Better late than never!

In my recent article on the incredible harm a solar storm could inflict on infrastructure, I pointed out that we only have a single line of defense, and the solar storms it detects could kill it:

When warning us about incoming geomagnetic storms, the NOAA’s only source of data is the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite. It was launched in 1997, and according the the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2009, it is “well beyond its planned operational life”. I take this to mean it could fail any time, and there is no backup satellite! And all current safety measures become redundant – we won’t be able to remove vulnerable equipment from the grid before it is too late. “ACE is a single point of failure and it’s old,” said William Murtagh, program coordinator for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. “Every time I have a space weather storm I cringe a little bit that our very own space weather satellite doesn’t succumb to the storms I’m relying on it to help forecast.”

Here’s some good news from NASA – a second satellite is due for launch in 2014, and it will sit at twice the distance of the ACE, which means we will get double the warning of a solar storm.

Essentially a large square of extremely thin metal (it’s one eighth the width of a human hair), the sail can be attached to a satellite to cheaply and constantly produce thrust. With a planned launch in 2014, the sail might be able to fly a satellite close to the sun to study solar flares—and alert scientists when one is incoming.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/30/space-sailboat-could-offer-solar-storm-early-warning-system

Given that it will only cost NASA $20 million, and the ACE needs replacing, and a solar storm could cost trillions in damages (plus millions of deaths), I’d like to expect that thus project will proceed.

Second Solar Storm Detector Launching in 2014 is a post from: 2012 Blog

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I feel like running a contest… how many more articles and videos debunking 2012 will NASA release? I’ve lost count of how many they’ve made to date. Here’s the latest:

More Debunking from NASA is a post from: 2012 Blog

©2012 2012 Blog. All Rights Reserved.

An article has been appearing in blogs and at forums. It says, in part:

To avert a possible catastrophe – this time set for February 2013 – scientists suggest confronting asteroid 2012 DA14 with either paint or big guns. The stickler is that time has long run out to build a spaceship to carry out the operation.

­NASA’s data shows the 60-meter asteroid, spotted by Spanish stargazers in February, will whistle by Earth in 11 months. Its trajectory will bring it within a hair’s breadth of our planet, raising fears of a possible collision.

The asteroid, known as DA14, will pass by our planet in February 2013 at a distance of under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). This is closer than the geosynchronous orbit of some satellites.

There is a possibility the asteroid will collide with Earth, but further calculation is required to estimate the potential threat and work out how to avert possible disaster, NASA expert Dr. David Dunham told students at Russia’s University of Electronics and Mathematics.

“The Earth’s gravitational field will alter the asteroid’s path significantly. Further scrupulous calculation is required to estimate the threat of collision,” said Dr. Dunham, as transcribed by Russia’s Izvestia. “The asteroid may break into dozens of small pieces, or several large lumps may split from it and burn up in the atmosphere. The type of the asteroid and its mineral structure can be determined by spectral analysis. This will help predict its behavior in the atmosphere and what should be done to prevent the potential threat,” said Dr. Dunham.

Now, David Dunham is an expert, but he is not representing NASA. And the article originates from Russian news service RT.

NASA’s official stance is that the asteroid is not a potential hazard until 2020. They have not hidden how close it will come in 2013. There seems to be differences in size estimates as well. NASA has it at 44m in diameter, RT says 60m. The general rule of thumb is that 50m or less will break up in the atmosphere, but larger will remain intact and is therefore more hazardous.

Reasons for ignoring this story:

• Last June 2011 MD came within 11,000 miles of Earth. 16,800 miles is still close, but closer asteroids have not struck us
• The story came from Russia, and possibly the message got muddled via transcription and translation
• Dunham has not published the information himself anywhere
• NASA would not neglect to include Earth’s gravity in their calculations. Perhaps Dunham has added gravity to an equation that already included it?

Asteroid 2012 DA14: Earth Impact in 2013? is a post from: 2012 Blog

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This is weak, weak, weak. The headline is quite definite:

Supervolcanoes: Not a Threat For 2012

But if you read the article, NASA expert Adam Voiland (not an expert really, see his resume) points out:

• Volcanologists have many unanswered questions about supervolcanoes, including what triggers their eruptions, and how can we predict when the next supervolcano will erupt?
• The most recent supereruption occurred in New Zealand about 26,000 years ago.
• Scientists have no way of predicting with perfect accuracy whether a supervolcano will occur in a given century, decade, or year – and that includes 2012.
• The odds if a supervolcano erupting in any given year is close to a million-to-one.
• There’s no sign of a supereruption looming anytime soon.

On that last point, given that scientists have never witnessed such an eruption, and they don’t know what triggers them, how do they know what to look for?

For those of us that believe there were advanced ancient civilizations that could do things like, say, build pyramids – 26,000 years ago is recent enough that the Taupo eruption might have been intelligently observed, and notes passed on. And 13 months is plenty of time for a supervolcano to kick-start itself.

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It looks like next in the series will be either Nibiru or pole shifts. I bet they either ignore magnetic pole shifts, or tell us they cannot happen suddenly (despite recent evidence to the contrary).

NASA Expert: No 2012 Supervolcano is a post from: 2012 Blog

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You just know I’m going to be critical of this news item…

Dr Alex Young, a heliophysicist at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said we don’t need to worry about the sun for another few billion years – and certainly not in 2012.

He said: ‘We understand the sun well enough, with all the technology and all the science – and all of the many spacecraft we have that are monitoring it 24 hours a day, seven days a week – to know that this super storm that is going to wipe out the earth simply isn’t going to happen.’

Yep, once more an expert has decided to ignore the concepts of global cataclysms, and TEOTWAWKI, and just address the complete destruction of planet Earth. Any 2012 survivalist obviously don’t expect that to happen… because nobody would survive.

He said that, apart from a nasty skin burn on a hot summer’s day, there was very little to fear from our ‘active star’. There simply isn’t enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth.

NASA Expert: Solar Flares Harmless is a post from: 2012 Blog

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On September 23 2011, give or take a day, a 6.5 ton satellite will come crashing to Earth. This is fact, and the information is from NASA. The prediction is that at least 26 large pieces will survive the journey through our atmosphere. They aren’t sure exactly where they will hit, but have calculated the odds of a human being struck at 1 in 3,200.

Read about the The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) at Wikipedia.

Over at Space.com there is a video showing the predicted zone of impact possibilities:
http://www.space.com/12982-dead-nasa-satellite-falling-earth-sept-24.html

From viewing the video, it seems that Australia and northern Europe are safe, while parts of Africa, Asia and the Americas are at risk. The greatest likelihood is that it will crash in the Pacific Ocean, so hopefully that will be the result and not something worse (like hitting a nuclear power plant).

This reminds me of SkyLab which crashed (safely) into Australia in 1979. The odds of a human getting hit that time were calculated to be 152-to-1.

Satellite Crash Alert is a post from: 2012 Blog

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One of the world’s leading skeptics is Michael Shermer. Not only is he the founder of the Skeptics Society, and head honcho and primary contributor for Skeptic Magazine, he has also penned an opinion piece for New Scientist this week: The End is Always Nigh in the Human Mind.

When I finished reading it I thought, WAIT A SECOND! Mr Shermer covered world wars, Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, Stephen Hawking, Noah and Y2K. And Harold Camping. No mention of the biggest end of the world story in modern history: the 2012 meme.

So I checked out the Skeptic website and the only real mention of 2012 looked quite promising…

Unfortunately 2012 is only addressed in a single article. It is written by David Morrison, who is employed by NASA to dismiss 2012. He is not a skeptic but a government spin doctor. The same article can be found at NASA.

So, it seems the world’s #1 skeptic has no opinion on 2012, yet is skeptical about hundreds of other topics.

Nothing Skeptical About 2012 is a post from: 2012 Blog

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NASA is installing a network of smart cameras across the USA to track fireballs and meteoroids. Soon there will be 15, and then they plan to expand nationwide. These cameras are automated and linked together so that they can triangulate paths and orbits. If NASA was expecting an influx of fireballs (and alternative media outlets are suggesting this is already happening), such data could prove to be important. But it could just be that NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office is wanting to he more helpful when they get phone calls from the public. More info at PhysOrg, and the official NASA site has live and historical images from the cameras.

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According to the website of Australia’s antidote to “energy drinks”, esc, if you are concerned about 2012, their drink will let you Escape into a zen state of mind!

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The latest in a long line of solar cycle theories has just been published in Nature. NASA have summarised the findings. While it seems to account for the last minimum, I figure it will take accurate predictions for the next few cycles to be proven – and they don’t seem to have even made any predictions about the next maximum.

Meteoroid Tracking / New 2012 Drink / Missing Sunspots is a post from: 2012 Blog

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It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation’s infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event – a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.

Rather catastrophic stuff for a New Scientist article! However the reason they are reporting it is because the threat is very real indeed. They are referring to the same NASA report I mentioned in early March, that highlights the current scenario – overloaded, out-dated power grids, and a sun that from time to time sends storms our way. Put the two together, and add in our extreme dependence on electricity, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Although it could happen at any time, the peak of the solar cycle offers up more opportunity, hence the 2012 date in the scenario quoted above.

Fortunately on a personal level, this is one disaster that you can survive by having a backup power supply, and plenty of food and water available. Folks in the countryside will have it easier, if they are prepared.

To me it is extraordinary that the USA isn’t doing everything in their power to upgrade their power grid today. Could they get caught out, due to lack of sensible preparation and precaution, like with Katrina??

Space Storm Alert is a post from: 2012 Blog

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NASA’s 132-page report, entitled Severe Space Weather Events — Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts, paints a pretty grim picture of the damage that could occur in the USA (and presumably elsewhere in the world) due to severe space weather:

According to the report, power grids may be more vulnerable than ever. The problem is interconnectedness. In recent years, utilities have joined grids together to allow long-distance transmission of low-cost power to areas of sudden demand. On a hot summer day in California, for instance, people in Los Angeles might be running their air conditioners on power routed from Oregon. It makes economic sense—but not necessarily geomagnetic sense. Interconnectedness makes the system susceptible to wide-ranging “cascade failures.”

…He found more than 350 transformers at risk of permanent damage and 130 million people without power. The loss of electricity would ripple across the social infrastructure with “water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, fuel re-supply and so on.”

The solution is a more sturdy electric infrastructure. Who knows if or when that will occur. Meanwhile the severe space weather could happen at any time, even tomorrow.

NASA: Impact of Solar Flare is a post from: 2012 Blog

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