012 Predictions: The Power Grid vs. Solar flares, Corona Mass Ejections and NASA

2012 Survival Guide: A practical planner for the worst case scenario

Sunspot Cycle vs. the Power Grid

Last updated: November 18, 2011

From TheCityEdition.com

Whatever happens on the ground, solar phycisists expect the Sun's behavior over the next two years to impact the planet in ways rarely (if ever) experienced by modern man. As a sign of scarier things to come, a medium-sized corona mass ejection, or CME, was detected heading towards us on June 7th. While its effect was inconsequential, NASA officials lamented that another CME emitted on the far side of the Sun was packing considerably more heat.

"If this event was on a collision course with the U.S., we would have had a major space weather event," Antti Pulkkinen of the Goddard Space Flight Center told the New York Times. "In this regard, we got lucky."

NASA
This November, a cluster of sunspots formed and fired off its first X-class solar flare. NASA scientists hope the cluster will soon rotate out of its current position, aimed directly at Earth.

On Valentines Day, a trio of solar flares caused minor disruptions to radio transmissions in China and produced auroras that were visible in the United Kingdom. Incredibly, Earth dodged a bullet on that occasion as well. That's because the CME that followed the flares to Earth was much weaker than expected.

NASA released this video depicting a medium-siced CME caught leaving the Sun by the Solar Dynamics Observatory on June 7, 2011.

Last year, dire forecasts for next year's peak in the sunspot cycle led the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to authorize $100 million to upgrade the nation's power grids. It wasn't much of a debate, either. The vote was 47-0, with many legislators acknowledging that a big enough solar event can knock out grids, satellites, microchip circuitry and thousands of pole transformers, all in a single blow. And once this equipment fails, experts reminded Congress, most of it will require more than an overnight service call to fix. A NASA-funded study published in 2009 went so far as to suggest that electric power and communications to tens of millions of people could disappear for months.

A perfect storm of radioactive particles disabling our modern infrastructure has been forecast for some time now. Solar physicist Sami Solanki warned in 2005 that an unusually high output of solar flares since the 1940's may be the prelude to record activity by 2013. "Except possibly for a few brief peaks, the Sun is more active currently than at any time in the past 11,000 years," he told a conference of his peers in Boulder, Colorado. Solanki directs the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

NASA funded a study by the National Academy of Sciences in 2009 that outlined the long-term consequences to the industrial world should a powerful corona mass ejection overwhelm the Earth's magnetic field.

Yet despite so much circumstantial evidence of a mega-disaster on the way, other scientists have recently downgraded their estimates about the next solar maximum. At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's solar physics division in June, three studies were presented, each predicting a long-term lull in sunspot activity.

The revised assessment may have been premature. In early November of this year, a massive cluster of sunspots took shape, releasing several powerful X and M-class solar flares. Regarding the worst of the barrage, Karen Fox of the Goddard Space Flight Center wrote:

"The sun sent out two different kinds of solar activity last night in different directions. One was an X 1.9 class flare that burst out from an active region on the sun, numbered AR1339, which just rounded over the left side of the sun into Earth's view. That flare began at 3:27 PM ET on November 3, 2011 and triggered some disruption to radio communications on Earth beginning about 45 minutes later. Scientists are continuing to watch this active region as it could well produce additional solar activity as it passes across the front of the sun.

"The second eruption was a coronal mass ejection (CME), beginning about 8:45 PM ET that came from a different region, bursting off the backside of the sun. That CME is one of the brightest seen so far this solar cycle, and it is headed in the direction of Venus. "

NASA scientists remain vigilant about AR 1339, since it will be pointed at Earth for the next little while. That's because a solar flare with a 45 minute travel time doesn't give monitoring stations on Earth much time to alert grid and satellite operators. So an X-class flare larger than 1.9 could be a real showstopper.

Meantime, back at that June meeting of astronomers, those study authors went on to warn that the less-active sunspot cycle that they've forecast could trigger a mini-ice age. Such a scenario last transpired between 1300 and 1859 AD, encompassing what phycisists refer to as the Maunder Minimum (1645 - 1715). Few sunspots were seen during this time, as an epoch of intense cold gripped Europe, destroying crops and causing the River Thames to freeze over every winter.

The Little Ice Age officially ended on September 1, 1859, when the largest solar storm in recorded history produced auroras along the Equator for a week. Called the Carrington Event, it was named after the British astronomer who documented a series of sunspots that produced a massive solar storm.

(Richard Carrington would go on to discover that the Sun goes through 22-year cycles of magnetism and sunspot activity that repeat over and over. Each of two 11-year stints contains a trough and a peak, and the only difference between them is that the Sun's magnetic poles shift polarity between north and south. We're now in Cycle 24.)

In 1859, the radiation spike from the Carrington CME shut down the world’s rudimentary telegraph network for a short time. Curiously, the solar storm on that occasion occurred during a lowpoint (i.e. trough) in the sunspot cycle.

Watching and Waiting

A general warning sign of a solar flare about to fire is an expanding bubble of plasma on the Sun’s surface one or two days before the burst. To the naked eye, thislooks like a black blotch on a bright canvass, hence the term sunspot.

To keep tabs on a potential doomsday scenario unfolding, the European Space Agency and NASA first launched the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) in 1995. In 2006, the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) was sent up to join the vigil. STEREO's two satellites are positioned on opposite sides of the space, between the Sun and Earth, providing a fully three-dimensional view of CME's.

NASA
Artist image of the the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Nearly 20 other satellites managed by multiple space agencies, including Japan and India, are monitoring the Sun. On the ground, NASA's Space Environment Center tracks most of these probes. In the event of a strong CME heading towards Earth, it's the center's job to alert power grid operators and satellite controllers worldwide. In a severe solar storm, a wave of solar flare activity precedes the arrival of the CME, whose charged particles travel more slowly through space.

- - -

Continued on Page 2

- - -

2012 Guide Home

---------------------------------------------------

New at The City Edition: Welders Universe

---------------------------------------------------