The Damage the Sun may do...

We might not even need a poleshift/supernova/Niburu etc for their to be a major calamity in 2012. It could just be the result of out Sun having a bad day. A recent article sums up some genuine facts nicely - quotes are from Doug Biesecker is a physicist in the NOAA’s Space Environment Center (SEC).

About $2 billion in damage to existing satellites occurred during the sunspot cycle from 1996 to 2005.

The solar activity “we’re really worried about,” according to Lister, is a massive coronal ejection event. It’s a literal once-in-a-century solar super storm. In a coronal ejection event, the sun erupts massive qualities of super-heated plasma and material from its surface at speeds approaching 100 million kilometers per hour.

The benchmark solar super storm took place in 1859 where in some cases telegraph wires exploded off poles or caught fire. The aurora borealis was seen regularly as far south as Rome along with Florida and Texas in the U.S. Lister added: “Today’s commercial environment is much more vulnerable to a storm of this magnitude.”

...A formal forecast of a possible global economic devastation from a coronal super storm was published by Elsevier in 2006.

The report states: “The consequences of a future 1859-caliber super storm event – were it to occur near the peak of the next sunspot cycle – are quite extensive and involve a range of human and technology impacts not unlike a major Force 5 hurricane or tsunami.”

In satellites alone, a future 1859-type solar super storm could wipe out hundreds of existing telecom and GPS satellites, reduce the orbit of the $100 billion International Space Station and cause upward of $100 billion in damage and replacement costs.

Lister pointed to a 1989 solar storm that cost two large electric utilities – Hydro Quebec in Canada and PSE&G in New Jersey – more than $30 million in direct damage. Hydro Quebec subsequently spent more than $1.2 billion upgrading its power-grid system to reduce future solar effects.

A coronal event would likely be much more devastating as millions of watts of electromagnetic energy pouring out of the planet’s polar regions would be instantly attracted to elaborate electrical power grids. Lister added: “When one of these things happen, the sun releases the energy equivalent of exploding about a billion megatons of nuclear weapons.”

With existing NASA solar-monitoring satellites – most of which are ironically scheduled be out of service when the next event of solar maximum occurs in 2012 – NOAA monitors the sun for signature radiation events. Lister added: “The first signs will be spikes in optical radiation, X-rays and gamma radiation, which will reach Earth in eight to 10 minutes after the eruption.”

If the event is a major coronal ejection, the radioactive mass will start entering the Earth’s magnetic field between 11 and 24 hours after it leaves the surface of the sun. After that, electromagnetic hell will break loose.

“If it’s a major coronal event, you’ll likely see a major disassociation of ozone molecules in the upper atmosphere from the magnetic disruption,” according to Lister. This will likely have the net effect of temporarily shredding the protective ozone layer.

“There will be dramatic increases in UV radiation, which is not good for either plants or humans on the Earth’s surface,” Lister said.

Of course that is if just a semi-regular event like 1859 occurs. For all we know, that could be the equiavlent of a king tide - whereas one day there will be a tsunami from our Sun. Could the tsunami be coming in 2012?