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Lloyd's of London is the world's leading insurance market providing specialist insurance services to businesses in over 200 countries and territories. They state: "A major space weather event in the approaching solar maximum could cause widespread disruption for unprepared businesses. Lloyd's 360 Space Weather Report Produced by Lloyd's and RAL Space, aims to increase awareness of space weather as a global risk." Click report cover image icon for executive summary only. Download full Lloyd's Report, in .pdf format, Original copy here Original source link below: Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business Lloyd's, November 2010.

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Please note: The NICT Realtime Magnetosphere Simulation has been Terminated !!

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DoD official: Vulnerability of U.S. electrical grid is a dire concern
CNN Blogs, 27th July 2012
Speaking candidly at the Aspen Security Forum, one defense department official expressed great concern about the possibility of a terrorist attack on the U.S. electric grid that would cause a "long term, large scale outage."

Paul Stockton, assistant secretary for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs at the Department of Defense, said such an attack would affect critical defense infrastructure at home and abroad – a thought that Stockton said was keeping him up at night.

Also from Aspen: A failing grade for US readiness to deal with cyber attacks

"The DOD depends on infrastructure in order to be able to operate abroad. And to make those operations function, we depend on the electric grid," Stockton said.

Comment: Of course it is of concern, the United States is a country that wants to spend money on wars but can't even keep up with basic requirements at home. I think the common expression is: all fur coat and no knickers.... See copious previous comments....

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A Taste of Solar Maximum (VIDEO)
NASA Science News, 20th July 2012
Forecasters say Solar Max is due in the year 2013. When it arrives, the peak of 11-year sunspot cycle will bring more solar flares, more coronal mass ejections, more geomagnetic storms and more auroras than we have experienced in quite some time. On the weekend of July 14, 2012, sky watchers around the world got a taste of things to come.

It was mid-Saturday in North America when a coronal mass ejection or "CME" crashed into Earth's magnetic field and triggered the most sustained display of auroras in years. For more than 36 hours, magnetic storms circled Earth's poles. Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into the United States as far south as California, Colorado, Kansas, and Arkansas. In the southern hemisphere, skies turned red over Tasmania and New Zealand, while the aurora australis pirouetted around the South Pole.

Newt Gringrich Warns Of Vulnerable Power Grid
The inquisitr, 13th July 2012

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Radiation damage bigger problem in microelectronics than previously thought
Science Codex, 20th July 2012
The amount of structural damage that radiation causes in electronic materials at the atomic level may be at least ten times greater than previously thought.

That is the surprising result of a new characterization method that uses a combination of lasers and acoustic waves to provide scientists with a capability tantamount to X-ray vision: It allows them to peer through solid materials to pinpoint the size and location of detects buried deep inside with unprecedented precision.

Comment: This article explains why our cheap modern microelectronics cannot deal with too much radiation from space. Thus, with the onset of space weather, major problems like the Toyota car electronics failures and failures in airplane electronics (because we are being told categorically by world authorities that space radiation is now more of a major issue for frequent fliers and we can deduct that applies to plane electronics too as we have recent verified examples), hence the growing concern.

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The electric atmosphere: Plasma is next NASA science target
PhysOrg.com, 17th July 2012
Our day-to-day lives exist in what physicists would call an electrically neutral environment. Desks, books, chairs and bodies don't generally carry electricity and they don't stick to magnets. But life on Earth is substantially different from, well, almost everywhere else. Beyond Earth's protective atmosphere and extending all the way through interplanetary space, electrified particles dominate the scene. Indeed, 99% of the universe is made of this electrified gas, known as plasma. [...]

"Particles from the radiation belts can penetrate into spacecraft and disrupt electronics, short circuits or upset memory on computers," says Sibeck. "The particles are also dangerous to astronauts traveling through the region. We need models to help predict hazardous events in the belts and right now we are aren't very good at that. RBSP will help solve that problem."

While the most immediate practical need for studying the radiation belts is to understand the space weather system near Earth and to protect humans and precious electronics in space from geomagnetic storms, there is another reason scientists are interested in this area. It is the closest place to study the material, plasma, that pervades the entire universe. Understanding this environment so foreign to our own is crucial to understanding the make up of every star and galaxy in outer space.

Comment: Hmmm.... It seems that there is now more and more acknowledgement from world authorities that our planet is becoming a high energy plasma environment. That means high electric fields and strong electric currents and magnetic fields in Earth's atmosphere that is creating many new atmospheric phenomenon and a new source of electromagnetic interference for our modern technological infrastructure. Yes, I know the article emphasises the radiation belts, but there is also many new plasma phenomena appearing in our atmosphere in recent years...

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Extreme space weather and mobile communications
Real Wireless, 16th May 2012
"It might seem surprising that the activity of the sun could affect mobile communications. But occasionally large solar storms create an increase in radio noise, which could reduce the sensitivity of base stations. They also disrupt the ionosphere, which upsets the availability and accuracy of GPS (which helpfully is not much used in UK mobile systems, but there are exceptions).

We are assisting on a committee of the Royal Academy of Engineering which is considering these issues and will issue a report to provide advice to government and other bodies on these issues. See this call for evidence http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/releases/shownews.htm?NewsID=729 for more details."
It looks like there is a new report coming out from the Royal Academy of Engineering [UK] on the engineering and societal impacts of space weather. Good! These are the people I want to see get moving on this issue...

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Space Weather Forecasted by South Pole Neutron Detectors
Science Mag, 6th July 2012
Neutron detectors at the South Pole begin flashing, and the scientist on watch gets on the horn to astronauts at the International Space Station. Shut down your equipment and take cover in the shielded capsule, he says: A solar storm is coming.

That scenario is a bit closer to reality, thanks to a team of researchers that has found a way to estimate the intensity and arrival time of charged particles spewed toward Earth by strong solar storms. Such space weather could irradiate astronauts and fry satellites, and until now there hasn't been a good way to forecast it. [...]

By comparing the numbers of neutrons detected by two different South Pole sensors–each tuned to detect neutrons of a different energy–Bieber and colleagues found they could estimate how many protons of various energies were striking the upper atmosphere. That number, in turn, enabled them to estimate the maximum amount of radiation damage that might be expected from the flare. If the expected damage exceeds a certain level, for example, scientists could warn astronauts to take cover or suggest that engineers temporarily shut down satellites.

Comment: Quite frankly, I think we have got to the stage where it's not just astronauts on the International Space Station that we should be thinking about... We need alternatives to the ACE satellite as the no.1 solar wind monitor because it well past its sell by date and some of the sensors stop working when space weather gets too extreme.

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White House gets serious about space weather
WUWT, 16th June 2012
From EOS, Vol. 93, No. 25, 19 June 2012

White House and Agencies Focus on Space Weather Concerns

"Space weather is a serious matter that can affect human economies around the world," Tamara Dickinson, a senior policy analyst with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), told attendees at the 2012 Space Weather Enterprise Forum, held 5 June in Washington, D. C.

With the 2013 solar maximum nearing, researchers and government agencies are focusing on how the greater solar activity could affect our increasingly technological society and what measures can be taken to help prevent or mitigate any threats to the electricity grid, GPS, and other potentially vulnerable technologies.

Comment: Well there you go, I told you that The White House understood the real issue was Space Weather.... I wrote my first report for the White House back in March 2009, but the version currently online, Planetary Challenges & Spiritual Evolution, dated June 2011, is denoted as a 'Citizen Summary'. I believe this document has been the only serious response to the White House from anyone that includes the metaphysical implications of Space Weather and it was written as a response to the Obama Administration making enquiries amongst metaphysical leaders back in 2008. The issue of the seriousness of Space Weather was evident to me back in 2004 and I self-published my book Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spirtual Evolution in September 2006, with a strong focus on the integration of science, metaphysics and ancient knowledge. I believe Space Weather has enormous implications for all life on this planet. Thought this section was important.

Louis J. Lanzerotti, distinguished research professor of physics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, provided a history of the impacts of space weather on electrical technology. "We have a vast array of unseen physical processes in the space around the Earth that can affect our technologies as we go forward.As the complexity of systems increases, including their interconnectedness and their interoperability, they become more susceptible to space weather effects," said Lanzerotti, editor of Space Weather: The International Journal of Research and Applications, which is published by AGU. He added that it is not a matter of whether space weather affects the Earth but rather when solar events might occur and how big they might be.

Lanzerotti said large solar disturbances can also occur during or near solar minimums, not only during solar maximums. He also expressed concern regarding how to predict some solar events. Lanzerotti said that modeling for CMEs is getting better, "but we have absolutely no clue as to how to predict the intensity of a solar X-ray event that can modify the ionosphere, or a solar radio event."

White House and Agencies Focus on Space Weather Concerns, Eos, Vol. 93, No. 25, 19 June 2012 NEWS PAGE 235

Link here

For those who are new to space weather, the Sun's behaviour MUST be associated with the type of energy being processed from the cosmic environment. The reasons why are explained in my new e-book Workbook - The Electrotechnics of the Heavens. Therefore, since it is a fact that the cosmic environment of the Sun has changed in recent decades and the Sun is generally behaving strangely – with solar events that are "different" not necessarily completely new – then when solar scientists tell us that they have "no clue" how to predict some solar events, then that is because they are still shrugging off old beliefs about how the Sun actually works. Once solar scientists become more open minded or maybe even pay attention to scientists who have had alternative ideas about how the Sun works, then there should be more progress in the new scientific discipline of space weather prediction. However, I do believe that the paradigm shift has already started amongst scientists as they cannot fail to grasp the reality of massive hurricanes of plasma arriving from space.

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It Was a Sunny Day
Mankind's relationship with the sun is a stormy one.
Bethel Patch, 16th June 2012
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition — Carl Sagan

"The space-weather forecast for the next few years: solar storms, with a chance of catastrophic blackouts on Earth."
(National Geographic, June 2012)

In September, 1859 an amateur astronomer in London, Richard Carrington, while observing an image of the sun on a screen, was blinded by "two patches of intensely bright and white light" (National Geographic, p42, 2012). This flare was the largest solar superstorm ever recorded causing displays of the Aurora Borealis as far south as Hawaii. It sent billions of tons of charged particles toward Earth colliding with its magnetic field.

Comment: This is a warning about space weather with some rather poetic prose included....

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Obama believes the most important issue of second term is 'climate change'
American Thinker, 11th June 2012
President Obama is quoted in a New Yorker column by hooked-in journalist Ryan Lizza as believing the most important issue to address in his second term would be climate change

"Obama has an ambitious second-term agenda, which, at least in broad ways, his campaign is beginning to highlight. The President has said that the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change (italics mine), one of the few issues that he thinks could fundamentally improve the world decades from now. He also is concerned with containing nuclear proliferation."

Comment: Now we are getting somewhere.... Obama is NOT obtuse, he is talking about SPACE CLIMATE CHANGE and that is a serious business.... World controllers realise just how serious this is but most are too damn thick to engage brain and understand the implications of space weather... This is were I beg to differ from those who cannot see the Big Picture.... What about life with no electricity? The White House are in a position to realise what exactly is going on.... If you don't know what is really going on then read my report Planetary Challenges & Spiritual Evolution, June 2011.

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Conference on space weather reveals danger of solar winds
The Voice of Russia, 4th June 2012
[...] The conference titled "Space Weather Effects on Humans in Space and on Earth" is currently being held by Moscow's Space Research Institute, with around 200 participants from 11 countries, represented by both physicists and physicians, studying the effects of solar activity upon the Earth.

Space weather is generated by the Sun, and therefore effective forecasts are tightly bound to solar research. The general idea is that solar particles constantly emitted by the Sun (solar wind) carry an interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) that interact with the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere in a number of ways.

Luckily, mankind is more or less protected from the most energetic particles by the Earth's atmosphere. However, geomagnetic storms are far more ubiquitous and might be a source of health problems. As Tamara Breus, the head of the Laboratory of Heliobiology mentioned at the press conference on Monday, there were a number of statistical studies that had found a strong correlation between the increased rates of heart diseases with higher solar activity. However, as she also underlined, the exact mechanism of this correlation is not known. It is supposed that the reaction to geomagnetic storms is similar to adaptation stress, which occurs with some irregularities in external factors, such as circadian cycles. Since the Sun has its own cycles, live organisms might have well adapted to them, much like we have adapted to day and night change. Thus, any disturbances cause a malfunction of the body's internal clock, just like what happens after transcontinental flights.

Geomagnetic effects are subtle and hence almost unnoticeable for healthy people. However, they may pose a danger for those who are already ill. This is why space weather forecasting can be crucial for hospitals and similar facilities.

Comment: Russians have always been interested in the impact of stormy geomagnetic conditions on humans, whereas most other countries and their space agencies prefer to focus on the impact of space weather and geomagnetism on technology....

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Mysterious radiation burst recorded in tree rings
Spike in carbon-14 levels indicates a massive cosmic event – but supernovae and solar flares ruled out.
Nature News, 3rd June 2012
Just over 1,200 years ago, the planet was hit by an extremely intense burst of high-energy radiation of unknown cause, scientists studying tree-ring data have found.

The radiation burst, which seems to have hit between ad 774 and ad 775, was detected by looking at the amounts of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 in tree rings that formed during the ad 775 growing season in the Northern Hemisphere. The increase in 14C levels is so clear that the scientists, led by Fusa Miyake, a cosmic-ray physicist from Nagoya University in Japan, conclude that the atmospheric level of 14C must have jumped by 1.2% over the course of no longer than a year, about 20 times more than the normal rate of variation. Their study is published online in Nature today1. [...] "I would like to think about whether a strong CME moving directly towards Earth could have produced the intense proton population that impacted Earth's atmosphere."

Comment: Seriously, there cannot be that many options for what caused this.... Maybe, these scientists don't want to believe that a major space weather event due to the abberant behaviour of our Sun happened not so long ago...

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A Rare Type of Solar Storm Spotted by Satellite
Universe Today, 1st June 2012
When a moderate-sized M-class flare erupted from the Sun on May 17, it sent out a barrage of high-energy solar particles that belied its initial intensity. These particles traveled at nearly the speed of light, crossing the 93 million miles between the Sun and Earth in a mere 20 minutes and impacting our atmosphere, causing cascades of neutrons to reach the ground – a rare event known as a ground level enhancement, or GLE.

The first such event since 2006, the GLE was recorded by a joint Russian/Italian spacecraft called PAMELA and is an indicator that the peak of solar maximum is on the way.

Comment: This is a serious type of space weather.... According to the The University of Delaware Bartol Research Institute Neutron Monitor Program, "Ground Level Enhancments -- solar cosmic ray events intense enough to raise radiation levels on Earth's surface." So, I wonder whether this will become a regular part of the Sun's behaviour.... At this stage, we are in completely unknown territory as changes with the Sun could be induced by the Sun's shift into a new cosmic environment.

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Electromagnetic pulses explained
An electromagnetic pulse attack could cripple Britain's infrastructure, defence experts fear. This is how they occur.
The Telegraph, 15th May 2012
Defence experts believe detonating a nuclear device above the earth could cripple electronic systems, knock out water and electricity supplies and bring civilisation to a halt.

The abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation from a large explosion, such as that produced by a nuclear weapon high above the earth, produces rapidly changes electric and magnetic fields. They generate surges in voltage and current inside electronic equipement - burning out microchips and circuitry.

A nuclear electromagnetic pulse produces three waves of energy. The first is a very fast-moving, brief and intense electromagnetic field. It is created when gamma radiation from the nulcear explosion knocks electrons out of atoms in the earth's upper atmosphere. These electrons start moving downward and interact with the earth's magnetic field - creating a very large, brief pulse. [...]

EMP pulses can also be naturally occuring. Solar flares see the release of large bursts of energy, including electrons and atoms, from the sun's corona.

Comment: Actually, I don't see where there is a precedent to make this claim, as we have to remember that militaries deliberately set off bombs in the radiation belts and all they did was knock out a huge number of satellites. Here is some Wikipedia info about project Starfish Prime.

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States of America on July 9, 1962, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency (which became the Defense Nuclear Agency in 1971). [...]

On 9 July 1962, at 09:00:09 Coordinated Universal Time, (which was 8 July, Honolulu time, at nine seconds after 11 p.m.), the Starfish Prime test was successfully detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometres (250 mi). [...]

Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse which was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP-damaged microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian islands.[4]

While some of the energetic beta particles followed the Earth's magnetic field and illuminated the sky, other high-energy electrons became trapped and formed radiation belts around the earth. There was much uncertainty and debate about the composition, magnitude and potential adverse effects from this trapped radiation after the detonation. The weaponeers became quite worried when three satellites in low earth orbit were disabled. These man-made radiation belts eventually crippled one-third of all satellites in low earth orbit. Seven satellites failed over the months following the test as radiation damaged their solar arrays or electronics, including the first commercial relay communication satellite, Telstar.[10][11] Detectors on Telstar, TRAAC, Injun, and Ariel 1 were used to measure distribution of the radiation produced by the tests.[12]

Talk:Starfish Prime - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Despite the damage in Hawaii, this EMP pulse did not disturb the national power grids which is a surprise... As I have stated before, pretending that our world can be devastated by an artificial EMP is just a good excuse to divert defense spending to actually obtain some money to fix the problem of the high probability (according to solar scientists) that we may get a space weather induced EMP event, which if bad enough, is most certainly likely to do some serious damage to national power grids.

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Sunstorms' costly threat to US grid stirs debate
Fox News, 15th May 2012
With a peak in the cycle of solar flares approaching, US electricity regulators are weighing their options for protecting the nation's grid from the sun's eruptions -- including new equipment standards and retrofits -- while keeping a lid on the cost.

They are studying the impact of historic sunstorms as far back as 1859 to see if the system needs an upgrade, and encountering a clash of views on how serious the threat is and what should be done about it.

Among the events they are examining is the Canadian power outage of 1989. On March 13 of that year, five major electricity transmission lines in Quebec went on the fritz. Less than two minutes later, much of the province was in the dark.

Comment: The problem is that a bad geomagnetic storm only has to hit once and society and hundreds of millions in the United States and elsewhere are thrown back into the Stone Age. The documentary-drama Solar Storm: Perfect Disaster, explains why engineers and scientists fear what could happen. If a category 5 geomagnetic storm does catch authorities unaware and hundreds of national grid transformers are destroyed, then the inevitable outcome will be total anarchy and millions dead within the first year because dense populations cannot be sustained without electricity. Besides all the issues that have been outlined in various major reports, such as the NASA funded Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts report, (the .pdf summary can be downloaded here), there is already a bad situation because some kids go crazy if their parents deny them access to the computer or video games.... We have even got to the stage where mothers murder their young children for interupting them when they are busy on Facebook, can you imagine what these addicts will do?

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Space Weather Enterprise Forum (SWEF) Meeting 5th June 2012
Spaceweather.com, 15th May 2012

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Solar maximum is coming in 2013. How will space weather affect you? To answer that question, experts from around the world are gathering for the Space Weather Enterprise Forum (SWEF) on June 5, 2012, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. To learn more and register, please visit the SWEF web site at http://www.nswp.gov/swef/swef_2012.html.

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Revolution - New NBC TV series [US]
NBC, May 2012

About the Show

Our entire way of life depends on electricity. So what would happen if it just stopped working? Well, one day, like a switch turned off, the world is suddenly thrust back into the dark ages. Planes fall from the sky, hospitals shut down, and communication is impossible. And without any modern technology, who can tell us why?

Now, 15 years later, life is back to what it once was long before the industrial revolution: families living in quiet cul-de-sacs, and when the sun goes down, the lanterns and candles are lit. Life is slower and sweeter. Or is it?

On the fringes of small farming communities, danger lurks. And a young woman's life is dramatically changed when a local militia arrives and kills her father, who mysteriously - and unbeknownst to her - had something to do with the blackout. This brutal encounter sets her and two unlikely companions off on a daring coming-of-age journey to find answers about the past in the hopes of reclaiming the future.

From director Jon Favreau ("Iron Man," "Iron Man 2") and the fertile imaginations of J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke ("Supernatural"), comes a surprising "what if" action-adventure series, where an unlikely hero will lead the world out of the dark. Literally.

Comment: Well, thank goodness we have some who are awake enough to see the importance of getting this message out.... It's about time folks started to really think about what will happened if society is allowed to degenerate into chaos.... I certainly don't believe it has to be this way... Btw, this video has had 4 million views in 2 days???????????? click the link to go to more NBC Trailer clips. I wondered why there was more activity on my website....

Revolution or Evolution?
Sign of the Times: global grids fail, plunging the planet into darkness in new NBC series YouTube, 16th May 2012 New TV Series
This is one of the main NBC Revolution trailer

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Space weather expert has ominous forecast
Mike Hapgood, who studies solar events, says the world isn't prepared for a truly damaging storm. And one could happen soon.
Los Angeles Times, 4th May 2012
A stream of highly charged particles from the sun is headed straight toward Earth, threatening to plunge cities around the world into darkness and bring the global economy screeching to a halt.

This isn't the premise of the latest doomsday thriller. Massive solar storms have happened before – and another one is likely to occur soon, according to Mike Hapgood, a space weather scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, England.

Much of the planet's electronic equipment, as well as orbiting satellites, have been built to withstand these periodic geomagnetic storms. But the world is still not prepared for a truly damaging solar storm, Hapgood argues in a recent commentary published in the journal Nature. [...]

What are the chances that something like this will happen soon?

A recent paper [published in February in the journal Space Weather] tried to estimate the chance of having a repeat of 1859 and came up with a value of a 12% chance of it happening in the next 10 years. That's quite a high risk.

Comment: This article is based on an interview with Professor Mike Hapgood who understands what is at risk and he has decided the risk is too high to ignore. Fortunately, Hapgood and a few other electrical engineers refuse to stew in apathy and are trying to take some responsibility and make a difference. Btw, nobody mentions that South Africa was badly affected by the 'Halloween' geomagnetic storms of October/November 2003, where over 15 transformers were badly damaged and some destroyed in one go. This was totally unexpected due to the geographical location not thought to be prone to geomagnetically induced currents... Presumably, the risk is high because the Sun's behaviour is similar to previous solar cycles where the Sun has been quiet and then there has been a massive blowout. Btw, for those who are new to this blog, I understood what was happening nearly 8 years ago and I self-published my book Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spiritual Evolution in October 2006. My book was place in the UK National Archives in November 2007, which will enough to deal with and silence those trying to gain credit for my insights, now and in the future....

What People in 1859 Thought of the Great Solar Storm (Hint: They Were Very Confused)
Discover Magazine, 9th May 2012

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Panetta: [Space] Climate change a national security threat
The Examiner Washinton, 3rd May 2012
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared global warming a national security threat yesterday during a speech before an environmentalist group in Washington, D.C.

"The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security," Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund last night. "Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief."

The Defense Secretary must have missed Examiner Columnist Mona Charen's recent piece on how symbols of global warming aren't working out the way environmentalists predicted.

Comment: As I have explained previously, it is now clear that when government representatives and scientists jump up and down in panic mode about climate change they mean SPACE CLIMATE CHANGE, hence the desperate geoengineering ideas like putting a giant mirror in space etc. We know that people are blaming anything and everything on "climate change" and "global warming", but there are some major clues that some specific warnings are really about Space Weather being a major threat. So, all you have to do is substitute the phrase "climate change" to "space weather" and then certain press releases make sense and a perfect example is the UK government officials warning about wireless networks being affected by climate change (see link below). This is complete rubbish, but space weather affecting wireless networks due to poor geomagnetic conditions was highlighted in the Lloyd's of London, Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business report dated November, 2010. As many are now becoming aware, you can't tax cosmic rays, coronal mass ejections and geomagnetically induced currents.... The image icon came from WUWT that have an hilarious government advisory chart on climate change hysteria, see Jumping the shark: Climate change a national security threat. Please note: I have never entirely agreed with climate skeptics, but they are right that CO2 is not causing climate change, the world's global surface temperature is not increasing and the behaviour of the Sun is pointing to the start of a new mini-ice age.

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  Climate change [Space Weather] 'threatens UK wi-fi connections', says government report
  Study into impact of hotter, stormier [Space] weather on UK infrastructure finds threat to wi-fi range and signal strength
  The Guardian, 9th May 2011
  Wi-fi internet access and other communications are at risk from global warming unless measures are taken to protect them from rising temperatures and stormier weather, a government report warned on Monday.
  
  Presenting the report, the secretary of state for the environment, Caroline Spelman, said that higher temperatures can reduce the range of wireless communications, rainstorms can impact the reliability of the signal, and drier summers and wetter winters may cause greater subsidence, damaging masts and underground cables.

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Government confident UK can cope with threat of extreme space weather events
v3.co.uk News, 30th April 2012
The government said it has engaged with numerous experts to quantify the risks from space weather.

"Government departments, under Cabinet Office lead, have been consulting extensively with space weather scientists and engineers, industry, private sector asset owners and regulators, to assess the specific consequences of a severe space weather event," it said.

The government has also established a National Space Security Policy team, which will report later this year on the risks associated with space weathe

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Sunny outlook for space weather forecasters
Companies seek to sell tailor-made predictions of geomagnetic storms to airlines and electricity suppliers.
Nature News, 27th April 2012
For decades, companies have tailored public weather data for private customers from farmers to airlines. On Wednesday, a group of businesses said that they are on the cusp of developing a new market: fine-tuned space weather products for customers as varied as electrical utilities and satellite operators.

Space weather is caused by magnetic storms in the Sun's atmosphere, which release streams of particles into space that boost the energy of Earth's magnetic field. These geomagnetic storms can push satellites out of position in orbit and ramp up the current in electricity grids, sometimes causing sudden blackouts of communications and power.

The push to develop a commercial forecasting enterprise for space weather came at workshop hosted by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado [...]

"You can't have the SWPC calling every electrical utility in the country every time there is a space weather event."

But SWPC physicist Doug Biesecker says that before customers are willing to pay for such private forecasts, the bedrock predictions provided by NOAA need to improve. Sometimes, the SWPC offers warnings for solar events three days in advance, but these are very uncertain. Further research into the processes of magnetic field reconnection within the Sun – the mechanism responsible for solar flares and coronal mass ejections, the two main drivers of solar activity – could help to improve forecasting models.

"We're in a grey area," says Onsager. "The quality of the information is right on the edge of being actionable."

Comment: Hmmmm..... the world and our reality has changed and only a few have noticed. But some interested in keeping their businesses viable are taking an interest... and so they should... Btw they are not joking when they say the quality of the information has to improve.... seriously....big business needs to DEMAND a new solar wind monitor before they pay any money out and even then space weather prediction is in its infancy and unreliable. I can't even believe the storms we have had in the last week seemingly provoked by not much solar activity.... Well, space weather forecasters cannot use the past to predict the future because we are in completely unchartered territory.

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Space environmentalist warns we need to better prepare for solar storms
PhysOrg.com, 19th April 2012
(Phys.org) -- In the business of everyday life, it's easy to overlook things that could cause a serious disruption to how life is lived; floods happen, hurricanes, volcanoes and tsunamis like the one that devastated Japan last year. And now it seems, there is one more potential disaster we should add to the list: geomagnetic storms caused by coronal mass ejections from the sun. Mike Hapgood head of the space environment group with RAL Space, part of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, has written a commentary published in the journal Nature, suggesting that it's time we quit burying our heads in the sand regarding the devastating impact a serious solar storm could have on modern populations.

The problem he points out, is that we've become so dependent on electricity and electronic communications, that a big solar storm could cause power grids the world over to go down, and for GPS to become non-functional for an unknown amount of time, causing havoc across a wide spectrum of systems such as those used by the military, the Internet, financial institutions and of course aviation. And what's more, he says, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way because there are many things that could be done to prevent such a nasty outcome.

Comment: Thank God for the few with some intelligence and commonsense.... but quite frankly, you do not need to be too bright to understand what a serious threat we are under... If there is no electricity, then millions and millions of people are going to be dead within one year. This is a test of human intelligence by universal consciousness and so far too many people are failing badly....

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National Response to a Severe Space Weather Event
American Geophysical Union, 20th March 2012
The effects of space weather, while disruptive and potentially costly, are generally limited in scope, as described by NOAA's Space Weather Scales (http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/). However, as a recent National Research Council (NRC) workshop report notes, severe space weather can have significant societal and economic impacts [NRC, 2008], including regional power outages [Kappenman, 2010], damage to satellites [Odenwald et al., 2006], and degradation of service provided by space-based systems (primarily navigation and communication) [NRC, 2008]. Over the past few years, there has been increasing governmental concern about the prospect of an epic space weather event that could cause widespread damage with long-lasting effects [National Defense University, 2011; Holdren and Beddington, 2011; U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency et al., 2010]. In the spring of 2012, Florida's Division of Emergency Management will conduct a series of exercises focused on the potential impacts of a geomagnetic storm [Florida Division of Emergency Management, 2011]. These exercises will be used as a model for similar operations in other regions.

Events that are rare but potentially catastrophic are often described by the risk-management community as low-probability/high-consequence. Such high-impact, unexpected, but predictable crises are also known as "black swans" [Taleb, 2010]. In the space weather realm, the prototype for a black-swan event would be a recurrence of the Carrington superstorm that occurred in September 1859 [Cliver, 2006]. This article describes the policies now in place to coordinate nationwide preparation for and response to a major space weather event. It will also briefly discuss how the space weather community can contribute to the development of these policies.

Citation details and .pdf link here

Comment: I have been waiting for a document like this that explains how the authorities are going to manage the situation in the event of a G5 geomagnetic storm, but I burst out laughing when I read the following....

Twelve to eighteen hours after the initial flare, a massive CME will approach the Earth. If a solar wind monitor upwind of Earth survives the initial energetic particle storm, it will detect the on-coming CME and indicate its potential to trigger an extreme geomagnetic storm. At this point, SWPC will issue a G5 warning, with 30-60 minutes of lead time. The societal consequences, if any, after the CME impacts the Earth remains to be determined.

Seriously, this is very disappointing... In plain English, the citizens of planet Earth MAY get a warning if our warning system is not destroyed first by fast streaming radiation before the main destruction arrives... When this document was published, the ACE satellite as the no.1 solar wind monitor had only just come back online after disappearing for about a friggin week... truly pathetic... I could keep moaning but I can't be bothered... I think we can assume that if we are just 'unlucky' and a bad geomagnetic storms hits, it will be a bolt from the blue, millions of people's lights will go off and they won't come back on again, but I presume that some places will be more prone to transformers being destroyed than others, but I doubt if the public will be told if they are in one of those danger zones...

Update

It looks like a .pdf version of this report (National Response to a Severe Space Weather Event) is not so easily available, but Ron Turner has a nice 17 page presentation online that can be found here Severe Space Weather and the National Response Framework.

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ACE: Age of warning satellite causes concern
Earth Issues, 11th March 2012
Hmmmm.... The ACE satellite has been knocked out since a CME hit on the 9th of March (I think some monitors were working as the last NICT computer simulations I have seen were dated the 15th March but there are no NICT movies after the 8th March). I have no idea what others systems are in place to provide the requisite space weather forecasting. I cannot provide any status of space weather forecasting because unadvertised systems have been in place for years and being used like the US Air Force had a system since 2003 where they swept the sky every 102 minutes looking for CMEs. I hear that this is now defunct too... Ironically, the satellite monitor was probably knocked out by too much space weather. Basically the only acknowledged last warning system of severe space weather for the whole planet has been gone a week now....

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'Complacent' MoD Warned Of Space Risk [UK]
Sky News, 22nd February 2012
A space attack by a hostile country or terrorists could bring down the UK's power supply and the threat should be taken more seriously, the Ministry of Defence has been told.

If a nuclear device was detonated 500 miles above the earth, it could generate an electro-magnetic pulse which could wipe out electricity and telecommunications.

The Commons Defence Committee has accused the MoD of being "complacent" about the risks and wants it to ensure the UK's infrastructure could withstand an attack as a "matter of urgency"

The UK Defence Committee also warned a "space weather event" is more likely to take place and could have a similar effect.

According to the report, the Government currently considers the chances of this happening in the next five years to be "moderate to high".

Comment: Finally, the knives are coming out.... Enough people with something call a brain have realised that new measures need to be taken, it is a matter of self-preservation... Yes, they are warnings of a military attack as an excuse to get the funding, but the efforts of an itsy bitsy country like Iran is no comparison to the cosmic forces bearing down on planet Earth. For anyone new to space weather, please watch the August 2011 NASA video below to see why space scientists are shocked about the solar tsunamis coming from space.

• Spacecraft Sees Solar Storm Engulf Earth
  NASA Science News, 18th August 2011
  August 18, 2011: For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released today during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.
  
  "The movie sent chills down my spine," says Craig DeForest of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It shows a CME swelling into an enormous wall of plasma and then washing over the tiny blue speck of Earth where we live. I felt very small."
  

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UK vulnerable to 'space weather events' and space-fired weapons, say MPs Defence committee report says government must approach threats with seriousness they deserve
The Guardian, 22nd February 2012
Britain is vulnerable to attack from space-fired nuclear weapons and "space weather" – the result of changes in solar activity – and the government is not doing enough to combat its potentially devastating impact, a cross-party group of MPs has warned.

The likelihood of a severe space weather event has "the potential to cause damage to electrically conducting systems such as power grids, pipelines and signalling circuits", says a report by the Commons defence committee, which also claims Britain would be vulnerable to attack from space-fired weapons.

It describes space weather as a "naturally occurring phenomenon that can impact upon the Earth's environment in ways that are detrimental to key technologies in operation in space, the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth".

Comment: It looks like more people are taking space weather much more seriously.... good! See archives for previous comments and links to major space weather reports, Best of the Blog Space Weather News & Reports.

Britain at risk from 'GoldenEye' electromagnetic pulse attack from space Space Weather, MPs warn
The Telegraph, 22nd February 2012
Please spare us the James Bond fantasy stuff... FFS LET'S GET REAL!

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1 in 8 Chance of Catastrophic Solar Megastorm by 2020
Wired News, 29th February 2012
The Earth has a roughly 12 percent chance of experiencing an enormous megaflare erupting from the sun in the next decade. This event could potentially cause trillions of dollars' worth of damage and take up to a decade to recover from.

Such an extreme event is considered to be relatively rare. The last gigantic solar storm, known as the Carrington Event, occurred more than 150 years ago and was the most powerful such event in recorded history.

That a rival to this event might have a greater than 10 percent chance of happening in the next 10 years was surprising to space physicist Pete Riley, senior scientist at Predictive Science in San Diego, California, who published the estimate in Space Weather on Feb. 23.

Comment: That is quite a quote: 'It's like being able to see a cyclone coming but not knowing the wind speed until it hits your boat 50 miles off the coast.' This is from the abstract of the paper: On the probability of occurrence of extreme space weather events

In this study, we analyze several measures of the severity of space weather events (flare intensity, coronal mass ejection speeds, Dst, and >30 MeV proton fluences as inferred from nitrate records) to estimate the probability of occurrence of extreme events.

By showing that the frequency of occurrence scales as an inverse power of the severity of the event, and assuming that this relationship holds at higher magnitudes, we are able to estimate the probability that an event larger than some criteria will occur within a certain interval of time in the future. For example, the probability of another Carrington event (based on Dst < -850 nT) occurring within the next decade is ~12%. We also identify and address several limitations with this approach. In particular, we assume time stationarity, and thus, the effects of long-term space climate change are not considered.

How interesting, someone has admitted in print that there is an awareness "of long-term space climate change". Yes, what that means is that we can't use the past to predict the future because the properties of space have changed. As far as the Russians are concerned, there has been a change in the "transmitting" properties of space, which means that major blasts of space weather will provide more effective "zaps" or electrical shocks to Earth...

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Dust Causes Explosions, And Apparently Nanodust Causes Mega-Explosions
Popular Science, 15th February 2012
Along with annoyingly adhering to your TV screen and tabletops, dust can be a deadly material, exploding with enormously destructive force in places like coal mines, sugar refineries and grain silos. The explosive properties of normal dust are pretty well known, but what about non-traditional dust? Not all dusts are created equal – and dust derived from the materials of the future could present a very different type of danger.

Led by S. Morgan Worsfold of Dalhousie University in Halifax, a team of researchers from Canada and Norway set out to determine these properties. They surveyed the fairly small body of published research on blowing up nanoparticles, flocculent materials – fluffy synthetic stuff – and hybrid dust mixtures, which they define as any dust with an added liquid or gas. [...]

The researchers say much more study is needed to understand the explosivity of these different dusts, especially nanodust, as nanotechnology grows ever more prevalent. Their paper appears in the journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

Comment: My immediate reaction is whether there is some panic at high levels about the amount of cosmic dust coming into our atmosphere and whether it is combustible.... Maybe a few minds are becoming more focused because we are already experiencing extreme high energy events called Terrestrial Gamma Rays Flashes that scientists had only previously associated with the most extreme environments in the universe, like black holes and supernovae. Now, scientists estimate there are about 500 terrestrial gamma ray flashes occuring per day in Earth's atmosphere above the thunderstorms around Earth and they have no idea what the hell is going on, see archives for info... Is the cause dust, dust, glorious dust? I even wonder whether these people have read Robert Felix's book Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps, seriously, this is a real gem and enough to get certain people's juices flowing... especially the bit about nuclear reactions in the atmosphere when the magnetic field drops really low... which makes me wonder if what we are seeing now is part of the same cosmic springcleaning that is a little less drastic... Whatever, we should all be grateful because the geological record tells us that things could be far worse....read the book...

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Space Weather: Homeland Security takes on The Carrington Event
WUWT, 14th February 2012
While we worry about future threats like global warming, and present threats like Iran's escalating nuclear program, the sun's propensity for belching out monstrous solar flares (like the Carrington event of 1859) could almost instantly create a world without modern conveniences, or even electricity. The sun could literally "bomb us back to the stone age".

Imagine a world without iPhones, and you'd understand why Homeland security rates New York and Seattle the highest for likelihood of major social unrest. Humans don't do well in the dark. DHS has taken notice. [...]

The Department of Homeland Security has created this report on the issue, I've posted excerpts below.

Comment: The consequences of a major geomagnetic storm are far more serious that just losing the use of electronic gadgets... The only useful thing here is the link to the Department of Homeland Security paper which is dated 14th January 2011.

Natural Disasters, Space Weather and Aging Nuclear Reactors
Energy News, 1st February 2012
Comment: There seems to be two separate "minor" nuclear accidents taking place in the United States, California & Illinois. I had noticed but it's hard sorting out the really terrible nuclear news from the just bad nuclear news and sometimes I just can't be bothered... As usual there are all sorts of reassurances that everything is wonderful but the truth dribbles out eventually...I was particularly interested in the fact that Illinois lost both powerlines with electricity coming from two different directions, Notice – Byron, Illinois Nuke In Trouble which is apparently hard to comprehend until I found out there had been a rare earthquake, Rare quake hits near troubled Illinois nuke plant releasing radioactive steam – "That's right, she said earthquake" (VIDEO) Pipes are already old and then all it takes is a little rumble in the ground... The reactor at San Diego, California is a developing story and it looks like leaking pipes caused an automatic shutdown and some leak of radiation..., see AP: Many tubes found damaged at San Diego-area nuke plant – "Unusual" says NRC – Cause unknown – Radiation could have escaped… Developing. The comments here are from people who are generally very interested/concerned about what is talking place...

• Earthquake threat to nuclear reactors far higher than realized
  MSNBC News, 2nd September 2011
  
  
• 400 Chernobyls: Solar Flares, EMP, and Nuclear Armageddon
  When Tech Fails, January 2012
  This is NOT about scaring people. This is explaining that as our world faces massive changes to the environment due to the new phenomena of space weather, things cannot stay the same. Please note: NASA says there is virtually nothing on the planet that is NOT affected by space weather.
  

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Earth in for bumpy ride as solar storms hit
New Scientist, 1st February 2012
Editorial: "No room for complacency over solar storms"

THE sun is gearing up for a peak in activity at a time when technology makes our planet more vulnerable to solar outbursts than ever before. Monitoring has improved since the last solar maximum, so what are the big risks this time around?

About once every 11 years, the sun goes ballistic, throwing out more bursts of magnetic activity than normal. As a large but harmless solar flare signalled last week, the next solar maximum is due in 2013. [...]

We can take some comfort in the knowledge that the looming maximum is supposed to be relatively weak, but we shouldn't be complacent. In 1859, during an otherwise weak cycle, a solar storm made telegraph wires spark, starting fires. "You've got the opportunity for flares, and they can be big ones," warns David Hathaway of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Comment: It's not really the whole story.... Again there is a mention of the 1859 Carrington Event without a direct comparison between previous cycles where there has been some lethal activity, but some solar scientists have spent a lot of time trying to see if there are any correlations... I have written many comments on this subject. In 1859, there were not hundreds of nuclear power stations that need to be powered by electricity 24/7 with only 4-8 hours of diesel engine backups. I am now tired from flogging a dead horse. Please read the archives if you want to know more.

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A Perfect Storm of Planetary Proportions
The approach of the solar maximum is an urgent reminder that power grids everywhere are more vulnerable than ever to geomagnetic effects
IEEE Spectrum, 24th Jan 2012
[...] But how does all this space weather cause damage down on the ground? It's a multistep process. First, the intense magnetic field variations in the magnetosphere induce electric fields and currents over large areas of Earth's surface. In turn, this geoelectric field creates what are known as geomagnetically induced currents, or GICs, which flow in any available conductor, including high-voltage transmission lines, oil and gas pipelines, railways, and undersea communications cables. These interconnecting networks essentially act as giant antennas that channel the induced currents from the ground. Hit with a 300-ampere GIC, a high-voltage transformer's paper tape insulation will burn, its copper winding will melt, and the transformer will fail, either right then and there or in the future.

Comment: I think this long article for the world's largest organisation of engineers was missed originally, but it was probably the source for other articles that were picked up, so I have updated the archive. Nothing has changed, the danger to the inhabitants of planet Earth still exists and the sentiment now is not if but when a major conflagration will occur....

• Power-Grid Cyber Attack Seen Leaving Millions in Dark for Months
  Bloomberg News, 1st February 2012
  

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Planes expected to reroute following massive solar eruption
Fox News, 23rd January 2012
An immense blast of plasma spewed late Sunday night from the sun led to the strongest radiation storm bombarding our planet since 2005, and a rare warning from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency -- and even a plan to redirect certain high-flying airplanes.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center -- the nation's official source of warnings about space weather and its impact on Earth -- issued a watch for a geomagnetic storm expected to hit our planet Tuesday morning after a satellite witnessed an ultraviolet flash from the massive solar eruption, according to Spaceweather.com.

Comment: Radio communications must be bad most likely due to the proton storm being a long duration event and then we have a fast CME arriving soon too...

Biggest solar storm in six years
Stuff.co.nz, 24th January 2012
"The radiation in the form of protons came flying out of the sun at 93 million miles per hour. "The whole volume of space between here and Jupiter is just filled with protons and you just don't get rid of them like that," Biesecker said. That's why the effects will stick around for a couple days."

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Space Weather News: Armenia scientist recognized by American Physics Society
The Armenian Reporter, 6th December 2011
College Park, Md. - Prof. Ashot Chilingarian, the director of Yerevan Physics Institute and the head of its Cosmic Ray Division has been elected American Physical Society (APS) Fellow, a prestigious honor given to only a few of the world's greatest scientists.

The APS announcement reads as follows: "Ashot Chilingarian, Yerevan Physics Insitute: For bringing one of the world's largest facilities for monitoring different species of secondary cosmic rays located in Armenia to the International Space Weather initiative as a global warning system from violent space events. Nominated by: Forum on International Physics."

Comment: It's interesting to see where the brains are and who has been allowed to do relevant research over the years ... Obviously, it's particularly interesting as there is a serious concern about predicting the severity of space weather events... Presumably, this means that fast radiation from solar flares can be detected and provide a warning for the bulk of the slower radiation that generally follows, allowing operators to at least attempt to protect satellites.

Airman Brings Space [Weather] to Ground Forces
Military.com News, 7th December 2011
"Figuring out why a GPS isn't working, why a GPS isn't getting good accuracy and how to mitigate those effects or how to plan a mission around those effects is a key part of my job," said Veater, who is deployed from the 2nd Space Operations Squadron at Shriever Air Force Base, Colo. "I also help them know what some of the alternatives are and understand some of the limitations and vulnerabilities of (satellite communications)."

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Stormy sun could knock out power grids: report
Yahoo (Au) News, 3rd December 2011
LONDON (Reuters) - An upcoming cycle of stormy solar activity risks causing damage to electrical transformers and threatening vulnerable energy infrastructure around the globe, a report by an insurance group says.

The sun follows a predictable 11 year activity cycle, with the next period of stormy activity expected to begin in 2012-13.

The report by German insurance group Allianz said a high impact solar storm, not easily predicted due to its recorded rarity, could cause blackouts and economic losses of over $1 trillion and that the worst case scenario would be even worse.

"What we're coming into at the moment is the bad (space)weather period," Jim Wild of Britain's Lancaster University, an expert in solar plasma physics, told Reuters.

Comment: I believe this is the third major insurer that has put out a report to major companies and businesses warning about Space Weather. Here is the Allianz info: Space Weather Risk and here is their version of this article as a .pdf, Space Weather Risk (.pdf). I can't find a dedicated Space Weather Report, but I think the article might be referring to the Allianz Power Blackout Risks with a section on Space Weather. The report states:

“Whereas short term power blackouts are experienced frequently on a local or regional level around the world (e.g. caused by natural catastrophe events like earthquakes, storms, floods or heat waves), societies are not familiar with large scale, long-lasting, disruptive power blackouts. Traditional scenarios only assume blackouts for a few days and losses seem to be moderate, but if we are considering longer lasting blackouts, which are most likely from space weather or coordinated cyber or terrorist attacks, the impacts on society and economy might be significant.”

Power Blackout Risks (Space Weather), Allianz, November 23rd 2011 (.pdf)

The mainstream are getting the practical implications, but so far, the metaphysical community as a whole don't seem to have a great deal of interest in the spiritual implications of the planet being swamped with celestial energies.

If Turning On A Kindle Could Crash An Airplane, Wouldn't Terrorists Do It?
Business Insider, 28th November 2011
New York Times tech writer Nick Bilton is sick of having to turn off his Kindle and iPad during takeoffs and landings. He hasn't found any proof that they are actually dangerous.

Neither has the FAA. A spokesman says a 2006 study revealed "there was no evidence saying these devices can't interfere with a plane, and there was no evidence saying that they can."

Comment: I think this is a good question. Personally, I think it is useful to maintain the myth of cell phones and electronic gadgets that could cause electromagnetic interference just in case there is a real incident where cosmic rays are suspected. Airlines don't want passengers realising that they are vulnerable to space weather and cosmic radiation even though this is a threat that is growing worse.

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Defense science panel: climate Space weather a national security threat
USA Today, 14th November 2011
The Defense Department's highly-regarded science panel is calling for the U.S. military to improve intelligence-gathering related to climate change.

"Climate change has the potential for significant impacts on all three of the basic elements important to national and international security: defense, diplomacy and economics," says the Defense Science Board report. Particularly in Africa, the report warns of increasing challenges to national security caused by global warming.

The National Academy of Science has concluded that climate change, largely driven by fossil fuel use releasing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, has led to a 1.4 degree increase in average global surface temperatures over the last century, and will likely drive a 2 to 11 degree increase in the next century, depending on the size of future emissions.

Comment: I changed the title to reflect the true issue... as even GPS is becoming useless for military purposes, see archives for more info...

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Good news! Killer solar flare won't destroy Earth!
At least not in 2012, according to NASA, which also says to not sweat 'Planet X'
MSNBC News, 11th November 2011
If the world ends in 2012, the sun won't be to blame, NASA officials say.

Contrary to what some doomsayers would have you believe, our star isn't capable of blasting out a solar flare powerful enough to burn our planet to a crisp, according to the space agency.

"Most importantly, however, there simply isn't enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth," NASA officials wrote in a Nov. 10 statement. [...]

Space weather still an issue
The sun's rumblings can and do affect our planet, of course. Flares, for example, can temporarily alter Earth's upper atmosphere, causing disruptions in satellite communications.

Comment: I suppose the doomsday herd are still desperately trying to stir anxiety, whilst the majority are still oblivious to what is really happening on this planet. The real threat is Space Weather and the effect on our modern technological world that is being more and more affected. Basically, society needs to wake up and start doing business differently on this planet.

2012: Killer solar flares are a physical impossibility (NASA VIDEO)
PhysOrg News, 11th November 2011
There is a HUGE difference between the planet being fried to a crisp and a CME knocking out power grids. If 100 million people lose their electricty for months or even years, engineers and scientists know that the impact would be devastating on society, hence a selection of major reports pointing this out, plus lots of other issues associated with space weather. See archives.

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European Space Missions Target the Sun, Dark Energy
Space.com, 5th October 2011
"Europe's next two space science missions will investigate solar activity and the nature of the mysterious "dark energy" that is accelerating the universe's expansion, European Space Agency (ESA) officials announced today (Oct. 4).

The two missions, called Solar Orbiter and Euclid, are due to launch in 2017 and 2019, respectively. They are medium-class missions, meaning the cost of each is capped at 470 million euros ($625 million). They are the first two missions chosen under ESA's long-term science plan, which is called Cosmic Visions 2015-2025."

Big jumps in September solar activity metrics
WUWT, 5th October 2011
NOAA's Space weather prediction center released their solar cycle progression updates, and it shows one of the largest jumps for all common solar metrics since cycle 24 began.

Of course we know that the sunspot number has jumped significantly due to the recent large sunspot group that released X-class flares, but there's more than that.

Comment: In the course of time, we find out that there was a very small group of solar scientists using new and better techniques that predicted a small sunspot cycle, in fact, the smallest in 100 years. Actually, they were wrong, so far it's the smallest sunspot cycle in 200 years. But this is what NASA spokesman David Hathaway was telling the world:

Dec. 21, 2006: Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one. Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Scientists Predict Big Solar Cycle , NASA Science News. 21st December, 2006

As I have said, it does not matter, we only need one massive outburst from the Sun to cripple our modern technological world for millions of people. Here is a sunspot number prediction from 8 years ago Vukcevic 2004 Sunspot Cycle Prediction. Personally, I am not making any predictions until after the Venus Transit as we need to see if the long term Ap (the solar geomagnetic index) recovers.

U.S Govt. Warning: Strong Solar Storm Reaching Earth Which Can Devastate The Planet At Any Moment
Pakalert Press, 29th September 2011

(Right click for larger image)

Comment: So far, over 230 blogs have picked up this NOAA email warning about a strong geomagnetic storm, but it seems that people are disturbed that NOAA and a host of other agencies are taking space weather seriously when the general public are still baffled by the seriousness of the situation. Just think, on the 26th, the ACE space satellite only provided a 44 minute warning of a CME arriving at Earth, before ground currents were detected in northern Norway, the situation does not have to be too dissimilar to create a scenario where geomagnetically induced currents flowing through the ground could burn out hundreds of transformers, hence the warning to grid operators from NOAA. I would say the situation is fairly dire as we await the next solar bullet...

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European Space Agency to launch orbiter bound for the SUN (but it will only get within 26million miles)
Daily Mail, 5th October 2011
A hot idea by the European Space Agency (ESA) is set to become a reality in 2017 when it sends a probe to the sun. The Solar Orbiter will come within 26million miles of our solar system's gigantic heat source. High-tech instruments will analyse how it generates solar winds – radiation that disrupts our communication systems and gives Earth the spectacular Northern Lights.

Two years later the ESA plans to launch another probe called Euclid, which it hopes will tell us more about the mysterious energy known as dark matter – thought to be responsible for the rapid expansion of the universe. As the Solar Orbiter travels around the sun it will have to withstand temperatures of 500 degrees.

Its instruments will have to peer through tiny slots in its heat shields, but should give scientists remarkable information about the sun's behaviour. [...] ‘The solar wind and coronal mass ejections - these big releases of material coming off the sun; we don't know precisely where they're coming from, and precisely how they're generated. Solar Orbiter can help us understand that.'

Comment: The Russians are also sending out a probe to get closer to the sun, if these probes are being used for space weather forecasting then that should help provide us with extra time in the event of a category G5 storm. We just have to hope we don't have a major blast in the meantime...

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EMP: The Greatest Threat to America, and What We Can Do about It
American Thinker, 27th September 2011
It's bewildering. Pathetic. Frightening. And it seems that the mainstream media avoids talking about it for fear that Americans will panic. Well, Americans ought to be panicking -- anything to get them to bang on Congress's door and force our representatives to immediately act on the pending legislature now in Congress called the SHIELD Act -- a bill based on the previous HR 5026 -- that unanimously passed in the House of Representatives on June 9, 2010.

The disaster I am referring to is an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which can easily be caused either by Mother Nature as a geomagnetic solar storm or by an enemy with a low-cost, short range, ship-launched missile armed with a nuclear warhead. The national consequences of an EMP destroying our electrical grid are far-reaching, with long-lasting, continent-wide crippling effects to our electricity-dependant infrastructure.

At the press conference organized by EMPactAmerica on September 23, 2011, this dangerous threat to our national security was exposed for what it truly is -- the most likely event to happen to the U.S., naturally or man-made, that has the potential to bring the country to its knees.

Comment: This article is about time, people need to start *"`^ä+&%* panicking ... but it seems the process is one of slowly, slowly one by one, folk waking up from the dream state... It is utterly amazing to me that people have not worked out that Sun is the most likely cause of the demise of previous civilisations on this planet... Do the research... Btw, this is NOT a military threat, that's just an excuse to get the money for trying to fix the problem... pretend it's all related to defence so folk can keep stupid about what is really happening...

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New Forecast: Sun's 'Superstorms' Could Doom Satellites
Space.com, 27th September 2011
Magnetic storms set off by the sun could pose a bigger threat than thought to weather, communication, military and other satellites close to Earth, with a potentially devastating economic impact, scientists suggest.

In the new study, researchers found that solar radiation can energize a belt of high-energy particles that surrounds Earth more dramatically than previously believed.

The study focused on the possible effects of a particularly strong magnetic storm on the Van Allen radiation belts, the dangerous rings of high-energy particles that girdle the Earth. The belts are split into two distinct zones. The outer belt, which is made up of electrons, reaches from about 15,800 to 31,600 miles (25,500 to 51,000 kilometers) above the surface, while the inner belt, which consists of a mix of electrons and protons, reaches from about 4,000 to 8,000 miles (6,400 to 12,800 km) above. [Stunning Photos of Solar Flares & Sun Storms]

Comment: Well, this is the conclusion that I came to back in 2005 & 2006, when I was researching space weather and finding out all the problems that satellite operators were facing with the new hostile conditions in space. Hence, in the process of integrating metaphysical messages that clearly stated that there was going to be massive increases in evolutionary energies, I realised that the world's satellite communication infrastructure was going to have severe challenges and it might all be destroyed. After my book was published, I was informed by a new friend about Robert Cox's book The Pillar of Celestial Fire (1997) that was generally ignored by the wider metaphysical community, but I was thrilled to find a book by someone who actually understood the metaphysical implications of what was taking place. Even though there is no mention of space weather, it clearly revealed that there was going to be a massive escalation of evolutionary energies based on Vedic and other traditional sources. It is amazing to me that that the metaphysical community did not see the implications of the ancient warnings of a downpour of celestial energies (Vedic Age of Energy, The Age of Aquarius, The Golden Age, Age of Aether etc etc) and not integrate this with the scientific theories that 96% of the energy-matter of the universe is completely invisible to our current methods of detection, but our scientists insist that it must exist. Yet, NASA have provided the world with the proof that the additional energy engulfing our solar system is not actually 'physical' in the traditional sense and better fits the metaphysical term 'aetheric' because it does not fit the scientific descriptions of 'dark matter' either. Well, it is now obvious the fabric of spacetime has changed its properties and that during the flux of energies associated with solar storms and galactic blasts, some of the 96%+ is really hammering the world's satellite communication networks and threatening our modern technological world. The planet is being charged up like a battery by trillions of tons of highly charged plasma during major solar storms and people are being affected, whether they realise it or not.

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The day the world went 'Phut'? Earth in crosshairs of gigantic solar storm that could blow circuits of ANYTHING from satellite TV to the electric power grid
Daily Mail, 27th September 2011

• 'Northern Lights' seen over southern England as a result
  
• Bursts of solar radiation could wreak havoc with communication systems
  

A sunspot, 62,000 miles across - so big it would dwarf the Earth - is releasing gigantic solar flares that could in theory wreak havoc with electrical communications ranging from handheld electronics such as iPhones to sections of the power grid.
Nasa has detected two X-class solar eruptions from 1302 – the most extreme possible – in the past week. One that occurred on September 24 produced an amazing light show over England last night – but it's far from over, as the sunspot isn't yet directly aligned with Earth.

NASA experts have said 'anything electrical' can be affected by such activity.

Comment: I have been intensely researching space weather since the beginning of 2005 but I actually started in 2004. This is the first time I have come across a NASA representative saying 'anything electrical' can be affected by solar activity and I would like to see the NASA press release.... It is true, but NASA have been very careful to downplay the whole space weather phenomenon, even though those of us who are monitoring the situation are being constantly told about satellite communications infrastructure and the national power grids, but very little public consideration is being given to the fact that humans are bioelectromagnetic... Anyway, if anything, it would be good to get some kind of confirmation that the strange clock changes that have been happening in southern Italy and the strange almost cryptic announcements about 'experiments' that will affect the national grids and maybe destroy electrical items are directly related to solar activity. Go to spaceweather.com & solarham.com for the latest spaceweather news.

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Space Storms to Pose Greater Risk to Flyers and Astronauts
Science Now, 23rd September 2011
If you thought the outlook for Earth's climate looked bleak, don't look up. A new study suggests that space weather–the hail of energetic particles above our atmosphere–is set to worsen in coming decades. The grim forecast suggests that astronauts and frequent flyers will face greater radiation hazards and could rule out a crewed mission to Mars before 2050.

Space weather is a general term for the environmental conditions above Earth's atmosphere. When space weather is bad, dangerous particles abound. These include protons and ions, known as galactic cosmic rays (GRCs), raining down at near-light speed from space, and similar particles coming in bursts from the sun, called solar energetic particles (SEPs).

Comment: You can think of solar energetic particles (SEPs) as cosmic hail and they will pepper satellites and cause serious damage. The article fails to mention that any hail of cosmic bullets will reset bits and bytes in electronics. After 13 months of investigation cosmic rays were eventually pinpointed as the reason that 100 people were injured (some very seriously) in October 2008 when Qantas flight QF72, went into 2 rapid descents after equipment failure in one of three avionics boxes, see Cosmic rays may have hit Qantas jet. The solution is radiation hardened electronics, this is an expensive option that does not give a 100% shielding, but it is still better than nothing if people want to minimise the risk in the worse bouts of space weather. By the way, that also applies for computers and all sensitive electronics at ground level. This is the reality of a New Cosmic Age. This is what the Australian goverment has to say:

Space is not the benign environment that was once thought. It is traversed by small pieces of matter (meteoroids) and also by a large and variable radiation flux. The radiation field in Earth orbit comes from three sources, galactic cosmic radiation, trapped radiation belts (the Van Allen belts) and solar radiation. The first two sources are particulate radiation, mostly protons and electrons. Solar radiation is both electromagnetic and particulate (atomic and sub-atomic).

Galactic cosmic radiation consists mostly of very high energy protons that form a constant low level background radiation source. These particles are not particularly significant for communications satellites, but present a possible hazard for long duration manned spaceflights to other planets. Occasionally they may be responsible for memory upsets in communication satellites. [...]

Solar radiation is extremely variable. The background solar ionising radiation consists of low level X-rays and a small particle component we term the solar wind. However, during explosive events that occur on the sun (flares and coronal mass ejections), the flux of X-rays may increase several orders of magnitude, and the energy of this radiation increases (becomes "harder"). Electrons and protons may be ejected in large numbers, and in rare events some particles may be accelerated to very high energies (even in excess of 1 GeV). It is these solar energetic particles (SEP's) that can cause damage to spacecraft.

SEP's may cause direct radiation damage to spacecraft components such as large solar cell arrays. Some spacecraft have had the efficiency of their solar cells reduced by over 30% in a single large solar particle event. This effectively reduces the lifetime of the spacecraft by several years (and denies the owner several million dollars revenue). Even large numbers of lower energy electrons have caused damage to satellites, in one case resulting in a total spacecraft loss (a Canadian Anik geosat).

Satellite Communications and Space Weather,
IPS Radio and Space Weather Services

The increase in cosmic rays at ground level means that computer hardware manufacturers must at least inform their important clients about the deteriorating situation and offer more products that are radiation hardened, just like the protection provided for electronic components used for satellites in space.

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Solar flare could unleash nuclear holocaust across planet Earth, forcing hundreds of nuclear power plants into total meltdowns
Natural News, 13th September 2011
(NaturalNews) Forget about the 2012 Mayan calendar, comet Elenin or the Rapture. The real threat to human civilization is far more mundane, and it's right in front of our noses.

If Fukushima has taught us anything, it's that just one runaway meltdown of fissionable nuclear material can have wide-ranging and potentially devastating consequences for life on Earth. To date, Fukushima has already released 168 times the total radiation released from the Hiroshima nuclear bomb detonated in 1945, and the Fukushima catastrophe is now undeniably the worst nuclear disaster in the history of human civilization. [...]

Every nuclear power plant operates in a near-meltdown state

All nuclear power plants are operated in a near-meltdown status. They operate at very high heat, relying on nuclear fission to boil water that produces steam to drive the turbines that generate electricity. Critically, the nuclear fuel is prevented from melting down through the steady circulation of coolants which are pushed through the cooling system using very high powered electric pumps.

If you stop the electric pumps, the coolant stops flowing and the fuel rods go critical (and then melt down). This is what happened in Fukushima, where the melted fuel rods dropped through the concrete floor of the containment vessels, unleashing enormous quantities of ionizing radiation into the surrounding environment. The full extent of the Fukushima contamination is not even known yet, as the facility is still emitting radiation.

Comment: Hurrah! Finally, some people are waking up.... Unfortunately, it has taken Fukushima and a raft of other US and now French nuclear 'incidents' to get people realising that the nuclear industry is extremely vulnerable in a high energy plasma environment. A major solar blast and corresponding geomagnetic storm on Earth could mean some serious doom, but we must consider that major earthquakes, tornadoes and floods act like proxies and their effect is directly related to the increased energy on the planet. What is so amazing is all the talk of the Age of Aquarius with no inkling for what it would really mean for society. Well, we are now finding out.

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'Outdated' power grid vulnerable
Desert Sun, 10th September 2011
Like the 2003 blackout in the northeastern U.S. that left 55 million without power, Thursday's outage across Southern California brought renewed attention to the stability of the power grid.

Upgrades to smarter technology, which have been put off for years because of the cost to utilities and customers, would likely have kept the failure of power systems from spreading across such a large region, experts said Friday. [...]

"Out of all the major blackouts that have happened in the past 50 or 60 years, the majority have occurred in the past 10 or 12 years," he said.

Comment: I was not researching space weather in 2003 and after 7 years, this is the first time that I heard that 55 million people in the United States lost their power supply in one go.... See wikipedia Northeast Blackout of 2003 Please note: the real issue with a major space weather event is hundreds of transformers being burnt out at the same time and the authorities not being able to replace them quickly. It would mean, weeks, months and even years for some to get back an electricity supply if authorities do not have the opportunity to take down the grid before lightning from space strikes. At the moment, with reports of small transformers blowing up on a regular basis, people should be grateful for the warnings so that there is enough time to start making some major changes.

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"Sprites are a true space weather phenomenon"
spaceweather.com, 28th August 2011
RED SPRITES: High above Earth in the realm of meteors and noctilucent clouds, a strange and beautiful form of lightning dances at the edge of space. Researchers call the bolts "sprites"; they are red, fleeting, and tend to come in bunches. Martin Popek of Nýdek in the Czech republic photographed these specimens on August 27th:

Although sprites have been seen for at least a century, most scientists did not believe they existed until after 1989 when sprites were photographed by cameras onboard the space shuttle. Now "sprite chasers" routinely photograph sprites from their own homes. "I used up a Watec 902H2 Ultimate security camera with UFOCapture software to catch my sprites," says Popek. Give it a try!

Comment: I wrote about sprites in my book Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spirtual Evolution and I informed the reader that sprites belong to a group of electrical atmospheric phenomena called Transient Luminous Events (TLEs). The declaration here that "Sprites are a true space weather phenomenon," is very interesting because when I did my research, this distinction was not made clear, there are plenty of research papers that do not mention space weather either, but I made the connection anyway.

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Swift satellite alerts astronomers to cosmic accident in constellation Draco
Smithsonian Science, 24th August 2011
Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA's Swift satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco.

"Incredibly, this source is still producing X-rays and may remain bright enough for Swift to observe into next year," said David Burrows, professor of astronomy at Penn State University and lead scientist for the mission's X-Ray Telescope instrument. "It behaves unlike anything we've seen before." [...]

The innermost gas in the disk spirals toward the black hole, where rapid motion and magnetism create dual, oppositely directed "funnels" through which some particles may escape. Jets driving matter at velocities greater than 90 percent the speed of light form along the black hole's spin axis. In the case of Swift J1644+57, one of these jets happened to point straight at Earth.

Comment: There are a lot of versions of this astronomical story and some are more informative than others, but a beam of X-rays has been detected by the Swift satellite that is in orbit around Earth coming from this so-called 'black hole' collision. Briefly, planet Earth has been bathed in x-rays from this cosmic event since March 28th when major flares were detected but please note, the 'norm' before this event was 30 seconds! See April 2011, 'News of the Imbalance' archive Cosmic Explosion So Strange Scientists Say It's "Unprecedented". The question we have to ask is whether there is any impact on the energies around Earth (e.g. whistler waves that our scientists don't have a clue why they exist) and whether Earth is being re-tuned.

NASA's Swift Satellite Spots Black Hole, J164444+57, Devouring A Star, Watch An Animated Recreation
Daily Kos, 26th August 2011

Scientific paper in Nature using the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) on Kibo and the Swift satellite (USA) observations - First observation of a massive black hole swallowing a star -
Jaxa News, 25th August 2011
"The Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) on Kibo, in coordination with the gamma-ray burst satellite Swift (USA), observed the instant that a massive black hole swallowed a star for the first time in the world, located in the center of a galaxy 3.9 billion light years away. This result was published in Nature online, issued on August 25 Japan time. The title of the paper is "Relativistic Jet Activity from the Tidal Disruption of a Star by a Massive Black Hole".

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Change in solar activity brings increased radiation risk to air passengers
PhysOrg.com, 16th August 2011
(PhysOrg.com) -- Radiation risks to airplanes and spacecraft are likely to increase when the Sun moves from its present grand solar maximum to lower levels of activity, says research from the University of Reading.

The researchers say this a serious concern because our present day engineering, design, operation and insurance of vulnerable technology is based on past experience from the space age and does not yet account for long-term change in space climate.

The scientists have paid particular attention to the radiation effects on aircraft crew and passengers on long-distance flights.

The Sun has been in a ‘grand solar maximum' which has already lasted longer than any other such maximum in the past 9.3 millennia and is expected to end soon. The changes in near-Earth space that will result will return Earth to conditions that last prevailed before the advent of susceptible modern operational systems, such as spacecraft, power distribution grids and aircraft.

Comment: Another reality bite... For anyone that is confused, this is really about the solar wind flagging and the interstellar debris cloud pushing pushing into our solar system and shrinking the heliosphere, thereby letting in more galactic cosmic rays. The cause and effect relationship is not clear, but regardless, there is massive change taking place and our satellite communication infrastructure and even our electronics on Earth were not designed to take this kind of cosmic onslaught. What amazes me is that this is not something that happened yesterday. Space weather has been getting worse for 20+ years and the levels of ignorance and apathy are unbelievable. Well, despite the ignorance of those who don't understand the science, cosmic rays represent cosmic radiation and more cosmic radiation switches on DNA to allow for more and more mutation, and that means evolutionary change. I have an idea for a film, the jet setters turning into the first real obvious mutants on Earth. Anyway, back to the news. The levels of radiation during flying are nothing compared to what people are now getting in the region of Fukushima... This is what I have presented before:

RADIATION OVER-EXPOSURE TO PASSENGERS AND CREW

The principal space weather hazard to humans is exposure to cosmic radiation while flying, which is caused primarily by GCRs. The dose rate at an altitude of 39,000 ft (12 km) in mid-temperate latitudes is typically up to about 6 microSieverts (microSv) per hour, but near the equator only about 3 microSv/hr. Typically, a London to Los Angeles flight in a commercial aircraft accumulates ~65 microSv (6 microSv/hr); however, the solar cycle can give plus or minus 20% variations in dose from solar minimum to maximum.

However, of concern are those SEPs [Solar Energetic Particles] that increase the dose at aircraft altitudes. Using data collected onboard aircraft and then modelled to large SEP storms (ie, 23 February 1956, 29 September 1989) it is estimated that the additional radiation dose received at 40,000ft (12km) on a subsonic transatlantic flight would have been approximately 10 mSv and 2 mSv respectively.

Under present ICRP guidelines, the recommended dose limit for the general public is 1mSv, and for aircrew in the EU a maximum working level of 6 mSv has been adopted by the airlines.

UK Government Space Weather Memorandum: Scientific advice and evidence in emergencies , SolarMetrics Limited (SAGE 18), 13 September 2010
Submission is for the Science and Technology Committee inquiry, examining the UK Government's use of scientific advice and evidence in emergency situations.

So if we get an intense proton storm (1956) someone in a plane at 40,000ft (12km) could get 10 times the recommended annual radiation dose and if we get a decent size normal geomagnetic storm (1989) someone in a plane at 40,000ft (12km) could get twice the annual dose... In the 2003 'Halloween' solar storms, things were so bad that they made planes divert to below 25,000ft (7.5km) but in the research that I have found, there was no references to estimates for how much radiation people were likely to have received.

Spacecraft Sees Solar Storm Engulf Earth
NASA Science News, 18th August 2011
August 18, 2011: For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released today during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.

"The movie sent chills down my spine," says Craig DeForest of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It shows a CME swelling into an enormous wall of plasma and then washing over the tiny blue speck of Earth where we live. I felt very small."

CMEs are billion-ton clouds of solar plasma launched by the same explosions that spark solar flares. When they sweep past our planet, they can cause auroras, radiation storms, and in extreme cases power outages. Tracking these clouds and predicting their arrival is an important part of space weather forecasting.

"We have seen CMEs before, but never quite like this," says Lika Guhathakurta, program scientist for the STEREO mission at NASA headquarters. "STEREO-A has given us a new view of solar storms." [...] The kind of magnetic transformations revealed by the movie deeply impressed Guhathakurta: "I have always thought that in heliophysics understanding the magnetic field is equivalent to the ‘dark energy' problem of astrophysics. Often, we cannot see the magnetic field, yet it orchestrates almost everything. These images from STEREO give us a real sense of what the underlying magnetic field is doing."

Comment: The STEREO video is absolutely awesome... I don't think anyone intelligent would argue against the definition of Space Weather after watching this movie. I will post more links of what went on at this conference below. Our reality has changed, we have gone from a quiet space environment where scientists stated it was a complete vacuum to a raging, stormy and highly charged electromagnetic environment in just over twenty years. This is the New Cosmic Age and metaphysical predictions have been vindicated.

NASA | Spacecraft Track Solar Storms From Sun To Earth (Tutorial with STEREO Video)
YouTube, 18th August 2011
"Newly released imagery reveals absolute brightness of detailed features in a large geoeffective CME in late 2008, connecting the original magnetized structure in the Sun's corona to the intricate anatomy of an interplanetary storm as it impacted the Earth three days later. At the time the data were collected, in late 2008, STEREO-A was nearly 45 degrees ahead of the Earth in its orbit, affording a very clear view of the Earth-Sun line."
I learnt something from this video. NASA are now claiming that biggest CMEs are one and half trillion tonnes of matter, but have you noticed that the sun is not getting any smaller.... Another mystery that solar scientists cannot explain...

Solar Flare Activity Prompting NASA to Convene a News Briefing Thursday in Washington
Weather Tech, 17th August 2011
Increasing solar activity and the threat that coronal mass ejections (CME) pose to Earth has prompted NASA to convene a news briefing at its Headquarter building in Washington on Thursday afternoon.

Thursday's briefing has been arranged, space agency officials say, in light of new information coming from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), spacecraft and other NASA probes. The briefing will feature new details about the structure of solar storms and the impact they have on Earth.

Comment: I have been thinking for a while that solar cycle 24 might be following the same way as the solar cycle that led to the massive geomagnetic storm in 1921/1859 and this is why solar scientists are nervous. This would be the 100 year storm that would lead to millions with no power for YEARS if authorities don't take the decision to take down the grids, a proposal that is not necessarily as straight forward as it sounds. Despite the opinion of conspiracy theorists who are now claiming this is a perfect cover for some genocide, I don't think the resulting anarchy would be that easy to manage... This is the space.com announcement, NASA to Discuss Solar Storm Tracking Efforts Today. Below are details of the latest CME blast that appeared to hit the planet Venus.

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Change in solar activity brings increased radiation risk to air passengers
PhysOrg.com, 16th August 2011
(PhysOrg.com) -- Radiation risks to airplanes and spacecraft are likely to increase when the Sun moves from its present grand solar maximum to lower levels of activity, says research from the University of Reading.

The researchers say this a serious concern because our present day engineering, design, operation and insurance of vulnerable technology is based on past experience from the space age and does not yet account for long-term change in space climate.

The scientists have paid particular attention to the radiation effects on aircraft crew and passengers on long-distance flights.

The Sun has been in a ‘grand solar maximum' which has already lasted longer than any other such maximum in the past 9.3 millennia and is expected to end soon. The changes in near-Earth space that will result will return Earth to conditions that last prevailed before the advent of susceptible modern operational systems, such as spacecraft, power distribution grids and aircraft.

Comment: Another reality bite... For anyone that is confused, this is really about the solar wind flagging and the interstellar debris cloud pushing into our solar system and shrinking the heliosphere, thereby letting in more galactic cosmic rays. The cause and effect relationship is not clear, but regardless, there is massive change taking place and our satellite communication infrastructure and even our electronics on Earth were not designed to take this kind of cosmic onslaught. What amazes me is that this is not something that happened yesterday. Space weather has been getting worse for 20+ years. Well, despite the ignorance of those who don't understand the science.

[People who simply don't believe that space weather has anything to do with spiritual evolution, but who cannot explain in plain English the mechanism for how anyone is recognised by universal forces. I will state that your electromagnetic field and related higher dimensional components are a signature that makes you unique and that signature is subject to environmental signals whether electromagnetic or hyperdimensional. Metaphysical and scientific studies both agree that the physical body is controlled by electromagnetic templates, but the metaphysics suggests that some of this energy is only visible in the infra-red and ultra violet and other components are simply invisible to any of our instrumentation. Yes, that is the same dark matter problem, where 96% of the energy-matter of the universe is invisible but MUST exist to comply with the commonly accepted theories of how the universe works. These days, scientists even agree that some people can see this energy and they no longer deride this as psychic, but state that the brain is processing input data differently and call those who can see some of this template energy synaesthetes. The word psychic is now longer appropriate because scientists know that people have many more than just 5 senses and some people can process more input data than others. Scientists claim that at some level we are ALL synaesthetes, I would go further and say that at some level, we all have Savant Syndrome.]

Cosmic rays represent cosmic radiation and more cosmic radiation switches on DNA to allow for more and more mutation, and that means evolutionary change. I have an idea for a film, the jet setters turning into the first real obvious mutants on Earth. Anyway, back to the news. The levels of radiation during flying are nothing compared to what people are now getting in the region of Fukushima... This is what I have presented before:

RADIATION OVER-EXPOSURE TO PASSENGERS AND CREW

The principal space weather hazard to humans is exposure to cosmic radiation while flying, which is caused primarily by GCRs. The dose rate at an altitude of 39,000 ft (12 km) in mid-temperate latitudes is typically up to about 6 microSieverts (microSv) per hour, but near the equator only about 3 microSv/hr. Typically, a London to Los Angeles flight in a commercial aircraft accumulates ~65 microSv (6 microSv/hr); however, the solar cycle can give plus or minus 20% variations in dose from solar minimum to maximum.

However, of concern are those SEPs [Solar Energetic Particles] that increase the dose at aircraft altitudes. Using data collected onboard aircraft and then modelled to large SEP storms (ie, 23 February 1956, 29 September 1989) it is estimated that the additional radiation dose received at 40,000ft (12km) on a subsonic transatlantic flight would have been approximately 10 mSv and 2 mSv respectively.

Under present ICRP guidelines, the recommended dose limit for the general public is 1mSv, and for aircrew in the EU a maximum working level of 6 mSv has been adopted by the airlines.

UK Government Space Weather Memorandum: Scientific advice and evidence in emergencies , SolarMetrics Limited (SAGE 18), 13 September 2010
Submission is for the Science and Technology Committee inquiry, examining the UK Government's use of scientific advice and evidence in emergency situations.

So if we get an intense proton storm (1956) someone in a plane at 40,000ft (12km) could get 10 times the recommended annual radiation dose and if we get a decent size normal geomagnetic storm (1989) someone in a plane at 40,000ft (12km) could get twice the annual dose... In the 2003 'Halloween' solar storms, things were so bad that they made planes divert to below 25,000ft (7.5km) but in the research that I have found, there was no references to estimates for how much radiation people were likely to have received.

---

Spacecraft Sees Solar Storm Engulf Earth
NASA Science News, 18th August 2011
August 18, 2011: For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released today during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.

"The movie sent chills down my spine," says Craig DeForest of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It shows a CME swelling into an enormous wall of plasma and then washing over the tiny blue speck of Earth where we live. I felt very small."

CMEs are billion-ton clouds of solar plasma launched by the same explosions that spark solar flares. When they sweep past our planet, they can cause auroras, radiation storms, and in extreme cases power outages. Tracking these clouds and predicting their arrival is an important part of space weather forecasting.

"We have seen CMEs before, but never quite like this," says Lika Guhathakurta, program scientist for the STEREO mission at NASA headquarters. "STEREO-A has given us a new view of solar storms." [...] The kind of magnetic transformations revealed by the movie deeply impressed Guhathakurta: "I have always thought that in heliophysics understanding the magnetic field is equivalent to the ‘dark energy' problem of astrophysics. Often, we cannot see the magnetic field, yet it orchestrates almost everything. These images from STEREO give us a real sense of what the underlying magnetic field is doing."

Comment: The STEREO video is absolutely awesome... I don't think anyone intelligent would argue against the definition of Space Weather after watching this movie. I will post more links of what went on at this conference below. Our reality has changed, we have gone from a quiet space environment where scientists stated it was a complete vacuum to a raging, stormy and highly charged electromagnetic environment in just over twenty years. This is the New Cosmic Age and metaphysical predictions have been vindicated.

NASA | Spacecraft Track Solar Storms From Sun To Earth (Tutorial with STEREO Video)
YouTube, 18th August 2011
"Newly released imagery reveals absolute brightness of detailed features in a large geoeffective CME in late 2008, connecting the original magnetized structure in the Sun's corona to the intricate anatomy of an interplanetary storm as it impacted the Earth three days later. At the time the data were collected, in late 2008, STEREO-A was nearly 45 degrees ahead of the Earth in its orbit, affording a very clear view of the Earth-Sun line."
I learnt something from this video. NASA are now claiming that biggest CMEs are one and half trillion tonnes of matter, but have you noticed that the sun is not getting any smaller.... Another mystery that solar scientists cannot explain...

---

Solar Flare Activity Prompting NASA to Convene a News Briefing Thursday in Washington
Weather Tech, 17th August 2011
Increasing solar activity and the threat that coronal mass ejections (CME) pose to Earth has prompted NASA to convene a news briefing at its Headquarter building in Washington on Thursday afternoon.

Thursday's briefing has been arranged, space agency officials say, in light of new information coming from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), spacecraft and other NASA probes. The briefing will feature new details about the structure of solar storms and the impact they have on Earth.

Comment: I have been thinking for a while that solar cycle 24 might be following the same way as the solar cycle that led to the massive geomagnetic storm in 1921/1859 and this is why solar scientists are nervous. This would be the 100 year storm that would lead to millions with no power for YEARS if authorities don't take the decision to take down the grids, a proposal that is not necessarily as straight forward as it sounds. Despite the opinion of conspiracy theorists who are now claiming this is a perfect cover for some genocide, I don't think the resulting anarchy would be that easy to manage... This is the space.com announcement, NASA to Discuss Solar Storm Tracking Efforts Today. Below are details of the latest CME blast that appeared to hit the planet Venus.

Solar Storms Could Debilitate Earth this Decade: NOAA
International Business Times, 7th August 2011
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency that focuses on the condition of the oceans and atmosphere, said that a severe solar storm could cause global chaos, debilitating satellite communications and taking down the most important global power grids.

The NOAA predicted four extreme solar emissions which could threaten the planet this decade. Similarly, NASA warned that a peak in the sun's magnetic energy cycle and the number of sun spots or flares around 2013 could enable extremely high radiation levels.

Government studies revealed that extreme solar flare emissions could cause blackouts, possibly for years, in large portions of the U.S.

This type of storm could also induce geomagnetic currents that could debilitate transformers on the power grid. Electric power would be out for years or even decades.

Comment: Yes, I know most people still think this is all scare-mongering, but this belief is held by those who are completely ignorant and unaware that Space Weather has been getting worse for over twenty years. The conditions in space have changed, space weather is unpredictable, space weather satellites are sparse, space weather prediction is in its infancy, and we live in modern technological societies with infrastructures that are not geared up to deal with massive geomagnetic storms. It seems that the Mayan warnings from modern elders that we were entering a new era were completely ignored because they were not understood, even as Space Weather was causing a huge amount of upset to our high frequency radio communications and satellite communication infrastructure. Satellites have simply died in completely calm conditions even an eclipse has caused a good satellite to simply die. Now, it is becoming really obvious that our world has changed. Space Weather will dominate life on Earth, the Mayans say this will be for the next 5,200 years and as our solar system enters more deeply into 'G cloud', this is much more likely than NOAA's prediction of 10 years of vulnerability.

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Russian solar probe to predict Earthly cataclysms
RT News, 29th July 2011
Some scientists believe bursts of solar activity cause natural disasters on our planet, but until now the star has been too difficult to reach or explore in any detail. Some Russian researchers think they have the solution.

­Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis – apocalyptic pictures are becoming an ordinary part of news bulletins across the globe. And scientists are not giving out reassuring forecasts.

"Unfortunately, we're expecting more severe cataclysms which may lead to large-scale human losses and destruction," says Baku-based Professor Elchin Kakhalilov of the Global Network for the Forecasting of Earthquakes. "I'm talking about even a possible shift of the centers of our entire civilization."

The change in the Earth's seismic activity coincides with the rise of activity on the sun. Scientists have been witnessing gigantic bursts of plasma on its surface and say they are affecting our planet, even though it is over 90 million miles away.

"Unfortunately, we're expecting more severe cataclysms which may lead to large-scale human losses and destruction," says Baku-based Professor Elchin Kakhalilov of the Global Network for the Forecasting of Earthquakes. "I'm talking about even a possible shift of the centers of our entire civilization." DS

Comment: So, the Russians are expecting more Earth cataclysms because of space weather? [This is the same as a British government report that stated major disasters like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami or Pakistan's floods are likely to become more frequent and global governments must prepare for an uncertain future. See, Governments must prepare for more mega-disasters - UK]. Well, some scientists have been insisting for many decades that there is a close relationship between certain celestial events and earthquakes because it was evident from the data, but it seems the Russians expect things to get much worse. I have been saying this for a long time and it will be bad because we are not prepared and have failed to comprehend 'the signs of the times'. It seems here that the Russians have decided to place a satellite in space that will hopefully provide much better space weather forecasting, but I don't know what they mean by 4 times closer to the Sun. So, does that mean 4 million miles from Earth? Lagrange Point 1 (L1), a million miles away, is where the ACE & SOHO satellite amongst others are now just parked in zero gravity just watching the sun. The new STEREO satellites are in orbit around the Sun but they are not actually close to the sun at all. Whatever, the Russians are really trying to take space Weather forecasting forward with this new plan and I think this is good news for the world if the Russians decide to share their data.

• ---

  
  Perfect Disaster: Solar Storm (2006)
  YouTube, January 2008 --flashback--
  "Solar storms bombard Earth on a regular basis, creating northern lights at the poles and temporarily disrupting radio transmissions and power grids. As technology advances and we become more dependent on it, we are more vulnerable to the effects of large solar storms. An unusally massive solar storm could cause a global blackout lasting months or even years. Civilization would be thrust back to a time before technology." Source: link
  
  Comment: I have just watched this documentary-drama again that was first screened 5th April 2006, that I first saw on Channel 4 in the UK after my book was published. In reality, the American and British governments have decided not to wait for a drama before they take an unprecedented decision, and this is not even five years after I dared to reveal my understanding that Space Weather was the reality of the start of a new era dominated by the aether or space. Well, the information in this documentary is not completely accurate because various factors that determine the seriousness of Space Weather have actually got WORSE, like the old North/South Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) orientation rules were discredited in July 2007... Note in part 2, the emphasis on the importance of data coming from the ACE satellite that is now at the end of it's life and vulnerable to a severe blast of Space Weather...
  
  Well, I had to smile at the point in the video when John Kappenman [Part 3, 5:30] compares the unprecedented action of taking down National Power Grids to Russian Roulette, because that is exactly what I thought when I saw the reports that the UK & US government had decided to take this action if they think there is a storm on the way that they suspect we would not be able to handle... Well, now I can cite Kappenman because he is also the electrical engineering expert that the US military have been paying attention to... I have also learnt something else that I had missed before. It takes 1 hour to shut down a power station, so it seems that information from the ACE satellite may not be useful in making a decision about whether to shut down if a coronal mass ejection (CME) is travelling too fast (ACE can only provide between 15 - 45 minutes or even max. 1 hour due to it's location 1 million hours from Earth)...
  
  Well, these days, I just feel terrible that after 6 years of effort, I have not made much progress explaining to people that Space Weather is changing our world. Basically, due to a number of terrible experiences, I have come to the conclusion that very few people are actually interested in reality. NASA has provided the proof that a significant amount of this energy hitting our planet is borderline physical/aetheric but the metaphysical community generally have not been that interested. It really makes me wonder why when this is MAJOR NEWS, the destiny of mankind is at stake and there has been talk for decades about a dramatic increase of energy on this planet, but we are talking about a sudden zap, too much at once for our technological world to handle, this only more likely at solar maximum but this is not an absolute necessity.
  
  Anyway, I just don't know what to make of the lack of comprehension.... seriously, this is not rocket science... We have to change how we do business in this planet, but how can we when people refuse to accept that our world is changing, as if ignorance will stop the upgrades to our reality... To all out there who scoffed at my feeble efforts to write and market my book, start praying that the national power grids don't go down and stay down where you live some time in the near future...
  

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Getting Ready for the Next Big Solar Storm
NASA Science News, 22nd June 2011
In Sept. 1859, on the eve of a below-average1 solar cycle, the sun unleashed one of the most powerful storms in centuries. The underlying flare was so unusual, researchers still aren't sure how to categorize it. The blast peppered Earth with the most energetic protons in half-a-millennium, induced electrical currents that set telegraph offices on fire, and sparked Northern Lights over Cuba and Hawaii.

This week, officials have gathered at the National Press Club in Washington DC to ask themselves a simple question: What if it happens again? "A similar storm today might knock us for a loop," says Lika Guhathakurta, a solar physicist at NASA headquarters. "Modern society depends on high-tech systems such as smart power grids, GPS, and satellite communications--all of which are vulnerable to solar storms."

She and more than a hundred others are attending the fifth annual Space Weather Enterprise Forum–"SWEF" for short. The purpose of SWEF is to raise awareness of space weather and its effects on society especially among policy makers and emergency responders. Attendees come from the US Congress, FEMA, power companies, the United Nations, NASA, NOAA and more.

"A similar storm today might knock us for a loop," says Lika Guhathakurta, a solar physicist at NASA headquarters. "Modern society depends on high-tech systems such as smart power grids, GPS, and satellite communications--all of which are vulnerable to solar storms."

Comment: People have been confused by the apparently mixed messages from NASA about the Sun becoming very quiet, but if you are a regular to this blog, you will not be confused. For those who a new to the concept of Space Weather, it must be understood that it does not matter whether the Sun is entering into a quiet phase, because the Sun can still develop a sunspot and then let rip a massive explosion at any time. This is evident as solar records reveal that solar scientists can expect at least one massive explosion during solar minimum. There is also the historical precedent that we can expect a huge mega blast once every 100 years and a super mega blast once every 500 years. However, what NASA are not making clear is that the properties of space have changed and this is combined with Earth's magnetic shielding, the cosmic umbrella that scientists call the magnetosphere, has seriously deteriorated and that is why any space weather we get now is far more significant that even 20 years ago. We cannot compare the past to what we can expect in the future because the conditions of our local space environment have completely changed and that is why NASA scientists are so worried. Yes, this is the reality of Mayan New Age of the Ether.

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Understanding space weather forecasts and the risk of solar storms
Washington Post, 21st June 2011
Part I of this series, "Space weather: Are we ready for a solar strike?" reviewed the background and nature of the threats of space weather.

I concluded that major solar storms have the potential to: 1) occur with limited advanced warning, 2) strike with insufficient means to protect vital earth and satellite based systems, 3) be disastrous to technology dependent societies and 4) leave in their wake totally inadequate resources and capabilities to recover for a periods ranging from weeks to years – at a cost of trillions of dollars. [...]

At present, even if we know for sure that a CME plasma cloud is directed towards Earth some days ahead, the effects on power grids, satellites, etc, depend upon the relative orientation (polarity) of the magnetic fields of the plasma and Earth. Under certain alignments, even the most intense plasma disturbance will pass earth with virtually no effect whereas, under others, the threat is real and potentially disastrous. Intermediate levels of danger depend upon the relative polarity of Earth and plasma magnetic fields between these two extremes.

Critically, the only source of information on the alignment of the magnetic fields is NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite and, therefore, the only system able to provide advanced warning of geomagnetic storms. Given the position of ACE in space between the Earth and Sun (L1 point), however, only short term advance notice (1 hour at most) is possible. [...]

Sidebar: Are the days of the ACE space weather satellite numbered?

NOAA acknowledges the possible loss of ACE would constitute the ‘most serious gap' in its space weather services by leaving the world without a vital early-warning system against a devastating solar storm. It's something which Tom Bogdan, Director of SWPC, admits keeps him awake at night.

Comment: This article provides some Space Weather Education. Also, we are given a nice synopsis of the situation with the ACE satellite which is crucial for space weather forecasters to help provide some advance warning. If this important satellite gets crippled by the radiation from a solar flare (that sends high speed radiation towards Earth in minutes) and there is NO BACKUP system, then this means that there is a possibility that space weather forecasters could be left completely in the dark and will not be able to warn about the arrival of a coronal mass ejection (CME) that usually arrives 3/4 days later. High speed CMEs can arrive in half that time and that is another reason for the worry, people should forget about averages because the Sun cannot be trusted, the peak of solar cycle 23 is proof is you want to check the facts. Basically, the situation is unbelievable. Humanity has sleepwalked into a situation where world controllers now admit that we are now playing celestial russian roulette with the Sun. The Sun can fire a bullet or a blank and space weather forecasters just hope they can tell the difference. Just great....

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How's the [Space] Weather?
New York Times, 16th June 2011
LATELY, the Sun has been behaving a bit strangely. In 2008 and 2009, it showed the least surface activity in nearly a century. Solar flare activity stopped cold and weeks and months went by without any sunspots, or areas of intense magnetism. Quiet spells are normal for the Sun, but researchers alive today had never seen anything like that two-year hibernation.

Now that the Sun is approaching the peak of its magnetic cycle, when solar storms – blasts of electrically charged magnetic clouds – are most likely to occur, no one can predict how it will behave. Will solar activity continue to be sluggish, or will solar storms rage with renewed vigor?

Luckily, policy makers are paying attention to space weather. Late last month, President Obama and the British prime minister David Cameron announced that the United States and Britain will work together to create "a fully operational global space weather warning system." And just last week, the United Nations pledged to upgrade its space weather forecasts.

But most people have never heard of space weather, which is a problem, because both high and low solar activity have serious effects on life on Earth.

Comment: Good basic info. Anyway, it's worse than people not knowing about the existence of Space Weather but there must be a few wondering why the UK and US are so desperate they are prepared to shut down the national grids to prevent a total catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions. What is incredible is people who claim to be spiritual who have no idea how the universe works. Our scientists tell us that 96% of the energy matter of the universe is dark, that means that scientists cannot detect it at all but they reason that it must exist to make their theories of the universe work. So why can't people make the connection that the majority of Space Weather is dark energy-matter? We have scientists telling us that they predict that dark matter clouds move through earth on a regular basis, enough to 'nudge' the orbit of the Earth and folk still don't get it... What amazes me is that this is the mundane stuff, nobody is talking about the really interesting implications but quite frankly, I am not giving out my latest research, there might be some swine about... For more space weather images, see the spaceweather.com June 2011 Aurora Gallery

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'Controlled' power cuts likely as Sun storm threatens national grid
The Independent, 13th June 2011
Officials in Britain and the United States are preparing to make controlled power cuts to their national electricity supplies in response to a warning of a possible powerful solar storm hitting the Earth.

In an interview with The Independent, Thomas Bogdan, director of the US Space Weather Prediction Centre, said that controlled power "outages" will protect the National Electricity Grids against damage which could take months or even years to repair should a large solar storm collide with the Earth without any precautions being taken.

Dr Bogdan is in close discussions with scientists in the UK Met Office to set up a second space weather prediction centre in Britain to co-ordinate a global response to a threat viewed seriously by both the US and UK governments. One topic of discussion is how to protect national electricity grids from the immense power surges caused by the geomagnetic storms which happen when highly energetic solar particles collide with the Earth's magnetic field. [...]

The aim of the joint US-UK collaboration is to improve solar weather forecasting to a point where it is possible to warn power companies of an imminent storm. There is a feeling that if a "category 5" solar storm – the biggest of the five categories – were to be predicted, then taking the grid off-line before it is due to hit Earth and letting the storm pass would be better than trying to keep things running, he said.

Comment: OK, I have given my opinion ad infinitum, but I think the powers that be are desperate and might have been even more frightened by the massive CME last week that only gave Earth a slight glancing blow. I can only suggest watching the Discovery Channel documentary/drama Perfect Disaster: Solar Storm because this explains the logic of shutting down the grid, despite the disruption this might cause in the event of a false alarm. (By the way, if you have been following my blog for a few years, you will know there has been a few suspicious events that are explained by this documentary, like crashed satellites and cellphone networks in trouble.)

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This Week's Solar Flare Illuminates the Grid's Vulnerability
New York Times, 9th June 2011
A massive burst of solar wind that erupted from the sun Tuesday is expected to deliver only a "glancing blow" to the Earth's vulnerable magnetic field, NASA officials said yesterday. But it will preview what some experts call a potentially existential threat to the power grids of the United States and other nations, and the populations that depend on them.

"Geomagnetically-induced currents on system infrastructure have the potential to result in widespread tripping of key transmission lines and irreversible physical damage to large transformers," a 2009 report (pdf) by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) and the Energy Department says. [...]

The Hydro-Québec power system draws almost entirely on hydroelectric generation, which permits a relatively simple and rapid restoration, he said. In contrast, the U.S. grid relies predominantly on steam electric generation, making restoration much more difficult, and a recovery as fast as Quebec's "is highly unlikely."

Comment: Another two Space Weather reports to read, I have quite a collection now.... This NERC report includes sections that focus on the risks to the national grid associated with terrorism, pandemics, as well as a geomagnetic/electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event. Interestingly, natural disasters and meteor strikes were mentioned but were not a focus and after the recent historic tornado levels, with a brisk hurricane season expected too and the ever increasing number of meteors being seen, I suppose they would all present similar issues and would be covered by the same procedures. The talk of the peak of solar cycle 24 being in 2012-2014 is questionable because the suns' behaviour still appears to be quite abnormal and I am still waiting to see if more scientists think we are NOW at the peak of the solar cycle. The point of the real concern is that it would only take one huge blast to wipe out grids across the world and historically, an X-rated flare and associated massive CME is possible at ANY time, just like we have seen this week. (Please note: we were fortunate because the CME was facing aware from Earth and and so we only clipped a little of the main energy, but the world cannot assume that Earth will not get hit by a mega solar event, some point in the near or distant future.)

Metatech: Geomagnetic Storms and Their Impacts on the U.S. Power Grid
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, January 2010

"This report describes the threat of geomagnetic storms on the Earth caused by solar activity and further discusses their impacts (past and future) on the U.S. power grid. The intention is to describe the seriousness of the threat through a description of past geomagnetic storms and their impacts. In addition, the ability to model the interactions of the geomagnetic field with power grids allows an understanding of past events and the ability to predict the effects of future geomagnetic storms. This report provides the baseline for determining the future recommendations for protecting the U.S. power grid from this threat in the future."
I have modified the front cover of this report with a Metatech image to create this image icon

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U.N. to upgrade 'space weather' forecasts
Severe solar storm could cause $2 trillion in damage, require 10 years to recover MSNBC News, 8th June 2011
OSLO – A U.N. plan to upgrade "space weather" forecasts can help the world cope with solar storms that might wreak up to $2 trillion in damage if the sun repeated a giant flare of 1859, experts said.

The sun is entering a more active phase due to peak in 2013 on a roughly 11-year sunspot cycle, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said. Power supplies, air traffic control, communications and satellites can all be disrupted by storms.

"We are increasingly being impacted by space weather," Barbara Ryan, director of the space weather program at the Geneva-based WMO, told Reuters. She said there was a need to coordinate forecasts and upgrade warnings of looming storms.
"No country has enough resources alone ... we need observations from all over the globe," she said. "A common alerting protocol (is) an issue we will be looking at over the next couple of years" to help limit impacts.

Comment: Good! Hopefully more people will wake up to what Space Weather really signifies.... There has been other space weather reports and announcements in the last week or so, but strangely, they have received very little attention in the mainstream media. See below:

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UK/US To Collaborate On 'Space Weather'
Build.co.uk, 1st June 2011
Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama have welcomed the growing partnership between the Met Office and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service in working toward the delivery of space weather alerts.

The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Met Office and NOAA in February 2011 provides for a coordinated US-UK partnership. This involves a range of UK and US agencies and organisations in the delivery of Space Weather alerts to help provide critical infrastructure protection around the globe.

The two governments have announced that they will embark together on an ambitious programme to create the world's first combined space weather model capable of forecasting terrestrial weather and also indicating where, when, and for how long space weather effects will persist in our upper atmosphere. Space weather anomalies can disrupt and degrade GPS-enabled positioning, navigation, and timing capabilities.

Comment: This really did not get any publicity in the mainstream media and I wonder, why?

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Russian solar probe to predict Earthly cataclysms
RT News, 29th July 2011
Some scientists believe bursts of solar activity cause natural disasters on our planet, but until now the star has been too difficult to reach or explore in any detail. Some Russian researchers think they have the solution.

­Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis – apocalyptic pictures are becoming an ordinary part of news bulletins across the globe. And scientists are not giving out reassuring forecasts.

"Unfortunately, we're expecting more severe cataclysms which may lead to large-scale human losses and destruction," says Baku-based Professor Elchin Kakhalilov of the Global Network for the Forecasting of Earthquakes. "I'm talking about even a possible shift of the centers of our entire civilization."

The change in the Earth's seismic activity coincides with the rise of activity on the sun. Scientists have been witnessing gigantic bursts of plasma on its surface and say they are affecting our planet, even though it is over 90 million miles away.

"Unfortunately, we're expecting more severe cataclysms which may lead to large-scale human losses and destruction," says Baku-based Professor Elchin Kakhalilov of the Global Network for the Forecasting of Earthquakes. "I'm talking about even a possible shift of the centers of our entire civilization." DS

Comment: So, the Russians are expecting more Earth cataclysms because of space weather? [This is the same as a British government report that stated major disasters like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami or Pakistan's floods are likely to become more frequent and global governments must prepare for an uncertain future. See, Governments must prepare for more mega-disasters - UK]. Well, some scientists have been insisting for many decades that there is a close relationship between certain celestial events and earthquakes because it was evident from the data, but it seems the Russians expect things to get much worse. I have been saying this for a long time and it will be bad because we are not prepared and have failed to comprehend 'the signs of the times'. It seems here that the Russians have decided to place a satellite in space that will hopefully provide much better space weather forecasting, but I don't know what they mean by 4 times closer to the Sun. So, does that mean 4 million miles from Earth? Lagrange Point 1 (L1), a million miles away, is where the ACE & SOHO satellite amongst others are now just parked in zero gravity just watching the sun. The new STEREO satellites are in orbit around the Sun but they are not actually close to the sun at all. Whatever, the Russians are really trying to take space Weather forecasting forward with this new plan and I think this is good news for the world if the Russians decide to share their data.

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Make GPS Robust, Says AMS Report on Satellite Navigation and Space Weather
Space weather is the largest source of accuracy errors for most GNSS users
Inside GNSS, 28th May 2011
A new report by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) highlights the vulnerability of GPS-dependent critical infrastructures to disruptions caused by solar flares and other space weather events, and sets forth a series of recommendations for building robustness of the GPS service.

Entitled "Satellite Navigation & Space Weather: Understanding the Vulnerability & Building Resilience," the report is based on a workshop organized by the AMS and held October 13–14, 2010 in Washington, D.C.

Space weather is the largest source of accuracy errors for most GNSS users, due to its effects on signal propagation through the atmosphere. The next solar maximum, the high point in an 11-year cycle, is expected to occur in 2013. [...]

The report also recommends R&D investments to improve understanding of space weather and enable timely space weather warnings. The AMS plans to brief congressional staff on the report during the week of June 21.

Comment: So, Space Weather is scrambling data and users of these satellite systems are not happy?

• Satellite Navigation & Space Weather Policy Study (.pdf)
  American Meteorological Society, June 2011
  "The AMS [American Meteorological Society] Policy Program held a workshop October 13-14, 2010 in Washington DC to discuss satellite navigation's vulnerability to space weather and how to build resilience for the future. Recommendations were made on how to better understand the vulnerabilities, understand how science and and engineering can be used to build resiliency, and what policy opportunities are available for mitigating risk and improving the application of space weather information to GPS operations."
  

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Recalculating...Don't Trust Your GPS
Don't let your GPS lead you along. It might not know where you're going either.
Discovery News, 17th May 2011
* GPS devices can provide dangerous advice, yet people continue to trust the technology over their own instincts.
* A recent case in Nevada shows just how dangerous it is to put blind faith in a digital navigation system.
* It is better to learn wilderness skills than to become overconfident in technology.

Getting lost in the wilderness can be terrifying, even tragic. It can also be perplexing, as with a recent case in a remote area of Nevada.

A little over a week ago, a woman was rescued on the verge of death after being stranded for nearly two months on muddy back roads in the northeastern part of the state. Her husband, who walked off looking for help, is still missing. The most baffling part of the story: The couple had a GPS device. And they were following its directions when they got lost. It's not the first time that blind faith in a GPS has led people astray and into big trouble.

Comment: I read various versions of this story last week, but the failure of GPS was very much downplayed. Well, I have written about this many times and provided articles that tell us that GPS signals are now so degraded by Space Weather that even the US military are worried about their total reliance on this system and if they are worried, then the rest of society should be worried when GPS based information (timestamping financial transactions etc.) is now being so extensively used and embedded into the processing side of so many computer systems. Whatever, this story should at least prompt a few to reconsider their actions if they want to go into the wilderness but don't know how to read a map.

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GOLD May Help Prevent Space Storm Damage on Earth
UCF Today News, 18th May 2011
A device that may help predict and prevent GPS and cell phone blackouts has been developed at the University of Central Florida.

The imager, named Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, or GOLD for short, will record images of ultraviolet light emitted by the atmosphere approximately 62 miles above the earth's surface. Measurements will be made from a satellite orbiting in sync with the earth, meaning data can be collected across the entire hemisphere throughout the day. The data will give scientists a clear picture of how the temperature and composition in the uppermost portions of the atmosphere respond to various influences, such as changes in the sun's output.

Comment: Yet, some intuitives are applying real 'golden energy' into their energy fields for 'shielding and protection' and most people would think this was mad because they don't haver a clue about the true nature of reality. I have seen this 'golden energy' with my own 'evolved' eyesight, so I know what they are doing is not imaginary.......

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Space Weather: Sunspots, Solar Flares & Coronal Mass Ejections
Space.com, 18th May 2011
Though the sun lies 93 million miles (149 million km) from Earth, its unceasing activity assures an impact on our planet far beyond the obvious light and heat. From a constant stream of particles in the form of solar wind to the unpredictable bombardment from solar flares and coronal mass ejections, Earth often feels the effects of its stellar companions. Less noticeable are the sunspots crossing the solar surface, though they are related to the more violent interactions. All of these fall under the definition of "space weather." [...]

NASA is currently implementing Project Solar Shield to provide warnings to vital systems after an Earth-affecting CME occurs. This allows satellites and power transformers to be shut down if necessary for a short period of time. The result is a short- term, controlled blackout rather than a longer one caused by the destruction of vital equipment.

Similarly, several satellites keep the entire sun under constant observation. NASA's Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft studies the sun, while the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) focuses on solar atmosphere. And the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) samples particles from the sun as they stream toward our planet. These programs will help bring a greater understanding of the subject of space weather on Earth.

Comment: Education from Space.com about space weather.

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How Earth's Magnetic Field Would Look from Space
Space.com, 18th May 2011

The iron-cored Earth behaves like a great magnet, generating a huge magnetic field around the planet that protects it from blasts and harmful radiation from the sun. The recently released NASA visualization above shows this field, called the magnetosphere, as it might look from space.

This view is conceptual, but based on real science observations that have been made since the beginning of the Space Age. The orange and blue lines depict the opposite north and south polarity of Earth's field lines.

Comment: It looks like NASA has finally tried to catch up with the Japanese NICT real time simulations of the earth's magnetic field that I much prefer to use. The first picture is from NASA, the second and third are from NICT, but the third is how the Earth's magnetic field sometimes ends up after a massive space weather event revealing the magnetic field line disturbance.

NASA to Launch New Ocean-Watching Satellite in June
Space.com, 18th May 2011
"Aquarius will use a set of highly precise microwave radiometers to detect microwave emissions from the ocean surface. These emissions are modulated, or changed, based on the electrical conductivity of the water itself, which is influenced by the salinity."
With more ships going dead in the water due to their electronics being knocked out, I imagine the real concern is about monitoring large electrical currents in the ocean.

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Climate change [Space Weather] 'threatens UK wi-fi connections', says government report
Study into impact of hotter, stormier [Space] weather on UK infrastructure finds threat to wi-fi range and signal strength
The Guardian, 9th May 2011
Wi-fi internet access and other communications are at risk from global warming unless measures are taken to protect them from rising temperatures and stormier weather, a government report warned on Monday.

Presenting the report, the secretary of state for the environment, Caroline Spelman, said that higher temperatures can reduce the range of wireless communications, rainstorms can impact the reliability of the signal, and drier summers and wetter winters may cause greater subsidence, damaging masts and underground cables.

Comment: Over at WUWT people have been tearing this article apart, and I think the best description provided for this article is tripe. However, if you substitute Space Weather for "Climate Change" then magically the warnings make sense. So if we go to the Lloyds of London 360⁰ Risk Space Weather Report, we find 18 wireless references. As follows:

Foreword
Lloyd's are publishing this report so that businesses can think about their exposure to space weather as we move into this period. Space weather is not a new phenomena, but over most of the last few millennia, it has had limited impact on human existence. However, it does affect machines – potentially anything powered by electricity generation, which would affect everything from hospital systems through to banking, and also machines using wireless technologies, such as GPS, which are critical in many types of transport. Some of the impacts of a single event, such as a spectacular geomagnetic storm could be highly dramatic in terms of disabling power grids in a short space of time. pg 2

Solar radio bursts
The Sun can generate strong bursts of natural radio emissions; for example, during the launch of CMEs. These can directly interfere with radio signals on Earth. Indeed, these bursts were first discovered in 1942 when they created false signals in British defence radars. They are now an area of growing concern because of potential to interfere with modern wireless technologies such as satellite navigation, wireless internet, mobile telephones and short-range device controls. pg 8

Internet
The internet is relatively robust against space weather, at least in relation to links that use physical wiring (such as broadband over phone lines or standard computer cables, often called ‘ethernet' cables, that are widely used in offices) rather than wireless links, as most traffic is carried via robust optical fibre links. Internet links are rarely routed via conventional communications at 36,000km altitude because this imposes signal delays that degrade internet operation. pg18

There is growing concern that the coming solar maximum will expose problems in the many wireless systems that have grown in popularity during the quiet solar conditions that have prevailed over recent years. pg 18

Wireless communications
There has been a huge growth in the use of wireless communications over the past decade, including not only satellite navigation and mobile phones but also wireless internet and short-range device control.68 These use low-power signals in order to avoid interference with other systems, but there is evidence that they are vulnerable to interference from solar radio bursts.69 There is growing concern that the coming solar maximum will expose problems in the many wireless systems that have been developed and have grown in popularity during the quiet solar conditions that have prevailed over recent years.

These wireless systems use radio signal protocols that allow radio noise to be recognised as noise, rather than as a false signal. Therefore, there is only a limited risk that the bursts will cause wireless systems to transmit false data. It is more likely that these systems will shut down for the duration of the event. Although this shutdown may be for only a few minutes, the impact on business will depend on the consequences of that shutdown. If the wireless link is part of a safety monitoring system (for example, linking smoke and fire detectors to control units), its shutdown may trigger an alarm and disrupt business activities. For example, by forcing staff evacuation. If the links are used in computerised systems that control business processes, the shutdown may halt the process and could lead to the loss of data. Many businesses rely on wireless communications to transmit data within their own organisation and also to external parties. This will be inhibited by the loss of signal, even temporarily, and could have serious consequences if the data had to be submitted according to strict deadlines, as occurs in the legal profession. pg 18

Finance
As mentioned earlier, the loss of power can affect the retail sector, which relies on electronic cash transfers. However, solar radio bursts also pose a potential problem where portable credit card machines use wireless links to transmit and receive transaction data, as these links may be jammed during radio bursts. pg 19

There is a need to increase awareness among businesses that assessing the impact of space weather is a useful activity; especially in areas such as pipelines, railways, wireless systems and automotive technology, which would not normally consider this risk. pg 24

Conclusions
However, wireless communications systems such as mobile phones, wireless internet and short-range device controls are vulnerable to interference from strong solar radio bursts. These bursts will simultaneously disrupt many systems and could be very disruptive for business activities. pg 26

References
http://www.optisynx.com/OptiSynxArticleForWirelessBusinessReviewV3.pdf

Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business
Lloyd's, November 2010. (Lloyd's of London is the world's leading insurance market providing specialist insurance services to businesses in over 200 countries and territories.)

I think there is a legitimate concern about wireless connections, but the UK goverment should be more truthful and reveal that the source of this has nothing to do with global temperatures but everything to do with worsening Space Weather generating huge fluctuating geomagnetic environmental conditions.

UK Climate Resilient Infrastructure: billions needed to combat climate change effects on Wi-Fi signals
Watts Up With That, 9th May 2011

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Why some gorillas go unseen
Science News, May 2011
People who don't see unexpected happenings, such as a gorilla strolling by, while concentrating on a task often have difficulty with what amounts to mental multitasking, says a team led by psychology graduate student Janelle Seegmiller of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Individuals who do poorly on a test requiring them to perform two mental operations at once are especially prone to an experimental effect dubbed "the invisible gorilla," Seegmiller and her colleagues report in the May Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.

Comment: Quite frankly, this analogy of Missing the gorilla (see the original April 2011 scientific press release listed below) is very apt way to describe the issue of Space Weather that has been creeping up on the world for over 20 years. For the last one hundred years, any invention that could effect who controls the world has been suppressed. Now Space Weather has arrived and guess what? It's not possible to kill the inventor of Space Weather or buy the patent so that its not available to the world. So, amongst the myriad of effects we cannot even assume that our current national power grids will continue to operate (see Best of the Blog Space Weather News & Reports archives) or even that geomagnetic conditions will be good enough to allow us to continue pumping oil and allow the distribution via pipelines, due to massive geomagnetic storms making compasses unreliable and extreme Space Weather causing excessive corrosion. Even worse, the more esoteric sources in the metaphysical community have been whispering for over 70 years that electricity might disappear and be replaced by something different. That's fairly serious and quite frankly, since humans do not have access to the control panels on this planet, at a time of evolutionary change, who can argue that universal consciousness will continue to provide the same deck of cards.... The Gorilla has arrived and has already been breathing fire just like the epic Godzilla, but who exactly is paying attention to what this means for our world? The way I see things, we need to develop more risk management and not wait for the disaster associated with crisis management....

• Missing the gorilla
  Why we don't see what's right in front of our eyes
  Eureka Alert, 17th April 2011
  SALT LAKE CITY, April 18, 2011 – University of Utah psychologists have learned why many people experience "inattention blindness" – the phenomenon that leaves drivers on cell phones prone to traffic accidents and makes a gorilla invisible to viewers of a famous video. The answer: People who fail to see something right in front of them while they are focusing on something else have lower "working memory capacity" – a measure of "attentional control," or the ability to focus attention when and where needed, and on more than one thing at a time.
  

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Ready.gov – Space Weather
Ready.gov, April 2012
The term "space weather" refers to the variable conditions on the sun and in space that can influence the performance of technology we use on Earth. Extreme space weather could potentially cause damage to critical infrastructure – especially the electric grid – highlighting the importance of being prepared.

In order to protect people and systems that might be at risk from space weather effects, we need to understand the causes of space weather.

The sun is the main source of space weather. Sudden bursts of plasma and magnetic field structures from the sun's atmosphere called coronal mass ejections (CME) together with sudden bursts of radiation, or solar flares, all cause space weather effects here on Earth.

Space weather can produce electromagnetic fields that induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines, and even causing wide-spread blackouts. Severe space weather also produces solar energetic particles, which can damage satellites used for commercial communications, global positioning, intelligence gathering, and weather forecasting.

Comment: This is affectively a Ready.gov advice sheet on Space Weather.. For the naysayers, solar storms are nothing new, but it is the fact that the transmitting properties of space have changed and therefore if we get huge solar coronal mass ejections coming our way, then they will have a bigger impact. This is combined with the issues that Earth's magnetosphere (magnetic shielding) is less affective. Earth's magnetic shield has "cracks" in it as well as sometimes there are massive breaches where the magnetic field affectively disappears on the daylight side. What this means is the planet can be "zapped" by large large flows of charged particles from the Sun (BIG electrical shocks) and if this is too severe there is a danger of national power grids being knocked out. Of course on a personal level, every single brain on the planet is also getting some big shocks too as the big and small shocks are detected by human brains that are wired into the environmental Schumann Resonances - but there are other environmental signals that humans can pick up that are not so beneficial. I wrote about this in my book Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spirtual Evolution and nothing has changed in my analysis. Now, we only have more revelations from the space agencies about geomagnetic conditions getting worse and worse. The planet is now regularly ringing like a bell with spacequakes.

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New Tools to Tackle a Solar Data Storm
Science Daily, 26th April 2011
So great is the wealth of data about the Sun now being sent back by space missions such as SOHO, STEREO and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) that scientists back on Earth can struggle to keep pace.

To combat this data overload, scientists from the Visual Computer Centre at Bradford University are developing advanced imaging tools to help scientists visualise what's happening at the Sun, make sense of the data and predict the extreme solar activities that could affect our life here on Earth.

Comment: The last time there was a major confession (see Best of the Blog The Sun, American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2010 Fall Meeting - Press Conference summary in the archives) solar scientists stated that space weather forecasting was still in it's infancy, so we can be fortunate that the sun has been relatively well behaved in recent years. However, about two weeks ago, the NICT/ACE satellite data revealed there had been a density spike where incoming energy had gone off the charts (this is measured in space a million miles from us but this is what is predicted to hit Earth's magnetosphere, our magnetic shielding). This event could not be traced to solar activity, so we must presume this was another thunderbolt from the cosmos.... In summary, please don't get too comfortable with the idea that scientists have got this all under control...

RADIATION OVER-EXPOSURE TO PASSENGERS AND CREW

The principal space weather hazard to humans is exposure to cosmic radiation while flying, which is caused primarily by GCRs. The dose rate at an altitude of 39,000 ft (12 km) in mid-temperate latitudes is typically up to about 6 microSieverts (microSv) per hour, but near the equator only about 3 microSv/hr. Typically, a London to Los Angeles flight in a commercial aircraft accumulates ~65 microSv (6 microSv/hr); however, the solar cycle can give plus or minus 20% variations in dose from solar minimum to maximum.

However, of concern are those SEPs [Solar Energetic Particles] that increase the dose at aircraft altitudes. Using data collected onboard aircraft and then modelled to large SEP storms (ie, 23 February 1956, 29 September 1989) it is estimated that the additional radiation dose received at 40,000ft (12km) on a subsonic transatlantic flight would have been approximately 10 mSv and 2 mSv respectively.

Under present ICRP guidelines, the recommended dose limit for the general public is 1mSv, and for aircrew in the EU a maximum working level of 6 mSv has been adopted by the airlines.

UK Government Space Weather Memorandum: Scientific advice and evidence in emergencies , SolarMetrics Limited (SAGE 18), 13 September 2010
Submission is for the Science and Technology Committee inquiry, examining the UK Government's use of scientific advice and evidence in emergency situations.

So if we get an intense proton storm (1956) someone in a plane at 40,000ft (12km) could get 10 times the recommended annual radiation dose and if we get a decent size normal geomagnetic storm (1989) someone in a plane at 40,000ft (12km) could get twice the annual dose... In the 2003 'Halloween' solar storms, things were so bad that they made planes divert to below 25,000ft (7.5km) but in the research that I have found, there was no references to estimates for how much radiation people were likely to have received. I suppose I should go looking for the info...

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Spotlight on Electric Infrastructure Security Summit in Washington DC
Live Wire, 21st April 2011
Today's LiveWire Spotlight is on the eighteen-nation Electric Infrastructure Security (EIS) Summit conference held in early April. Representatives from the U.S. Congress, DoD/DHS/FERC leadership, and their global counterparts met in Washington DC to discuss severe electromagnetic threats to national electric grids, water supply, sewage, and communication systems.

The ouput of the EIS Summit is an International Infrastructure Security Roadmap which establishes concrete milestones to encourage progress. The development team will be updating the roadmap and assessing next steps.

Comment: I am pleased to see there are a few folk who understand the dire situation that our world faces in the event of a massive geomagnetic storm or solar EMP, but instead of wringing their hands or acting like ostriches, they are getting on and trying to make a difference. Personally, I don't think one hundred million plus people with no electricity (just in the United States alone) is a joke and we now know there are 442 nuclear power plants worldwide that could go critical and meltdown without a proper power supply too. Don't worry about the paywall for this article, here are some documents that can be downloaded from the Electric Infrastructure Security Summit website.

• Impact of Severe Solar Flares, Nuclear EMP and Intentional EMI on Electric Grids (Part 1) .pdf
  
  
• Options for Protection: Protecting National Electric Grids and Critical Infrastructures .pdf
  
  
• 
  
  
  Protecting our Critical Infrastructures: EISS Summit UK Parliament, London September 20, 2010 .pdf
  
  
• Impact on Aviation: Severe Space Weather and EMP: EISS Summit UK Parliament, London September 20, 2010 .pdf
  

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The 102nd Kelvin Lecture 2011 - Space Weather: Nature's Electromagnetic Hazard by Professor Mike Hapgood
IET.TV, 9th March 2011
I have just finished listening to this major lecture on space weather and everytime Professor Mike Hapgood, mentioned a serious space weather related incident, it was glossed over. For example, he mentioned cosmic rays knocking out the Qantas flight electronics, but he only mentioned "a few people were hurt".... well I think grown-ups need to be told the truth and not treated like little children, but it might explain why people don't understand the seriousness of what is going on!

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How Satnav reliant Britain could be paralysed in an instant by cyber terrorists solar activity
The Daily Mail, 8th March 2011
Britain is so dependent on the GPS navigation system that cyber terrorists could cripple banks, send ships floundering on to rocks and bring death to the roads at the click of a mouse, engineers warn.

Satellite navigation technology is now embedded in almost every aspect of our lives – from ambulances and air traffic control, to banking and the transport of food.

But the system, which relies on a network of satellites broadcasting radio signals to Earth, is worryingly vulnerable to man-made jammers, space weather and technical glitches.

Comment: The powers that be want people to worry about terrorists when really we are now at the mercy of the environment and as humans, we have a choice of whether we want to cooperate with universal forces or not. My opinion is that we don't stand a chance trying to fight such overwhelming force. Again, the 2012ers waiting for the knock out blow on the 21st December 2012 must have realised by now that they have not quite understood the messages that we are in transition into a new era. The Hindu expectation of, 'The Age of Energy' is succint and apt and it has now truly arrived.

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Experts: Move to protect nuke plants from solar flare damage
Scripps News, 4th March 2011 --flashback--
WASHINGTON - It has happened before and it will happen again: an Earth-bound electromagnetic pulse from the sun that disrupts the power grid by burning out high-voltage transformers.

It happened in March 1989 at the Hydro-Quebec system in Canada, tripping transmission lines, burning out a high-voltage transformer in New Jersey and causing the failure of 12 others within months, all blamed on the solar blast. It happened again in October 2003 over South Africa, frying 15 high-voltage transformers. [...]

Thomas Popik, an economic researcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology mechanical engineering graduate and a former Air Force expert on unattended power sources at radar sites, and his New Hampshire-based Foundation for Resilient Societies, think they have a solution to one sobering consequence of a grid failure.

They filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this month addressing a dire concern: If the spent fuel rod pools at the country's 104 nuclear power plants lose their connection to the power grid, they believe current regulations aren't sufficient to guarantee those pools won't boil over, exposing the hot, zirconium-clad rods and sparking fires that would release deadly radiation.

Their solution is a relatively inexpensive, $152,800-per-plant arrangement to keep the coolant pools operating unattended in the wake of such an event. The foundation's members are not anti-nuclear, he insists, and their evidence comes from existing government studies, not advocacy groups.

"The amount of attention we're gotten so far is moderate and the reason is that, considering what would happen if the electric grid were to come down is an emotionally upsetting topic," he said. "In this kind of event -- if large transformers were to become damaged -- the major cities would become uninhabitable and the United States would not be able to support its current population," he said. "

The NRC is taking his petition seriously and will consider the possibility of new regulations after an extensive review of the petition, said spokesman Scott Burnell.

But he added: "Today there are requirements in place for both emergency power sources and spent fuel pool operations that the NRC feels are appropriate for assuring the public's health and safety going forward."

Nuclear power plants are not themselves self-powered and require a tie-in to the electric power grid to operate. They are also required to have back-up alternatives, such as diesel generators, and the ability to operate their safety systems off the grid for at least 30 days.

"The agency is well aware of a lot of scenarios that can cause what we call a loss of offsite power -- in other words, the grid goes down and you don't have any more electricity coming into the plant," Burnell said. "Even if you lose power at the plant, you still have an extended period of time before you even get to the point that you're losing enough water from the pool to be concerned."

Popik's petition says that extended period is not long enough. Replacing the 350 high-voltage transformers that could fail and bring down the grid east of the Mississippi and in the Pacific Northwest, as envisioned by a recent report by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, could take two years. He proposes regulations requiring back-up safety procedures so that spent fuel pools could operate unattended until grid power is restored.

Comment: It does seem that more folks are waking up to the reality of what will happen if we have a huge geomagnetic storm caused by a once in a hundred year coronal mass ejection from the sun. Solar scientists are comparing the current strange solar cycle to other solar cycles in the past that have generated historic geomagnetic storms and many people are starting to think there is a strong possibility of a quiet overall sun still generating a huge outburst. It's a surprise to read here that the US does not even manufacture it's own transformers, so we read:

"Right now, the kind of high-voltage transformers that might fail with a solar pulse aren't manufactured in the U.S. That will change in April 2013 when a Mitsubishi Electric plant begins operations in Memphis. Its general manager, Kenneth Badaracco, said the plant will turn out "something less than 100" transformers a year costing between $3 million and $5 million each.

With Earth's weaking magnetic field, strange solar behaviour and general Space Weather, we are going to need electrical engineers breathing down more necks of decision makers to get some common sense decisions made.

Comment: 11th March 2011 20:33 UT Well, we know the Japanese are having problems with some of their nuclear reactors because the Earthquake struck and knocked out the electricity supply and some of the backup systems failed to kick in. (How long will those generators last is another issue too.) Now we hear that they have decided to let out some of the radioactive vapours to force cooling, I guess that means a controlled radioactive leak. It seems that on some assessment, we have engineers in the US concerned that in an emergency, some backup systems are not good enough, but maybe, this should be a worldwide concern? Well, imagine this happening on a large scale due to a knock out blow from deep space. At the moment, only a few understand what awaits our world, but we could be more prepared.

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NASA Launches Antarctic Balloons to Study Radiation
Daily Galaxy, 24th February 2011
A research balloon launched in December of 2010 from McMurdo Station in Antarctica (below), as a test run ay 112,000 feet for launches in 2013 and 2014 of 20 such balloons to float in the circular wind patterns above the South Pole. Each balloon will help track electrons from space that are an integral part of the turbulent magnetic space weather system that extends from the sun to Earth.

NASA's Radiation Belt Space Probes (RBSP) mission includes two spacecraft due to launch in 2012 to study a mysterious part of Earth's magnetic environs called the Van Allen radiation belts. The radiation belts are made up of two regions, each one a gigantic donut of protons and electrons that surrounds Earth.

"We're both looking at the loss of particles from the radiation belts," says Robyn Millan, a professor at Dartmouth College, is the principal investigator for a project called BARREL, or Balloon Array for RBSP Relativistic Electron Losses. [...] This rain of electrons within the radiation belts can damage sensitive electronics on spacecraft like those used for global positioning systems and communications, and can injure humans in space. Experiments like BARREL and RBSP help us understand the processes and mitigate those risks.

"One of RBSP's main challenges will be to differentiate between the hordes of theories that try to explain why the belts wax and wane over time," says David Sibeck, the project scientist for RBSP at Goddard Space Flight Center. "The RBSP spacecraft will be equipped to distinguish between different options, but Millan's balloons have an advantage in one specific area: they can measure particles that break out of the belts and make it all the way to Earth's atmosphere."

Comment: I really don't know why they continue to perpetuate the myth of only two radiation belts there are at at least three, the latest is confirmed as being made up from trapped anomalous cosmic rays (ACRs), see brief details here.... the latest one is another Space Weather surprise that they have been quietly trying to get rid of for some time... Anyway, this "rain" of electrons, is the very same phenomena explained by the European Space Agency as the 'Killer Electrons' coming into our atmosphere. See below:

• High-speed beams of charged particles accelerate towards Earth
  ESA News, 6 December 2007
  "ESA's Cluster constellation has found that multiple, high-speed beams of electrically charged particles, or ions, are formed on the night-side of near-Earth space and get accelerated towards Earth. These observations are key to understanding how solar material manages to reach the Earth's night-side, to forecast the behaviour of the magnetic environment around our planet, and in turn, to better protect ground and space-based technologies. Different theories were proposed in the 80's and 90's to explain the presence of these ion beams."
  
  
• Shocking recipe for making killer electrons
  European Space Agency News, 11th March 2010
  "Killer electrons are highly energetic particles trapped in Earth's outer radiation belt, which extends from 12 000 km to 64 000 km above the planet's surface. During solar storms their number grows at least ten times and they can be dislodged, posing a threat to satellites. As the name suggests, killer electrons are energetic enough to penetrate satellite shielding and cause microscopic lightning strikes. If these electrical discharges take place in vital components, the satellite can be damaged or even rendered inoperable. [...] Thanks to this analysis of Cluster data, if the killer electrons happen to be ejected towards Earth, we now know that they can strike the atmosphere within just 15 minutes."
  
  
• Science highlight - Rise of the Killer Electrons
  ESA News, 16th July 2010
  "Two belts of trapped high-energy particles, held in place by Earth's magnetic field, surround Earth: the Van Allen radiation belts. Killer electrons in the outermost belt move close to the speed of light and carry a lot of energy. These can penetrate satellite shielding and cause microscopic lightning strikes that damage and sometimes destroy vital components. [...] Intense solar activity can disrupt the Van Allen belts, and Cluster made another vital discovery when it was on hand to observe directly the effects of a particularly strong solar shock wave hitting the magnetosphere in 2004. It saw the creation of killer electrons through what turns out to be a two-step process. The electrons are initially accelerated by the shock wave compressing Earth's magnetic field. Then Earth's magnetic lines wobble, creating something like a very large-scale, low frequency laser, which accelerates the electrons even more, up to ‘killer' energies. And Cluster showed that this transition, from normal to killer intensities, can happen in just 15 minutes."
  
  
• Lancaster involved in £400,000 project to understand "killer electrons"
  Lancaster University News, January 2011
  "Scientists aim to find out more about so-called "killer electrons" in the Van Allen radiation belt around Earth, which can damage orbiting satellites and spacecraft. The Van Allen radiation belt periodically discharges energetic particles such as electrons and ions into the high atmosphere above Earth, especially at the polar regions. This can change the chemistry of the atmosphere, with possible implications for climate change. "
  The talk of Killer electrons causing climate change is news to me...
  

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US and UK team up to meet threat of solar storms
Collaboration against threat of space weather could avert a $2 trillion disaster
The First Post, 22nd February 2011
The United States and British governments are finally moving to tackle the very real threat that a solar storm might knock out communications and electricity grids across the earth, causing trillions of dollars of economic damage.

Next month, the US and UK will issue a join statement on the threat from so-called space weather. The news comes after scientists from around the world gave their strongest warning yet of the dangers space weather poses during a symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Helena Lindberg of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency said at the weekend: "I'm not talking about days or weeks, but several months without electric power, blackouts, across large regions of Europe and the US."

"To my mind, there are few emergencies today that require such a close cooperation across the Atlantic as that of the geomagnetic storm."

Comment: The New Cosmic Age has arrived as predicted but few have been interested in this new reality and even fewer have been working on new solutions to help mankind through this transition. Whatever, our modern technological society is under threat and Space Weather is already forcing change, so society needs to understand that change is imperative, and innovation is the key to a brand new future for Earth.

UK scientist warns over solar storm danger
Herald Sun, 22nd February 2011
BRITAIN must improve emergency planning for a solar storm, or face space weather bringing the country to a standstill, the UK government's chief scientist has warned. An increased use of technology has left the UK vulnerable to space weather activity, said Professor John Beddington at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington DC today.

Electrical transformers, power cables and pipelines, as well as cell phones, GPS and other satellite technologies are all at risk in the event of a solar storm, which appears more likely as the sun prepares to enter a more active phase of its 11-year cycle in 2013. "I raised the issue with the Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat, arguing that it needs to be higher up the agenda," he told The Times.

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Space Weather In A Gadget-Driven World
spaceweather.com, 21st February 2011

SPACE WEATHER IN A GADGET-DRIVEN WORLD: Authorities in Washington DC caused a stir over the weekend when they announced at the annual AAAS meeting that high-tech modern society is increasingly vulnerable to solar storms.

"The last time we had a maximum in the solar cycle, the world was a very different place," noted NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco. "Cell phones are now ubiquitous [and we] rely on them for so many different things." Others noted a myriad of GPS-dependent technologies that could be brought down by a strong solar flare. This is old news to many readers of spaceweather.com. Nevertheless, the web is abuzz with reports from the meeting.

Comment: This is old news for people who regularly visit this blog too, but at least we are seeing more efforts to wake people up... Here is the short comment at the Financial Times.

Scientists warn of $2,000bn solar ‘Katrina' (Subscribers only)
FT.com, 20th February 2011
The sun is waking up from a long quiet spell. Last week it sent out the strongest flare for four years – and scientists are warning that earth should prepare for an intense electromagnetic storm that, in the worst case, could be a "global Katrina" costing the world economy $2,000bn. Senior officials responsible for policy on solar storms – also known as space weather – in the US, UK and Sweden urged more preparedness at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

Solar storms could create $2tn 'global Katrina', warns chief scientist
GPS systems and electricity networks are increasingly vulnerable to damage by turbulent solar weather, scientists say
The Guardian, 21st February 2011

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U.S. Must Take Space Storm Threat Seriously, Experts Warn
space.com, 19th February 2011
WASHINGTON – Space weather could pose serious problems here on Earth in the coming years, the chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Saturday (Feb. 19).

A severe solar storm has the potential to take down telecommunications and power grids, and the country needs to work on being better prepared, said NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Lubchenco is also the U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere.

"This is not a matter of if, it's simply a matter of when and how big," Lubchenco said of the potential for a dangerous solar flare. "We have every reason to expect we're going to be seeing more space weather in the coming years, and it behooves us to be smart and be prepared."

Comment: Yes, there are many who think that NASA et al. are being alarmist in order to get funding but most have no idea that our modern technological world is facing meltdown as Mother Earth continues to drop her shields (magnetic fields) and thus allow in vast amounts of cosmic radiation in the form of Space Weather. Folks, even the US military are talking about giving up their total reliance on GPS and the implications are such that you simply can't get a better sign that there is some serious turmoil in the heavens. Up until recently, the attitude was that we could fight change by understanding the science associated with space weather in order to mitigate the damage, but that strategy is clearly not working. On the whole, humans have not been awake enough to realise there was a need to re-organise our technology to cope. Now that the signs are that things are getting a lot more serious, it's time for more people to wake up to our new cosmic reality with the innovation required to benefit the whole of humanity.

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Catching Space Weather in the Act
Science Daily, 18th February 2011
Close to the globe, Earth's magnetic field wraps around the planet like a gigantic spherical web, curving in to touch Earth at the poles. But this isn't true as you get further from the planet. As you move to the high altitudes where satellites fly, nothing about that field is so simple. Instead, the large region enclosed by Earth's magnetic field, known as the magnetosphere, looks like a long, sideways jellyfish with its round bulb facing the sun and a long tail extending away from the sun.

In the center of that magnetic tail lies the plasma sheet. Here, strange things can happen. Magnetic field lines pull apart and come back together, creating explosions when they release energy. Disconnected bits of the tail called "plasmoids" get ejected into space at two million miles per hour. And legions of charged particles flow back toward Earth.

Comment: OK, the article describes the discovery of the IBEX spacecraft catching a chunk of the plasma sheet being bitten off and ejected down the magnetotail. Well, to be honest I have been more interested in chunks being taken out from the daylight side of the Earth's magnetosphere, which is Earth's primary shielding against space weather, see NICT magnetospheric simulation image 04/10/2010 04:54:49 UT. Yet, I suppose whereabouts this happens around Earth does not matter so much, as scientists struggle to understand the magnetic processes involved in Space Weather as attempts are made to understand the impact on our technological systems.

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Night-shining Clouds Burning Bright: Big Pic
Discovery News, 16th February 2011
The wispy, weaving trails of nigh-shining clouds – those high enough in the atmosphere that they can still reflect the sun's rays even after sunset – are shining brighter in recent decades. Usually a polar event, these clouds are also appearing closer to the equator – dumbfounding atmospheric scientists.

The clouds first caused a scene back in 1885, when both Thomas William Blackhouse and Robert Leslie independently identified the noctilucent (night-shining) clouds as a special atmospheric phenomenon. Appearing 50 miles above the ground in the mesosphere – the clouds are high enough for the sun's rays to illuminate them from beyond the visible horizon.

Where historically the glowing dusk vapors were only seen from the ground between 50 and 65 degrees latitude, giving them the name Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs), in the last 10 to 15 years ground observations have spotted the clouds from as far as 40 degrees latitude.

Atmosphere scientist Matthew DeLand, of Science Systems and Applications, Inc., and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, says that "seeing the clouds at lower latitudes leads to the question of whether the atmosphere is getting colder at those latitudes."

The noctilucent clouds start forming around minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit when water vapor condenses onto particles of cosmic dust floating in the upper atmosphere. Covered in ice crystals, the dust, remnants of burned up meteorites, catch the sun and glow bright again.

Comment: Maybe the atmosphere is not getting colder, but that the dust covered in extremely dry ice is just more highly charged, see previous comments related to this subject. Again, we have no explanation for why these clouds are appearing in mid latitudes. The video is interesting because the researcher interviewed mentioned "Global Change," which is a notably politically correct phrase to use.

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Flotilla of spacecraft planned to provide space weather forecasts
A swarm of spacecraft could be sent into orbit around the sun to provide an early warning system for the huge solar explosions that can interfere with electronic equipment on Earth and even influence our planet's weather.
The Telegraph, 12th February 2011
Space scientists from the UK are hoping to send up a flotilla of spacecraft to provide round-the-clock three dimensional images of the material thrown out by the sun towards the Earth. They are hoping to build on the success of a recent Nasa mission, called Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), which was launched to provide three dimensional images of coronal mass ejections from the sun.

These huge explosions throw millions of tonnes of superheated particles and radiation out into the solar system, which can disrupt radio communications, interfere with electrical equipment, cause power outages and knock out satellites. They are also thought to bring about changes in the Earth's upper atmosphere that can influence the weather.

UK scientists, who developed the cameras for the Nasa mission, are now in discussions with the European Space Agency, the UK Government and Nasa to develop a new system that will monitor these eruptions.

Comment: It seems the newly formed UK Space Agency are refusing to rely on NASA or the ESA for warnings of massive solar events.

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Electronic devices could cause plane crashes, experts warn
The increasing number of electronic devices brought onto planes by passengers could cause a plane crash, experts have warned.
The Telegraph, 19th January 2011
Despite announcements from cabin crew to turn off items such as mobile phones and lap tops many people ignore the request.

Many devices emit a signal, made up of electromagnetic waves, which could potentially interfere with the plane's own electronic system.

Bill Strauss, an engineer who has investigated the use of electronic items by passengers, described the situation as "worrisome".

He told the New York Times: "A plane is designed to the right specs, but nobody goes back and checks if it is still robust.

"Then there are the outliers – a cellphone that's been dropped and abused, or a battery that puts out more than it's supposed to, and avionics that are more susceptible to interference because gaskets have failed. And boom, that's where you get interference. It would be a perfect storm that would combine to create an aviation accident."

Comment: The link to the New York Times has a longer report about the same issue. So is the message being sent out that EMI is solely caused by passengers using gadgets and therefore cosmic rays and electron beams interfering with plane electronics can be ignored? Updated October 2012: UK engineers reveal the truth that neutrons in space are now a concern, see Engineers investigate effects of space weather on airliners.

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Public spot significant solar storm heading for Earth
UK Space Agency, 13th December 2010

"For the first time scientists have used data analysed by the public to make a real-time prediction of a solar storm that should hit Earth today (Monday 13 December), thanks to the Solar Stormwatch web project (link opens in a new window)."

Comment: 21.01.11 OK, I have been checking the UK Solar Stormwatch site that is promoting Citizen Science which is an incredibly old fashion label, but I am quite amazed that they are aiming to compete with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. Watch the SPOT tutorial where they explain in 3:58 what exactly they are asking UK citizens to help with. At the moment, it's very early days, but it's organised and the project has started.

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Report warns Obama about 'new' Dark Ages
'Airplanes would fall from sky, cars would stop, networks fail'
World Net Daily, 28th November 2010
Two national-security experts have issued a report through the Heritage Foundation that warns Obama administration officials to start working now to prevent – and mitigate the damage from – an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States because of the potential for "unimaginable devastation."

"Not even a global humanitarian effort would be enough to keep hundreds of millions of Americans from death by starvation, exposure, or lack of medicine. Nor would the catastrophe stop at U.S. borders. Most of Canada would be devastated, too, as its infrastructure is integrated with the U.S. power grid.

Comment: Despite the way that this article is written, which seems to play on American paranoia and the fact it assumes people only understand the world in terms of a threat and being attacked, the only EMP blast that could achieve a 'new' Dark Age is a serious blast of Space Weather. Therefore, the report admits that this would come from a massive Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) outburst from the Sun. Well, Lloyd's Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business report is less dramatic but still suggests that here is a serious threat, that we have to do something about to mitigate. So we read from Part 2: Impact On Business, Section B) Power:

Because globalisation means that businesses and societies are more and more interconnected, space weather damage in one sector could lead to cascade failures in other areas:

• Power - numerous systems are directly reliant on electricity, such as lighting, heating and cooking. Alternatives, such as gas, would also be affected as these require electricity to run and control their distribution systems.

• Fuel - pumping stations would shut down as these require electricity to pump the petrol up from the underground tanks. As well as affecting domestic car use, it would have a drastic effect on the delivery of food and other essential services across the country. The loss of electricity would also shut down bulk distribution of fuel pipelines, as these also require electric pumps.

• Food - electrical refrigeration is critical in ensuring product safety in food storage and distribution.

• Water - electricity is essential to the regular supply of clean water.

• Sanitation - many sewage systems require electricity to pump sewage away from businesses and residential homes. A loss of electricity would obviously lead to potential health problems as sewage and waste water built up.

• Communications - most forms of communication rely on power. Mobile phones would eventually need connecting to a charger and email communications could only be sent via a computerised device powered by electricity.

• Medical/health - many medicines need to be kept in refrigerated locations that require electricity. Although many hospitals have back-up generators, these would not last indefi nitely. Emergency response vehicles would be unable to reach destinations due to the lack of fuel and the lack of communication would make it impossible to contact anyone in the fi rst place.

• Finance - the financial sector would be unable to conduct electronic trades, having become heavily dependent on electronic IT hardware. The retail sector is also heavily dependent on electronic transactions with a customer's bank: with credit and debit cards providing direct transfer of money at point-of-sale (whether online or in a shop), and cash points providing electronic access to cash. These retail services would be likely to shut down53 during power failures, forcing customers to fall back on the use of cash or cheques. Many people have these in only limited supply, preferring to rely on modern electronic payment methods.54

• Transport - fuel based vehicles such as buses, cars and aeroplanes would soon be unable to operate after a sustained power failure. However, modern electronic trains would also grind to a halt, along with underground train networks, overground trams and even office elevators.

The longer the power supply is cut off, the more society will struggle to cope, with dense urban populations the worst hit. Sustained loss of power could mean that society reverts to 19th century practices. Severe space weather events that could cause such a major impact may be rare, but they are nonetheless a risk and cannot be completely discounted. The critical nature of the electricity infrastructure has led to the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act (GRID) in the US, which has now passed the House of Representatives and is awaiting discussion in the Senate. The Act requires any owner of the bulk power system in the US (the wholesale power network) to take measures to protect the systems against specifi ed vulnerabilities, including geomagnetic storms. It also requires owners or operators of large transformers to ensure they restore reliable operation in the event of a disabling or destroying event, such as a space weather event.55
Source: Space Weather, Its impact on Earth & Implications for business

Read the Lloyd's report, it is extremely up to date, easy to read and understand, it seems that strong efforts are now being made to make sure the World does fully understand what is at stake. More worry:

Solar flares could cause British black-outs, MPs are warned
Solar flares could cause power cuts affecting Britain's electricity grid and communication networks, MPs were warned yesterday.
The Telegraph, 2nd December 2010
"Security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said there "must be some risk" to the electricity network when the sun's activity peaks around 2013 as part of an 11-year cycle. The threat of disruption grows during each cycle due to our increasing reliance on electricity. The National Grid is already undertaking a study - due for publication in the spring - to determine the vulnerability of the network, she told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee."

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NASA's Solar Shield to Protect Power Grids From Sun Storms
space.com, 8th November 2010
NASA has devised a new tool in the battle against massive eruptions from the sun: an early warning system to protect electrical grids on Earth from extremely powerful solar storms.

The new project, called Solar Shield, is designed to predict the severity of powerful sun storms at specific locations on Earth to help power companies plan responses and limit the potential damage to their equipment.

"It amounts to knowing 'something is coming and it may be big,'" said project leader Antti Pulkkinen, a research associate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told SPACE.com. But Solar Shield should provide "much more specificity."

Comment: This is still experimental but you can see it's not exactly foolproof as it relies on the ACE satellite located at at Lagrange point 1 (L1), a million miles from Earth, to be functional enough to monitor the interplanetary magnetic field and plasma flows. Hence, Solar Shield relies on data being available and not lost due to the fast moving radiation storms that arrive, very quickly after the initial flash of a solar flare that are often associated and precede a coronal mass ejection.

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The International Space Weather Initiative
NASA Science News, 8th November 2010

Nov. 8, 2010: Prompted by a recent increase in solar activity, more than a hundred researchers and government officials are converging on Helwan, Egypt, to discuss a matter of global importance: storms from the sun. The "First Workshop of the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI)" meets Nov. 6th through 10th and is convened by the United Nations, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

"Strong solar storms can knock out power, disable satellites, and scramble GPS," says meeting organizer and ISWI executive director Joe Davila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "This meeting will help us prepare for the next big event." [...]

Although space weather is usually associated with Earth's polar regions--think, "Northern Lights"--the equator can be just as interesting. For example, there is a phenomenon in Earth's upper atmosphere called the "equatorial anomaly." It is, essentially, a fountain of ionization that circles the globe once a day, always keeping its spout toward the sun. During solar storms, the equatorial anomaly can intensify and shape-shift, bending GPS signals in unexpected ways and making normal radio communications impossible.

"International cooperation is essential for keeping track of the equatorial anomaly," he adds. "No single country can do it alone."

Comment: The usual name for the equatorial anomaly is the Equatorial Electrojet EEJ and I identified it in my book as the predicted Mayan Serpent Rope. My reasoning was that Mayan Elders were also insisting there was now a greater need for balance and I explained the science of how humans were being directly affected by the EEJ in my book. Well, NASA (who appear to have been the main driving force in recent years), are struggling with how to mitigate the effects of the new Space Weather conditions on this planet. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Earth's citizens do not realise that major evolutionary change is underway. The Mayan Elders warned us about the arrival of the aether, but it seems this was overlooked by 2012ers, despite the fact that Space Weather has been getting more intense for about 20 years and the implications for modern technological societies is serious.

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Airline frequent fliers 'radiation poisoning risks' from space 'solar flare' storm activity
The Telegraph, 5th November 2010
Airline frequent fliers are at greater risk of developing long term radiation poisoning from "solar space storms" or flare activity from the Sun, a new study warns.

Researchers found passengers faced the "hazard" of space radiation, which created unhealthy levels of exposure while flying at "typical cruise altitudes" of 40,000 feet. Experts warned passengers could be subjected to increasing risk to cancer due to such radiation levels. [...]

Scientists found aircrew were "the major occupation group" most exposed to the Sun's radiation with passengers also at risk from the phenomenon. Because the sun's radiation levels had been reasonably low for the past century, its strengthening power in the coming few years would create new health problems.

"Space radiation is a hazard not only to the operation of modern aircraft but also to the health of aircrew and passengers," said the study, titled Space weather and its impact on Earth – implications for business.

"Radiation from space can reach the Earth's atmosphere and create extra radiation exposure for people travelling on aircraft at typical cruise altitudes (40,000 feet).

Comment: This is interesting, the general public are being warned! Now, it seems that the jetsetters are going to have to rethink about how badly they need to travel because of the increase risks to their health. Some might even seriously start thinking about their own personal plasma shield!

• 
  
  
  RADIATION OVER-EXPOSURE TO PASSENGERS AND CREW Information!
  
  The principal space weather hazard to humans is exposure to cosmic radiation while flying, which is caused primarily by GCRs. The dose rate at an altitude of 39,000 ft (12 km) in mid-temperate latitudes is typically up to about 6 microSieverts (microSv) per hour, but near the equator only about 3 microSv/hr. Typically, a London to Los Angeles flight in a commercial aircraft accumulates ~65 microSv (6 microSv/hr); however, the solar cycle can give plus or minus 20% variations in dose from solar minimum to maximum.
  
  However, of concern are those SEPs [Solar Energetic Particles] that increase the dose at aircraft altitudes. Using data collected onboard aircraft and then modelled to large SEP storms (ie, 23 February 1956, 29 September 1989) it is estimated that the additional radiation dose received at 40,000ft (12km) on a subsonic transatlantic flight would have been approximately 10 mSv and 2 mSv respectively.
  
  Under present ICRP guidelines, the recommended dose limit for the general public is 1mSv, and for aircrew in the EU a maximum working level of 6 mSv has been adopted by the airlines.
  
  UK Government Space Weather Memorandum: Scientific advice and evidence in emergencies , SolarMetrics Limited (SAGE 18), 13 September 2010
  Submission is for the Science and Technology Committee inquiry, examining the UK Government's use of scientific advice and evidence in emergency situations. This information does not take into account increasing levels of space weather or the impact of Fukushima.
  

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Solar Shield--Protecting the North American Power Grid
NASA Science News, 26th October 2010
Every hundred years or so, a solar storm comes along so potent it fills the skies of Earth with blood-red auroras, makes compass needles point in the wrong direction, and sends electric currents coursing through the planet's topsoil. The most famous such storm, the Carrington Event of 1859, actually shocked telegraph operators and set some of their offices on fire. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences warns that if such a storm occurred today, we could experience widespread power blackouts with permanent damage to many key transformers. [...]

The innovation of Solar Shield is its ability to deliver transformer-level predictions. Pulkkinen explains how it works:

"Solar Shield springs into action when we see a coronal mass ejection (CME) billowing away from the sun. Images from SOHO and NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft show us the cloud from as many as three points of view, allowing us to make a 3D model of the CME, and predict when it will arrive."

While the CME is crossing the sun-Earth divide, a trip that typically takes 24 to 48 hours, the Solar Shield team prepares to calculate ground currents. "We work at Goddard's Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC)," says Pulkkinen. The CCMC is a place where leading researchers from around the world have gathered their best physics-based computer programs for modeling space weather events. The crucial moment comes about 30 minutes before impact when the cloud sweeps past ACE, a spacecraft stationed 1.5 million km upstream from Earth. Sensors onboard ACE make in situ measurements of the CME's speed, density, and magnetic field. These data are transmitted to Earth and the waiting Solar Shield team.

"We quickly feed the data into CCMC computers," says Pulkkinen. "Our models predict fields and currents in Earth's upper atmosphere and propagate these currents down to the ground." With less than 30 minutes to go, Solar Shield can issue an alert to utilities with detailed information about GICs.

Pulkkinen stresses that Solar Shield is experimental and has never been field-tested during a severe geomagnetic storm. A small number of utility companies have installed current monitors at key locations in the power grid to help the team check their predictions. So far, though, the sun has been mostly quiet with only a few relatively mild storms during the past year. The team needs more data.

Comment: While I appreciate NASA telling the world just how vulnerable we are, it is amazing to guage the response of people who think that NASA are just trying to frighten people. The conclusion that I have come to is that most people simply cannot comprehend the consequences for technological societies heavily reliant on the current electricity supply that can disapear within 90 seconds of a major geomagnetic storm. This is what happened in Quebec, Canada when we had a major geomagnetic storm in March, 1989 and 6 million people were left without electricity for 9 hours during a cold winter night. If we have a superstorm Carrington Event, electricity will literally flow through the air and ground, so with the current technology in place, transformers will be destoyed and world's national power grid will be destroyed with no chance of a quick recovery because we could not build transformers fast enough to rebuild the grid. It still seems that people who are trying to warn are having a hard time dealing with people who cannot comprehend Earth being flash-fried by the Sun or even a major event caused by radiation from deep space. As I mentioned recently, there are some ideas about 'surge suppressors', devices to protect the United States national power grid, because the US military now consider this a national security matter, but elsewhere, there seems to be a heavy reliance on Space Weather forecasting. See:

• Major News: The Ultimate Surge Protection Has Been Approved!
  Huffington Post, 15th July 2010
  

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Incoming Cosmic Rays Hit Record High
Wired News, 19th October 2010
The Earth was pummeled with record-setting levels of cosmic rays in 2009. Measurements from NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) and other spacecraft found that more high-energy particles from galactic space penetrated the inner solar system in the last few years than at any other time since the beginning of the space age.

The spike is almost certainly due to several weird aspects of the most recent solar minimum, and could be the start of a new normal for cosmic ray levels.

"It's sort of like everything's working in the same direction right now, to allow cosmic rays greater access to the inner solar system," said space scientist Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. Mewaldt and colleagues published their findings Oct. 7 in Astrophysical Journal Letters. [...]

The most recent solar minimum started in 2006 and was expected to end in 2008, but the sun stayed quiet through 2010. Using data from the ACE spacecraft, which has been in orbit around the sun since 1997, and historical data from a series of short-lived spacecraft going back to 1965, Mewaldt and colleagues showed that the cosmic ray levels in 2009 were 20 to 26 percent greater than at any previous solar minimum.

Comment: I believe that this is announcing a formal paper, but the news has been out for some time, see NASA News, 28th September 2009, Cosmic Rays Hit Space Age High!. The other thing to note is that we have a NEW 2009 high at 20 to 26 percent greater than at any previous solar minimum. The previous graph depicted the new high as 19.4% +/- 1.4%.

Now, this astrophysicist has explained in plain English what metaphysical sources have been predicting for YEARS! My only other comment is that a decent plasma shield is required in a high energy plasma environment and the only option for humans is to strengthen our personal energy fields and that is achieved through the process of spiritual development.

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Air Force rebuts gov't auditor concerns about GPS
PhysOrg.com, 24th September 2010
A government report raising questions about the future reliability of the Global Positioning System satellite network is "overly pessimistic," Air Force commanders said Friday.

A report from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the latest GPS satellite was launched almost 3 1/2 years behind schedule, and further delays could leave the system with fewer than the 24 orbiting satellites it needs as older models wear out and quit working. Col. David Buckman of the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., said the report's facts were correct, but "we think it draws overly pessimistic conclusions based on those facts."

Buckman said satellites currently in the design or construction phase are on schedule and the Air Force has 31 healthy, operational satellites in orbit. Even if the count did drop below 24 - which Buckman said was unlikely - most users, including some military applications, wouldn't be affected, he said.

GPS has become nearly indispensable, with untold numbers of receivers in everything from cars and cell phones to military weapons. The receivers can determine their position, their path and the time of day using signals from the satellites, which are launched and operated by the Air Force.

Col. Bernard Gruber, commander of the GPS Wing at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., estimated that there are 750 million GPS users worldwide. A May 2009 GAO report cast doubt on whether the Air Force could acquire new satellites in time to prevent an interruption in service as older satellites die.

A follow-up report released Sept. 15 credited the Air Force with making improvements but warned that a delay in launching one of the next-generation satellites could still drop the number of operational orbiting satellites to less than 24.

Comment: I did not see the original reponse by the United States Air Force to government auditors that they would be able to maintain GPS at the current level, even though they did admit a problem. So we read:

"No, GPS will not go down," Buckman said in a Twitter message. "GPS isn't falling out of the sky."

Buckman did echo the GAO's concerns of a "potential risk associated with a degradation in GPS performance" but said "we have plans to mitigate risk and prevent a gap in coverage."
GPS satellites not 'falling out of the sky': Air Force
PhysOrg.com, 21st May 2009

Please do not be fooled, the whole point of GPS is it is supposed to be accurate, any serious degradation would render it useless. Update October 2012: We now know why the US Military have had grave concerns about the use of GPS as scientists tell us that the accuracy is now seriously degraded, see Arctic probe into solar storm sat-nav disruption.

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Solar flares could paralyse Britain's power and communications, Liam Fox says
The Telegraph, 17th September 2010
Britain's electrical system, financial networks and transport infrastructure could all be paralysed by a solar flare or a nuclear attack, Liam Fox will warn next week.

The Defence Secretary will next week attend a summit of scientists and security advisers who believe the infrastructure that underpins modern life in Western economies is potentially vulnerable to electromagnetic disruption. Such disruptions, which can shut down electrical equipment and cripple orbiting satellites, can be triggered by man-made nuclear blasts or natural events on the surface of the sun.

Dr Fox will tell the conference he believes there is a growing threat, and he wants to address the "vulnerabilities" in Britain's high-tech infrastructure.

"As the nature of our technology becomes more complex, so the threat becomes more widespread," he will say.

"While we all benefit from the products of scientific advances so we also create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by our enemies. However advanced we become the chain of our security is only as strong as its weakest link."

Comment: Hmmm.... Well, on this blog, this warning is old news. I realise that those now warning about Space Weather are considered to be alarmist, but quite frankly, the intensity of Space Weather has been accelerating for over twenty years and TPTB are desperately trying to fight the cosmic elements by predicting the behaviour of the Sun. The problem with this approach is that Earth is now being blasted from deep space and there is no way to predict the arrival of these cosmic 'stingers' in the form of Magnetar blasts. These warnings really mean that TPTB have created a situation of forcing people into only being able to use the current energy supply and now cosmic conditions are changing and geomagnetic conditions on Earth are drastically changing to the extent that our current modus operandi is under threat. In short, the gamble has failed and unless there is a radical shift in energy policy, then our technological world is in trouble and our power supply infrastructure could crumble. This is not alarmism, it's reality. For more information visit the Joyfire Tour, here is the link to Extreme Space Weather

Update
It seems that things have moved on with the 'threat' to national grid transformers, as a little thought can go a long way. Here is an excerpt from a recent article with a posssible new solution.

Infrastructure could be protected by 'huge surge protectors'

However, Schnurr also said that protecting infrastructure both on the ground and in space is a matter of politics and money.

"We do need to get it together for the governments involved to start protecting the electric grids," he said. "But it turns out there are fairly simple measures which are well understood now which can be taken. There are the equivalents of huge surge protectors which need to be put on these different transformers."

This "equivalent" is known as a residual current device, or RCD, which is used for domestic wiring systems. These are trip switches installed on electricity transmission lines that break the connection when there's a sudden voltage increase.

There would be a temporary disruption in power, but the transformers themselves would be protected. RCDs, Schnurr explained, are roughly analogous to surge protectors used in ordinary homes to protect electronic devices from overloading.

He also said that the cost of installing such preventive measures is relatively inexpensive to governments – in the United Kingdom, it would cost a few hundred million dollars.

Source: Scientists warn of possible peril from 2013 solar flare activity ,
Deutsche-Welle, 24th September 2010

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Navigation satellites contend with stormy Sun
ESA News, 31st August 2010
Just as we grow used to satellite navigation in everyday life, media reports argue that a coming surge in solar activity could render satnav devices useless, perhaps even frying satellites themselves. Is it true? No. [...]

The Sun has various potential impacts that satnav system designers must take account of. The first can indeed affect satellites themselves: electromagnetic radiation and charged particles from solar flares can disrupt satellite electronics, induce potentially harmful electrostatic charging and damage onboard materials.

All satellites run these risks but for satellite navigation constellations, the danger is severe. Placed at relatively high altitudes – 22 000 km in the case of Europe's Galileo – they pass through belts of charged particles funnelled by Earth's magnetic field.

Galileo satellite: The satellites are built with radiation-hardened components and shielding, and boast redundancy in key subsystems. Error detection and correction routines guard against charged particles randomly ‘flipping' bits of computer memory.

Comment: Here, the ESA are boasting that their new GPS system can cope with the worst Space Weather, so we will have to see...

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Michio Kaku on Fox Business: Massive solar flare in the years 2012/2013 could throw us back 100 years
YouTube, 19th August 2010
"Physics of the Impossible" author Michio Kaku on the consequences of a massive solar storm to our global infrastructure and economy."

Comment: Yes, Kaku makes a few mistakes but at least he is on mainstream TV warning. I know there are a lot of people saying this is 2012 hype, but unfortunately, the vast majority of 2012 pundits have completely missed the REAL MAYAN MESSAGE i.e 21st December 2012 is the official birthday of a NEW AGE dominated by space and the ether (modern spelling aether). As NASA have declared, Space Weather has arrived and the strange behaviour of the Sun cannot be ignored because the risks are too great. Meanwhile, we are losing our solar system and planetary shielding, so this is not about a 1 day Y2K scare, it's about our modern technological society being able to cope in a completely different near space environment. For once, NASA and the space agencies have no choice but to explain the seriousness of the situation, but due to the climate of lies, excuse the pun, many think they are just being scared for the sake of it. In reality, people should realise that they have to wake up and FORCE change so that our societies can survive. This is exactly what has happened with the efforts of John Kappenman, a lowly electrical engineer who took it upon himself to warn that the US power grid was vulnerable and lobbied hard so that even the US military took notice so this has become a national security issue. Personally, I am full of admiration for his interest in the welfare of his fellow man. If the initiative fails due to the lack of foresight in spending peanuts (100 million dollars, a few US bankers' bonuses in a good year), to try and stop the grid failing in an emergency, it could be BANG and our societies could revert back 100 years plus (Stone Age for some), without the necessary skills of ordinary people knowing how to grow food. Please note: the really poor in poor countries won't know any different and will just cope as usual, but it would be some serious levelling of the playing field .

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Why have the Northern Lights moved south?
BBC News, 5th August 2010
The Northern lights, it seems, have moved further south and have been visible from countries including Germany and Denmark. So what exactly is causing this spectacle? And how long will it last?

Comment: Well, someone is asking a very pertinent question! The same question could be asked about why noctilucent clouds are being seen further south too. Anyway, the article does not answer the question posed, as this is a great source of anxiety to space weather scientists who realise that Earth's protection against Space Weather is quickly getting weaker and weaker. The CMEs that were generated by the complex solar eruption on the Sun that took place on the 1st August, were not even categorised to generate a major geomagnetic storm, and apparently we only had a 'decent' geomagnetic storm, but the impact was the same as major geomagnetic storms that we have experienced in the past when auroras are pushed down farther south. The only conclusion we can come to is that the Earth's magnetic field is not offering the same resistance to external magnetic fields as it did in the past. More:

First picture of the Sun erupting in 'solar tsunami' which sparked incredible Northern Lights displays
Daily Mail, 6th August 2010

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Space Weather Turns into an International Problem
NASA News, 16th July 2010

Sometimes a problem is so big, one country cannot handle it alone.

That's the message scientists are delivering at today's International Living with a Star (ILWS) meeting in Bremen, Germany, and representatives from more than 25 of the world's most technologically-advanced nations have gathered to hear what they have to say.

"The problem is solar storms–figuring out how to predict them and stay safe from their effects," says ILWS Chairperson Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters. "We need to make progress on this before the next solar maximum arrives around 2013."

The sun and Earth are separated by 93 million miles of space–a seemingly safe distance. But since the Space Age began, and especially in recent years, there has been a growing realization that 93 million miles really isn't so far apart. Spacecraft and ground-based observatories have shown that Earth is located in the sun's outer atmosphere, buffeted by solar winds and pelted by hail storms of energetic particles. Moreover, the two bodies are actually connected by invisible threads of magnetism. During "reconnection events," which typically happen several times a day, you can trace invisible lines of force all the way from Earth's poles to the surface of the sun.

"The Earth and sun are interconnected. We cannot study them separately anymore," says Guhathakurta.[...]

Comment: So are NASA saying that after over 20 years of increasing Space Weather and a whole armada of spacecraft dedicated to watching the Sun, solar scientists still have not worked out how to mitigate the impact of Space Weather from the Sun? Oh well, it looks like humans we are going to be forced to adapt to the new conditions, as the New Cosmic Age has arrived! Also, this headline is misleading because Space Weather became an international effort after the 1989 Great Magnetic Storm, as I documented in my book Tuning the Diamonds.

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Major News: The Ultimate Surge Protection Has Been Approved!
Huffington Post, 15th July 2010
John Kappenman, 55, an obscure electrical engineer from Duluth, Minnesota, is determined to save civilization from the mother of all blackouts. If he succeeds, the daily life of billions around the world will continue undisrupted. But if he fails, we may well suffer on a scale that makes even World Wars seem trivial in comparison. [...]

Kappenman was a major contributor to the landmark report, Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts, published by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in December, 2008. [...]

The world's power grids, of which the United States has the most extensive, have in essence become giant antennas for space weather blasts. Just as a lightning rod attracts any lightning bolts that might otherwise strike a roof, the power grid, which is designed specifically to be extremely efficient at conducting electricity, attracts space weather bolts. Problem is that, unlike lightning rods, the power grid is gravely vulnerable to such shocks. [...]

Each surge suppressor would be about the size of a washing machine, and would cost $40,000-$50,000 apiece; with some 5,000 transformers in the North American grid, that works out to $250 million or so, according to Kappenman's reckoning.

Comment: 25th September 2010
Long article. It seems we have an unsung hero that has been working away waking people up to the issue of Space Weather, where one major blast would literally take our technological societies back into the Dark Ages. John Kappenman has been shouting loud and hard enough, such that the issue of unprotected power grids has now become a National Security issue in the United States and it looks like folks are taking action. Anyway, I accidentally came across the idea of these 'ultimate surge protectors' for transformers this week, but I suppose this news was missed because the title of most of the many articles about a solar EMP threat focused on the possibility, without making any hint there was a solution. Typical...

Well, I will admit, maybe I missed some chatter, but this is the first time I have read that solar scientists are comparing solar cycle 24 (estimated to peak 2012/2013) to 1859 when we had the historic Carrington Event. If it is true that the solar cycles are matching, and I am now wondering why there is not been more information from solar scientists who incidentally, have failed miserably in their predictions for Solar Cycle 24, but it explains why NASA et al. have been getting panicky... Quite frankly, I am gobsmacked and still wondering whether it is true...

Anyway, so there is a possible solution to protect national power grids and their transformers, but still there is a real apathy and disinterest in the evolutionary implications of humans being flash fried by a massive solar blast where electricity will flow through the air. This has to be considered alongside the impact of daily Space Weather and the general increase of cosmic radiation levels on Earth.

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Cosmic noise could point to space storms
Scientists focus on solar wind's soft X-rays, once seen as interference
MSNBC News, 30th June 2010
A signal astrophysicists once dismissed as contamination of X-ray observations could actually improve forecasts of dangerous space weather that threatens Earth.

Charged particles within the solar wind give off so-called soft X-rays when they collide with the magnetic field that shrouds Earth. The soft X-rays have longer wavelengths and lower frequencies than their hard X-ray cousins.

This signal was once dismissed as local cosmic noise that interfered with space observatory surveys of hot, distant objects such as supernovas, until some scientists realized its significance for Earth.

Comment: Another reminder of the curse of ignorance and arrogance, which is particularly worrying trait for a scientist. In fact, I can't imagine how people would think that when something comes along that they don't understand, it must be rubbish.... Mind you, some of the most stupid, uneducated people I have ever come across in my life, still thought they knew more than others... As I say, the mixture of ignorance and arrogance is a curse...

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Mystery glitch? Blame it on the sun
New Scientist, 23rd June 2010
[...] Relatively minor space storms now appear to be behind a range of mysterious mishaps - railway signals malfunctioning in Archangel province in north-western Russia, for example, between 2000 and 2005. A study led by Eugenia Eroshenko of the Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation in Troitsk, Russia, examined episodes when signals turned red for minutes or even hours though the track ahead was clear, then spontaneously reverted to green.

Eroshenko's team found that 16 malfunctions of this sort observed between 2000 and 2005 coincided with space storms (Advances in Space Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2010.05.017). "We were surprised by such a clear correlation," Eroshenko says.

How could space weather switch railroad signals from green to red?

Comment: The public are being told about Space Weather causing electromagnetic interference (EMI). I wrote about this in my book in 2006, but my main concern was EMI in humans. So now the EM environmental is far worse than when I was researching my book, some days the Earth's magnetic shield simply vanishes on the daylight side and sensitive people will notice, I did this week...

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As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather
NASA News, 4th June 2010
Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history.

To make preparations,authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th. Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss." [...]

"I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather." Fisher concludes. "We take this very seriously indeed."

Comment: NASA knows something that most people don't know... if you want to know more, read about Space Weather on this blog, but it's not actually the Sun that is the problem it's the cosmic environment that effects the Sun and that is changing rapidly.

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Space storms could knock out National Grid and Sat Navs
Space storms caused by the Sun could knock out power supplies and satellite navigation systems in Britain, claim scientists.
The Telegraph, 14th April 2010
The solar flares and sunspots throw massive clouds of electrically charged gas at the Earth which cause power surges and throw compasses into disarray.

The weather in space has been through an unprecedented calm period in the last century but the researchers believe we could be entering a more volatile period. [...]

Dr Alan Thomson, the leader of the team, who will present their findings at the National Astronomy Meeting in Glasgow, said: "A major objective is to shed light on the impact of both everyday and extreme space weather on our technologies and therefore to be better aware of the risk."

Comment: Once again, British scientists are sounding the alarm. As we have been told by modern Mayan Elders, who actually understand how to interpret their 20 different calendars which include cosmic and galactic cycles. 2012 is what the Grandfathers call the "A Return to the beginning" and the start of the JOB AJAW – the Fifth Sun, a cycle of 5,200 years which will be about the ether or space. The increasing concern about space weather coincides with the 25 years of transition mentioned by indigenous sources and Mayan Elders. Starting in 1987, this period of transition was well noted within the metaphysical community, and serious deliveries of New Energy arrived notably in 1989 with The Great magnetic Storm, which actually produced 195 solar flares in 13 days. Since that time, our cosmic and galactic shielding has been deteriorating allowing in increasing levels of cosmic and galactic energies. Meanwhile, there were other megablasts from galactic sources taking place, that have been kept very quiet in the usual media outlets. Some metaphysical sources have made some major claims, which I now believe have to be interpreted in terms of the impact of Space Weather.

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UK launches British version of NASA
MSNBC News, 23rd March 2010
LONDON - Britain has opened its first space agency to coordinate all U.K. space activities and help raise the country's profile in the global space economy. Ministers say the U.K. Space Agency will allow all aspects of civilian space policy to be handled efficiently under one roof, rather than by various government departments and research councils. It also aims to make the most of the areas Britain excels in, such as satellites, telecommunications and robotics.

Comment: Hmmm... The UK has decided to have it's own space agency too....

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German Satellite to Help Detect Threats to Earth
Spiegel Online, 19th March 2010
With a new satellite project, Germany's space agency is hoping to create an early warning system for potential asteroid strikes against the Earth. An asteroid impact may have contributed to the death of the dinosaurs, and scientists would like to be able to predict the next Earth-bound collosus before it hits. [...]

"All of these asteroids present a potential danger to the Earth," Hallmann says. Simply by looking at standard distribution statistics, researchers suspect that there are around a thousand objects like this traveling in orbits between Earth and the sun, each of them at least 100 meters in size. Yet they only have actual knowledge of ten of these sorts of rocks in space. "We know next to nothing about asteroids between Earth and the sun," says Ekkehard Kührt, head of the Asteroids and Comets division of DLR's Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin.

Comment: Germany has it's own space agency? Don't they trust the European Space Agency, or NASA or the Russian Space Agency? Of course not! Anyway, all the talk of Star Trek and Captain Kirk here is off-putting, but there is now too many articles that reveal a concern about asteroids being disturbed, whether they originate inside or outside our solar system, but the excuse of Nemesis, "the death star" that is causing these perturbations, just does not cut it with me. However, obviously SOMETHING is causing a problem and after years and years of denial (all the conspiracy folk talking about Niburu and Planet X are partially vindicated), our space agencies are no longer interested in the pretending that there is not turmoil in the heavens. This is all part of the biblical sized flood of electromagnetic and not so subtle deluge of energies that is coming our way, but has been poorly explained in terms of integrating science and metaphysics. Please look at the image gallery, it seems the Germans are 'impressed' or 'terrified' or both by the bizarre comet-like object with the X-shaped debris pattern that nobody wants to give a name.

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Shocking recipe for making killer electrons
European Space Agency News, 11th March 2010
Take a bunch of fast-moving electrons, place them in orbit and then hit them with the shock waves from a solar storm. What do you get? Killer electrons. That's the shocking recipe revealed by ESA's Cluster mission.

Killer electrons are highly energetic particles trapped in Earth's outer radiation belt, which extends from 12 000 km to 64 000 km above the planet's surface. During solar storms their number grows at least ten times and they can be dislodged, posing a threat to satellites. As the name suggests, killer electrons are energetic enough to penetrate satellite shielding and cause microscopic lightning strikes. If these electrical discharges take place in vital components, the satellite can be damaged or even rendered inoperable.

Comment: Since, I wrote my book, "killer electrons" no longer just knock out satellites, they are finding their way into our atmosphere and it only takes 15 minutes once electrons bound in Earth's radiation belt are hit by a blast from the Sun or a galactic source. This will be the explanation for the extremely rough rides that have seriously hurt airline passengers when they have hit unexpected turbulence in recent years and one investigation has already admitted as much, see archives. In the past, these blasts have been referred to as a solar particle event (SPE), which can arrive suddenly and exert an influence for several days. Not surprisingly, this has now become of major concern for airline crew and passenger safety.

Comment 2: The press release from the European Space Agency is still bothering me and here's why:

• The solar wind has been described as a bullet proof vest keeping us safe from galactic cosmic rays, but recently we were told that it has been flagging since the mid 1990s.
• The Earth's magnetic field has been described as a "armoured vehicle" or "tank" that keeps out cosmic rays, but recently we have been told that it is full of holes and sometimes just disappears on the daylight side and the atmosphere is left to try and deal with some of the cosmic rays.
• Now the European Space Agency is now trying to tell us that the Earth's atmosphere acts "a bit like a bullet proof vest" protecting us from cosmic rays. The only problem here is that the very highest energy comsic rays are hardly effected by the Sun's and the Earth's magnetic field and according to Henrik Svensmark's book The Chilling Stars, Earth's atmosphere can only deflect the lowest energy cosmic rays anyway.
• The only problem is that if you fact check, there is old information that informs us that hundreds of cosmic rays are continuously passing through our body every minute and if we stick out our hand 1 cosmic ray will pass through every second. Also, since we are getting constant reports that scientists are trying to identify from where in the skies we are getting pelted with the highest energy cosmic rays, it seems the idea that Earth's atmosphere acts "a bit like a bullet proof vest" and provides us complete protection is just simply ridiculous.
• What's more, there is a proven correlation between increased cancer rates and higher rates of solar cosmic rays but the argument is that there are many factors involved in triggering cancer that have to be considered, so this is not something I often choose to highlight but it's something that cannot be ignored.

My emphasis has always been cosmic rays cause evolutionary change through DNA mutations and it seems that conditions within our solar system are changing to provide the ideal conditions to cause rapid evolutionary change on our planet. It seems that scientists are desperate to keep people thinking that nothing has changed but even a casual look at what has happened when the Earth's magnetic field strength has fallen tells us that we see evolutionary occur relatively quickly.

Here, this can be explained by the observation that there are different types of cosmic rays and it's the overall balance that has to be considered in how evolutionary change proceeds. This press release headline of yet ANOTHER space probe to monitor the Sun was initially ignored, because there have been many others in the last few years, but here the details are telling us specifically that NASA scientists are worried about the high levels of radiation in our solar system, which is exactly what we should have expected as we move into a New Age dominated by space and the ether. Of course this was not expected because the metaphysical community had either turned this transition into a disaster epic or totally romaticisied it, aka the 2012 Cosmic Fairy Tale.

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Solar Storms Could Be Earth's Next Katrina
NPR News, 26th February 2010
A massive solar storm could leave millions of people around the world without electricity, running water, or phone service, government officials say.

That was their conclusion after participating in a tabletop exercise that looked at what might happen today if the Earth were struck by a solar storm as intense as the huge storms that occurred in 1921 and 1859.

Solar storms happen when an eruption or explosion on the surface of the sun sends radiation or electrically charged particles toward Earth. Minor storms are common and can light up the Earth's Northern skies and interfere with radio signals.

Comment: Yes, Space Weather is now a serious potential threat and we have the fulfillment of indigenous prophecy with a New Age dominated by space and the aether. Since I have written about this ad infinitum, I thought would give a quick summary of the "think positive" "group think" that I think has a strong grip on society has a whole. I have now realised that if people don't understand something and they don't like the sound of what they hear, it can now be easily dismissed as "being negative". Worrying about Space Weather is just a waste of energy and can be ignored.

The "group think" mentality ignores the fact that there have been messages (mostly from indigenous groups and the metaphysical community) for over 50 years that our world is changing and that we will have to adapt. "Group think" assumes that our wonderful leaders have our best interests at heart, despite the fact it would mean dismantling their current power structures that keeps society struggling and making essential changes to enable us to survive in a New World dominated by space and universal forces.

What this means in plain English is the reliance on electricty and a power grid is primitive and we should be now tapping the aether for clean reliable power, but people are killed first rather than consider this even though Space Weather is now a serious threat. There is another major assumption that the geomagnetic environment will stay reliable enough for oil companies to drill, as drilling for oil requires a reliable compass.

What is interesting about Space Weather is that it can be seen as a great leveller. If we had a megablast from the Sun or a Magnetar that knocks out power grids around the world, the poor of certain countries would not even notice and would survive, humanity as a whole would survive, but the so-called advanced societies would be crippled. It does not have to happen, but "group think" that we don't have to change is too pervasive. Now if you don't agree with my reasoning, look at the trouble are now having with our satellite communication infrastructure and the problems caused by Space Weather and Space Junk. It is absolutely obvious that nobody dreamt that things would get so extreme, but "Space Weather is now a fact of life" -- Susan Joy Rennison.

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NASA launches space-based solar observatory
Yahoo Asia, 12th February 2010
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AFP) - – NASA launched a first-of-its-kind solar observatory into space Thursday in hopes of expanding scientists' understanding of the sun and its complicated workings. [...]

Space physicists have called SDO the cornerstone of future NASA missions to study the sun, which is considered the next frontier for US space research.

NASA said the probe will be especially helpful in revealing how changes in the sun alter the levels of radiation and energy within our solar system, and will provide new information concerning the sun and solar system that directly affect Earth, its inhabitants and technology.

Scientists said space weather caused by the sun can affect communications and satellite signals, electrical power lines and other objects and energy transmissions in our atmosphere and beyond.

Telescopes and other gear onboard the probe will scrutinize sunspots and solar flares using more pixels and colors than any other observatory in the history of solar physics. NASA said the spacecraft will send about 1.5 terabytes of data back to Earth each day -- the equivalent of streaming 380 full-length movies. US physicists said that if they can get a better understanding of the sun's magnetic field, they can predict how it affects the solar system and near-Earth space to create space weather.

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Stronger radiation from the Sun 'will cause sat-navs to fail', scientists warn
Britain's satellite navigation networks could soon experience problems and disruptions caused by higher levels of radiation coming from the Sun, scientists warn.
The Telegraph, 10th February 2010
Researchers said satnav devices were facing the threat from an expected increase in solar flares from the Sun that could cause unpredictable errors in navigation. [...]

Prof Cathryn Mitchell, from the University of Bath, said while the sun's affects on navigation were difficult to project, the errors could last hours or even days.

"It varies quite a lot across the Earth; looking at the UK it will be about 10-metre errors in the positioning," Prof Mitchell told the BBC.

"Ten metres out is probably going to be OK for a satnav system in a car but if you're using the system for something safety-critical like ships coming into harbour for navigation or possibly in the future landing aircraft, you're looking for much greater accuracy and more importantly, much greater reliability."

Comment: It is obvious to those of us watching the escalation of Space Weather that this is not just related to solar flares. We have many more regular substorms caused by the solar wind and a magnetosphere full of holes. What's more, nobody is talking about the regular cosmic/galactic blasts, but we can watch the magnetosphere getting hit on a regular basis. I missed this 20th January 2010 press release from the European Space Agency but it's no surprise as we are now experiencing extreme space weather. Multiple rifts in Earth's magnetic shield. We read:

"This study reports the observation of fissures on the Sun-facing side of the Earth's magnetic shield – the dayside magnetopause. Fortunately, these fissures don't expose Earth's surface to the solar wind; our atmosphere protects us, even when our magnetic field doesn't. However, clear effects have been detected high in the upper atmosphere and in the region of space around Earth where satellites orbit."

This press release tells us straight that we don't always have the protection of Earth's magnetic field and this is something I find hard to believe but it's in print. Please note ESA lessons on line: The effects of magnetic fields

The charged particles in cosmic rays are deflected by the [Earth's] magnetic field and many are prevented from hitting the atmosphere directly. Some are trapped into two concentric doughnut-like bands around the Earth called the Van Allen Belts, discovered in 1958 by the American satellite: Explorer 1. ... As we have seen, on Earth we have the protection of a strong magnetic field. However, elsewhere in the solar system it is not quite as safe.
... Any particles that make it through the Earth's magnetic field still have to face our atmosphere. The atmosphere acts a bit like a bullet-proof vest. A cosmic ray hitting the upper atmosphere gives up its energy to create a shower of secondary particles that rain down on the Earth below.

As I keep writing, the atmosphere as a total shield is rubbish and scientists around the world were expressing concern because there were EXTENSIVE AIR SHOWERS OF COSMIC RAYS at ground level in 2000 and NASA have already told us that cosmic rays are at a space age high and to expect worse to come. What's more, the regular contortions of the Earth's magnetic fields lines are sometimes just so unbelievable, I wonder what is really going on. We have the fulfillment of Mayan prophecy, our world is now being dominated by cosmic and galactic energies and the proof is in the public domain, but there is little of no acknowledgement of the importance of our personal vulnerability and the cosmic impetus driving evolutionary change. It's not theoretical, cosmic radiation is tanning our hides. Meanwhile, the media delivers the odd whisper that our satellite communication infrastructure is under threat and GPS is not so accurate these days...

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Are TGFs Hazardous to Air Travelers?
NASA News, 10th February 2010
Instruments scanning outer space for cataclysmic explosions called gamma-ray bursts are detecting intense flashes of gamma-ray energy right here in the friendly skies of Earth. These terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, or TGFs, blast through thunderstorms close to the altitude where commercial airliners fly. In fact, they could be too close for comfort.

In a recent study,* scientists estimated that airline passengers could be exposed to 400 chest X-rays worth of radiation by being near the origin of a single millisecond blast. Joe Dwyer of the Florida Institute of Technology took part in that research, which used observations from NASA's Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, or RHESSI, to estimate the danger TGFs pose.

see caption "We believe the risk of encountering a TGF in an airplane is very small," says Dwyer. "I wouldn't hesitate to take a flight. Pilots already avoid thunderstorms because of turbulence, hail, and lightning, and we may just have to add TGFs to the list of reasons to steer clear of those storms." But, he stresses, "it's worth looking into."

Comment: Well, at least they have got round to mentioning that people could be effected by these massive bursts of energy and I have noted a few warnings in my blog already, but this is NASA News so that might mean the warning might be taken seriously in the media, but I doubt it. See the NASA press release on the Firefly mission, 29th January below for more details. This reminds me of the phrase about Space Weather that I coined in my book and was used in a section header,

"We are all astronauts now!"
Susan Joy Rennison

I thought of another phrase that airlines could adopt – "Come Fry With Me!" I'm having quite a day of inspiration, what if I produce some 'Fairy Goddess Unicorn Space Weather cards', then maybe someone in a New Age marketing establishment might take some interest... Actually, I am still in shock that the European Space Agency confirmed in print that there are occasions where the inhabitants of planet Earth (daylight side) have NO MAGNETIC FIELD protection from Space Weather, but declined to mention how long and frequent this situation lasts. The Themis NASA mission told us one breach was 4 Earth's wide and 7 Earth's deep and as the satellite took about 11 hours to sail past, they can't say when it opened and when it closed. I am sure someone can tell us really, but I doubt they want that kind of info circulating, it might disturb the few that are interested in health and safety issues.

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Smart dust could give early warning of space storms
New Scientist, 5th February 2010
A SWARM of "smart dust" spacecraft, positioned at a sweet spot between the Earth and the sun, could alert us to the approach of dangerous space storms well before a conventional craft can. The first prototypes are due for launch into low-Earth orbit this year, perhaps as early as May. [...]

The chips are essentially small solar panels with a radio antenna, and could act as a solar wind sensor (Acta Astronautica DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.12.008).

The team envisage sending a whole swarm of these "smart dust" chips to the Lagrange point, where they would monitor the strength of the solar wind. They would also warn of any oncoming gusts of charged particles that could disrupt communicationsMovie Camera and electronic systems on Earth.

After the tiny craft has been dropped off at the Lagrange point, the effect of solar radiation moves it closer to the sun. Peck estimates that this could give an extra 13 minutes' notice of a storm compared with larger solar monitoring craft such as NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer. [...]

Colin McInnes from the University of Strathclyde in the UK says: "There is a strong international interest in 'spacecraft-on-a-chip' concepts. Peck's group have some great ideas which are firmly grounded in terrestrial applications of microelectromechanical technology."

Comment: The Lagrange point is a place in space where gravitational forces are cancelled out and satellites can literally hover in space. As I wrote in my book, there is a whole "armada" of spacecraft at L1 watching for the slightest hiccup from the Sun. This is part of the international efforts to maintain our current communication infrastructure that is under threat from Space Weather and reveals the reality of a New Age dominated by space and the ether.

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Video: Fox News - Study: Sun Storms Could Wipe Out U.S. Power Grid
Eclipptv.com, 30th January 2010
Comment: Fox News presents the new threat of a massive solar storm in 2012. They describe the Sun as a roiling mass of plasma and charged particles and the arrival of a fireball hitting Earth's magnetic field would be a game changer! Yet, even though they say this is the assessment of a new NASA report in fact, it's taken Fox News, a whole year to report the NASA sponsored NAS report! Spaceref.com reported this on the 5th January 2009, see NASA-Funded Study Reveals Hazards of Severe Space Weather .

The Fox news presenter interviews physicist Michio Kaku, who talks about the impact being 10x worse than Katrina, but maybe he needed to read the report first! His emphasis on 2012 is rather embarrassing as the Sun is behaving abnormally and we simply can't say what will happen and when. So at one point, the presenter even called Kaku the Dr of Doom and Gloom! Nobody mentioned Space Weather, but they are warning of our new reality as we enter a New World Age dominated by space and the ether and the new volatile and highly charged solar system conditions that we now find ourselves in. Here is a documentary-drama produced by History Channel. Please remember, this is not entertainment, it is done in this manner to engage people with short attention spans and could happen for real. Solar Storm: Perfect Disaster

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Lightning-Produced Radiation a Potential Health Concern for Air Travelers
Science Daily, 12th December 2009
New information about lightning-emitted X-rays, gamma rays and high-energy electrons during thunderstorms is prompting scientists to raise concerns about the potential for airline passengers and crews to be exposed to harmful levels of radiation.

Scientists at the Florida Institute of Technology, University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Florida have estimated that airplane passengers could be exposed to a radiation dose equal to that from 400 chest X-rays if their airplane happens to be near the start of a lightning discharge or related phenomena known as a terrestrial gamma ray flash.

The big unknown: how often -- if ever -- commercial airliners are exposed to these thunderstorm events, because the bursts of radiation occur only over extremely brief periods and extend just a few hundred feet in the clouds. [...]

The observations included those made from orbiting satellites of "terrestrial gamma-ray flashes," or TGFs, mysterious phenomena that appear to originate within thunderstorms at the same altitudes used by jet airliners. They also included measurements of X-rays and gamma rays from natural lightning on the ground, as well as artificial lightning triggered with wire-trailing rockets fired into storm clouds. Researchers believe the phenomena are linked, because both produce high levels of gamma rays and X-rays and occur along with the actual lightning flash. The scientists concluded the radiation in a football field-sized space around these lightning events could reach "biologically significant levels," up to 10 rem, according to their paper.

Comment: According to reports, these bursts of energy are so massive, that theorists calculate this is what you would expect to be coming out of a blackhole, NOT the upper atmosphere of Earth! However, this recent phenomenon is part of the significant electromagnetic changes taking place on this planet, and besides the impact on human biology, there is an impact on electronics. For those who are new to this website and don't know much about Space Weather, I wrote in my book about this new phenomena but scientists reported that these TGFs were going out to space, but in the last years or so they have started to tell us what is really happening and scientists seem quite shocked by this development. Hence, when you realise that my book is about explaining why New Agers are choosing to build up their energy fields to act as a more effective shield against unwanted electromagnetic fields and cosmic radiation, then these people no longer seem to be so crazy.

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When It Rains, It Rains Platinum From Heaven
Tonic News, 21st October 2009
"According to James Brenan of the department of geology at the University of Toronto (quoted in Science Daily), the platinum in your wedding ring is not of this Earth. That's because "the extreme temperature at which the Earth's core formed more than four billion years ago would have completely stripped any precious metals from the rocky crust and deposited them in the core." In other words, miners would have to dig to the center of the planet to mine any platinum, rhodium or certain other precious metals.

So where did the platinum that lies just beneath the Earth's surface come from? You guessed it: it's extraterrestrial. The assumption is that the metals with which we're familiar actually rained down from the sky as "extraterrestrial debris," moving through the solar system in comets and meteorites. Researchers seem to like the idea of an "extraterrestrial rain" -- and not just because it's such a terrific image.

According to Dr. Brenan, "The notion of extraterrestrial rain may also explain another mystery, which is how the rock portion of the Earth came to have hydrogen, carbon and phosphorous -- the essential components for life, which were likely lost during Earth's violent beginning."

Comment: In my book, Tuning the Diamonds, I wrote about the Golden Age and Space Weather delivering vast amounts of ormus elements. This is an extract:

Evolutionary Energy: The Discovery of "Stealth" Atoms

The revelation of inter-dimensional elements described as "stealth" atoms, hidden from normal chemical analysis, has finally given us the "missing link" for the makeup and delivery of universal energy.
Susan Joy Rennison

ORMES comes from the acronym Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements. These elements were discovered in the late 1970s by David Hudson, an Arizona farmer who discovered strange substances mixed in the soil on his land, whilst mining for gold. During the next decade, Hudson spent 8.7 million dollars trying to identify this substance and understand how to work with it [32]. ORMES are literally, precious metal elements in a new form, a new state of matter. They are also referred to as "ORMUS elements" in the monatomic-state (m-state). These peculiar elements belong to the platinum group (platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium and osmium) and to transition elements (gold, silver, copper, mercury, cobalt and nickel).

So far, I haven't had a single person who has read my book comment on this analysis. I wrote about universal energies arriving on Earth being highly catalytic, which is required to speed up evolutionary changes and lessen the risk of massive failure. We know that ormus elements are in our atmosphere because there is now massive nuclear level reactions going on in our atmosphere and the production of gamma rays, (this was also seen in David Hudson's research with ormus elements) are major source of concern to scientists, (it would be of concern to airline passengers too, but they don't know they are sometimes getting fried).

So, when the Obama Administration enquire about "planetary challenges" and evolutionary change within the metaphysical community to find out what the hell is going on, after all, metaphysicians boast about the arrival of A New Golden Age, it is certain, very very few understand the mechanics involved in the delivery of spiritual energies. See also, Geologists Point To Outer Space As Source Of The Earth's Mineral Riches

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Sun's Plasma Balls Could Wipe Out Human Civilization - Technology is the Achilles Heel
Natural News, 11th October 2009
"Natural fluctuations in the sun's atmosphere could cause it to fire a giant plasma ball at Earth, shutting down the planet's electric grids and leading to widespread social collapse, according to a report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Funded by NASA, the report draws attention to naturally occurring events known as coronal mass ejections (CME), in which a ball of plasma -- the charged, high-energy particles that comprise stars -- is fired from the sun. If such a ball strikes the Earth, it could produce rapid changes in the planet's magnetic field, leading to a surge of direct current in the long-range power lines that carry electricity through modern power grids."

Comment: This is old news and was first reported in early January 2009, see archives, but more awareness is required to educate people about why our modern technological world has become vulnerable. However, at this moment in time, the Sun is extremely quiet and nobody seems to known if and when activity will ramp up. The use of the term "plasma balls" instead of Corona Mass Ejections is unfortunate and maybe a better headline would be A Zap from the Sun could Electrically Short Earth - Technology is the Achilles Heel . This would not too be too disimilar to NASA's own press releases given in the past. At least then, people would start to get a clear impression that Earth is not some isolated bauble in space and that we are part of a much greater cosmic environment.

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Phantom storms: How our weather leaks into space
New Scientist News, 6th October 2009
"WHETHER it's showering spacecraft with lethal radiation, filling the sky with ghostly light, or causing electrical surges that black-out entire cities, space weather is a force to be reckoned with. [...]

Many of the serious events involve disturbances in the charged portion of the atmosphere, known as the ionosphere, which stretches from 80 to 1000 kilometres above sea level. The finger of blame has always been pointed at the sun, which bombards the Earth with a stream of charged particles in the form of the solar wind. During the last three years, though, the sun's cycle of activity has hit a trough, and as Murtagh observes, space weather is temporarily calm.

Yet if the sun really is the only cause, things haven't been quite as quiet as we might have expected. Despite the solar lull, activity in the ionosphere still hots up occasionally - with ghostly tides of charged particles that throw GPS systems out of whack and block radio communication. It seems that as much as one-fifth of this space weather cannot be blamed on the sun after all.If the cause of these charged-particle surges is not above the atmosphere, it must be somewhere below. But where?

Comment: Scientists are still desperately trying to understand all the different aspects that generate the phenomena of Space Weather that causes disturbances to GPS, satellite communications, national power grids, pipelines and other electronic systems, including the geomagnetic effects that disturb electromagnetic humans. Yet, it is now twenty years since scientists realised that there had been a considerable change and the Earth had acquired the Equatorial Electrojet, a new space weather feature that holds a depository of excess energy. In my book, I identified this as the promised Mayan 'Serpent Rope' that was indicated to arrive before 2012 and this ties in nicely with the Mayan predictions of a New Age dominated by space or the aether. Since the Maya are experts in understanding evolutionary energies, it seems that the space community have confirmed that Mayan prophecy has been fulfilled. Recent press releases from NASA reveal that Space Weather is set to dominate our lives as we lose our shielding to oncoming Space Weather in the form of solar, cosmic, galactic and intergalactic energies. Unfortunately, most people are not interested, not even the metaphysically minded as most have no understanding of their relationship with the cosmos. Well, we are awaiting the fulfillment Hopi prophecy and the coming of the Red Star that I think is the supergiant star Betelgeuse that is mysteriously shrinking. Scientists are watching intensely, as it shows signs that it might nova and then there will be a change of attitude, that is guaranteed.

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Cosmic Rays Hit Space Age High
NASA News, 28th September 2009
Planning a trip to Mars? Take plenty of shielding. According to sensors on NASA's ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) spacecraft, galactic cosmic rays have just hit a Space Age high.

"In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we've seen in the past 50 years," says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. "The increase is significant, and it could mean we need to re-think how much radiation shielding astronauts take with them on deep-space missions."

Galactic cosmic rays come from outside the solar system. They are subatomic particles--mainly protons but also some heavy nuclei--accelerated to almost light speed by distant supernova explosions. Cosmic rays cause "air showers" of secondary particles when they hit Earth's atmosphere; they pose a health hazard to astronauts; and a single cosmic ray can disable a satellite if it hits an unlucky integrated circuit.

The sun's magnetic field is our first line of defense against these highly-charged, energetic particles. The entire solar system from Mercury to Pluto and beyond is surrounded by a bubble of solar magnetism called "the heliosphere." It springs from the sun's inner magnetic dynamo and is inflated to gargantuan proportions by the solar wind. When a cosmic ray tries to enter the solar system, it must fight through the heliosphere's outer layers; and if it makes it inside, there is a thicket of magnetic fields waiting to scatter and deflect the intruder. [...]

Mewaldt lists three aspects of the current solar minimum that are combining to create the perfect storm:
1. The sun's magnetic field is weak.
2. The solar wind is flagging.
3. The current sheet is flattening.
[...] "If the flattening continues as it has in previous solar minima, we could see cosmic ray fluxes jump all the way to 30% above previous Space Age highs," predicts Mewaldt.[...]
"The space era has so far experienced a time of relatively low cosmic ray activity," says Mewaldt. "We may now be returning to levels typical of past centuries."

Comment: This is more confirmation of the New Cosmic Age being driven by Space Weather! I am not aware that NASA have released any prior information about the current sheet flattening, but I would say that it would be very difficult for scientists to predict the impact. Please forget any talk about people being totally protected by the earth's atmosphere, because Extensive Air Showers caused by cosmic rays are being recorded at ground level and scientists were raising eyebrows about the high levels back in 2000. The metaphysical community have been warned to strengthen their energy fields, but it seems the message has gone largely unheeded, so we may be awaiting a massive gamma ray burst that will leave us open to the elements and then we'll see what happens. Personally, I think we are going to get some serious evolutionary sorting out of the wheat from the chaff. Meanwhile, the 2012 Bandwagonistas have missed the implications for evolutionary change, as we enter A New Cosmic Age dominated by Space or the aether and hence why traditional Mayan Elders have talked about a change of sun and a new human. Well, despite my lack of marketing success, I can now state absolutely categorically that I got this right! But, I would still be interested to find other lonely individuals who realised what was happening and went to the trouble of getting their beliefs and research published.

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Telegraphs Ran on Electric Air in Crazy 1859 Magnetic Storm
Wired.com, 2nd September 2009
On Sept. 2, 1859, at the telegraph office at No. 31 State Street in Boston at 9:30 a.m., the operators' lines were overflowing with current, so they unplugged the batteries connected to their machines, and kept working using just the electricity coursing through the air. In the wee hours of that night, the most brilliant auroras ever recorded had broken out across the skies of the Earth. People in Havana and Florida reported seeing them. The New York Times ran a 3,000 word feature recording the colorful event in purple prose.

"With this a beautiful tint of pink finally mingled. The clouds of this color were most abundant to the northeast and northwest of the zenith," the Times wrote. "There they shot across one another, intermingling and deepening until the sky was painfully lurid. There was no figure the imagination could not find portrayed by these instantaneous flashes."

As if what was happening in the heavens wasn't enough, the communications infrastructure just beginning to stretch along the eastern seaboard was going haywire from all the electromagnetism.

"We observed the influence upon the lines at the time of commencing business – 8 o'clock – and it continued so strong up to 9 1/2 as to prevent any business from being done, excepting by throwing off the batteries at each end of the line and working by the atmospheric current entirely!" the astonished telegraph operators of Boston wrote in a statement that appeared in The New York Times later that week."

Comment: This was a MAJOR geomagnetic storm. Experts say if it happened now in our technological world, it would be catastrophic. However... Electricity flowing through the air, that could power machines.... Maybe, this is something we could expect in the future as our environment becomes more electrically charged.

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New ISS Electric Shock Potential Monitor Set in Place
Static electricity is a major issue in space
Softpedia.com, 27th August 2009
"Electrical shocks that each of us experience when touching doorknobs or car doors after a long trip are caused by vast numbers of electrons, which you have collected before touching the surface. The shock is not strong in itself, but it can be very frightening. However, when it appears during spacewalks, as astronauts attempt for example to grab a tool, or touch the outer walls of the International Space Station (ISS), it can be a serious problem, with disastrous consequences. A newly installed device now monitors the level of static electricity on the orbital lab, to prevent such incidents, Space reports.

Because the ISS travels at the upper limits of the atmosphere, it mostly moves through the ionosphere, a layer that is filled with ions, or electrically charged atoms. As it orbits the planet, the station too scraps off electrons from these atoms, which gather in static charges on its outer surfaces, and on cargo bay doors. Space scientists have tried for a long time to predict exactly what type of influence these electrons could have on spacewalkers or incoming ships, but their results have been inconclusive."

Comment: This is more confirmation of the electrical nature of space that for many decades was believed to be a cold, dark, empty and lifeless place. Due to Space Weather and other scientific discoveries, it is becoming very clear that this understanding of space was completely wrong. Space is filled with magnetic and electric fields, the ingredients for life, organic molecules, are emited from star-forming regions of space and viruses can be manufactured in comet tails.

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How deadly are cosmic rays?
Radiation could directly or indirectly wipe out species, expert says
MSNBC, 27th August 2009
"Cosmic rays pour down on Earth like a constant rain. We don't much notice these high-energy particles, but they may have played a role in the evolution of life on our planet.

Some of the mass extinctions identified in the fossil record can be linked to an asteroid impact or increased volcanism, but many of the causes of those ancient die-offs are still open for debate.

"There may have been nearby astronomical goings-on that drastically increased the radiation on Earth," says Brian Fields from the University of Illinois.

A supernova going off 30 light-years away could cause such a jump in radiation on our planet that could directly, or indirectly, wipe out huge numbers of species. Currently researchers are looking for possible evidence for this sort of cosmic foul play. [...]

"Every square centimeter on the top of the Earth's atmosphere is hit by several cosmic rays per second," Fields says. "This is forever going on."

None of these "primary" cosmic rays ever reach us on the ground. Instead, they collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere, creating a shower of lower energy "secondary" particles.

Secondary effects: At sea level, the majority of cosmic ray secondaries are highly penetrating muons. About 10,000 muons pass through our bodies every minute. Some of these muons will ionize molecules as they go through our flesh, occasionally leading to genetic mutations that may be harmful. At present, the average human receives the equivalent of about 10 chest X-rays per year from cosmic rays. We shouldn't be alarmed by this, since it is just part of the natural background radiation under which humans and our ancestors have been exposed to for eons. Indeed, cosmic-ray-induced mutations may sometimes be beneficial.

"It is clear that in some way cosmic rays shaped evolution of organisms on Earth," says Franco Ferrari from the University of Szczecin in Poland."

Comment: Well, since cosmic rays are at record highs, according to NASA, the comments about the evolutionary influence is very pertinent, even though in certain periods of Earth's history, the magnetic field was much much weaker, and cosmic rays would have flooded the planet. The issue we have now though is that according to NASA, we are now headed in the same direction as Earth's shielding is fading fast and becoming unstable. The 10,000 muon hits per minute is very surprising and reinforces metaphysical messages warning those who are interested in their spiritual evolution to strengthen their energy fields.

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Researchers get $2 million to get the drop on space weather
Bad space weather can mess up your GPS, cell phone and electricity
Network World, 25th August 2009
"The need for such a system is manifold. Satellites experience the disruptive effects of energetic charged particles and electrical charging across the satellite structure during various weather conditions.

Astronauts are vulnerable to energetic radiation that may occur at space station altitudes. Navigation signals from global positioning satellites are affected by irregularities in the ionosphere that develop under some conditions, and massive disruption in electric power distribution systems can be triggered by geomagnetic storms, stated Robert Clauer, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech. [...]

For example, space weather can produce solar storm electromagnetic fields that induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines, causing wide-spread blackouts and affecting communication cables that support the Internet. It can also create solar energetic particles and the dislocation of the Earth's radiation belts, which can damage satellites used for commercial communications, global positioning and weather forecasting."

Comment: Gearing up for some big blasts of Space Weather to come....

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Why ARE so many planes falling out of the sky? A spate of disastrous crashes reveals one terrifying common flaw...
Daily Mail, 7th August 2009
"...A spate of accidents in the past two years has led to speculation that something is amiss, something which seems to be making planes fall out of the sky. Some are even suggesting that a serious problem has arisen, which is being ignored by airlines and the authorities - and that if this problem is not addressed soon there will be more large airliners plunging to earth for no known reason.

This year has seen the usual smattering of crashes and near-crashes involving small planes run by small airlines in remote corners of the world. But four weeks after the Air France crash, there was another unexplained Airbus disaster. This time, it was a Yemen Airways flight from Sana'a to the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. Of the 153 aboard, only one survivor was plucked from the sea, a 14-year-old girl.

This year, there have also been serious accidents in Turkey, Thailand and Congo. And in the past week alone, there have been three more incidents: a Continental Airlines flight, which nearly came to grief in severe turbulence over the Gulf of Mexico, and, on Tuesday, a Bangkok Airways flight, which crashed on the island of Ko Samui. The latest incident came on Wednesday, when an Airbus A320, operated by Spanish carrier Vueling, caught fire on the runway at Paris Orly Airport. So, what is going on? Some have pointed the finger at Airbus. Its aircraft have been involved in a number of recent high-profile crashes."

Comment: Well, it's interesting that the mainstream media have started to take note, but here the main thrust is that pilots are not well trained enough for exceptional circumstances. Well, we will have to see how long it takes before there is a realisation that due to the chaotic electromagnetic environment of Earth, electronic systems are becoming vulnerable to Space Weather and hence it is now becoming more precarious for air travel. This article does provide some hilarious advice, as follows; "First, never, ever, fly with an airline you have never heard of, particularly in Africa, the former USSR, or Indonesia. If the plane looks dodgy or the pilot looks drunk - a surprisingly common occurrence in some parts of the world - don't get on. I remember crossing Borneo in a tiny plane, whose doors were locked shut with a piece of twisted wire. On the seat next to me was a box of live chickens. We flew through a thunderstorm. The experience was disconcerting."

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Mystery Source of Solar Wind Heating Identified
PhysOrg.com, 17th July 2009
"The solar wind is hotter than it should be, and for decades researchers have puzzled over the unknown source of energy that heats it. In a paper published in the June 12 issue of Physical Review Letters, NASA scientists say they may have found the answer. "The energy source is turbulence," says co-author Melvyn Goldstein, chief of the Geospace Physics Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The sun heats the solar wind by stirring it up." It's a bit like stirring your coffee--in reverse. When you stir your morning cup of Joe, the coffee cools off. But when the sun stirs the solar wind, the solar wind heats up. [...]

The key data came from a quartet of European spacecraft collectively known as Cluster, launched in 2000 to study the giant bubble of magnetism that surrounds Earth. The magnetosphere protects our planet from solar wind and cosmic rays. It contains the Van Allen radiation belts, auroras, and giant electrical "ring currents" of staggering power. Cluster spends much of its time inside the magnetosphere, where the spacecraft can study the wide variety of phenomena at work there."

Comment: The start of this report was so embarrassingly bad that I thought I would ignore it, but I have changed my mind as it goes to show why intelligent people who can think for themselves are paying attention to Electric/Plasma Universe theories. Note the highlighted section here, it's only recently that scientists have been forced to acknowledge that space is filled with electric fields and magnetic fields due to the existence of plasma that was once invisible to scientific instruments. This is a good quote: "People tend to think that space is a quiet place with relatively little activity. Over the years, we have come to realize that this is not true." Miguel Larsen, campaign scientist from Clemson University, S.C. Certainly, the onset of some serious space weather in the last two decades is driving evolutionary change and very few are aware that the evolutionary destiny of mankind is now being determined.

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Mysterious, Glowing Clouds Appear Across America's Night Skies
Wired Science, 16th July 2009
"Mysterious, glowing clouds previously seen almost exclusively in Earth's polar regions have appeared in the skies over the United States and Europe over the past several days. [...]

"To get the noctilucent clouds you need temperatures that are about 20 degrees Kelvin colder than what we see on average up there," Wickwar said. "We may have effects from CO2 or methane but it would only be a degree or a fraction of a degree."

Instead, Wickwar's explanation is that a vertical atmospheric wave discovered in their LIDAR data lowered the temperature in the region above their radar installation near Logan, Utah. But then you have to ask, he noted, "Where'd the wave come from?" They don't really have an answer yet. [...]

The recent observations of noctilucent clouds at all kinds of latitudes provide an extra impetus to understand what is going on up there. Changes are occurring faster than scientists can understand their causes. "I suspect, as many of us feel, that it is global change, but I fear we don't understand it," Wickwar said. "It's not as simple as a temperature change."

Comment: The scientists being quoted here have a completely different idea for what could be causing a 20 degrees Kelvin DROP to create noctilucent clouds. Here we are being told that in a similar manner to how massive geomagnetic storms push aurorae down to equatorial latitudes, it seems that some external force is also being detected. Certainly, it is quite odd that since noctilucent clouds have been known about for 125 years, scientists still cannot give even a reasonable explanation as to what combination of factors are required to generate this phenomena. The other interesting fact is that these clouds have only been seen in mid-latitudes since 2002.

Update
It seems, that some atmospheric scientists are now prepared to admit the obvious. So we read at Discovery Channel News: "Noctilucent clouds, which form at the edge of space 62 to 68 miles above the planet, are about 10 million times brighter than ordinary clouds. They contain electrically charged ice." Hmmm...

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Mysterious night-shining clouds may peak this year
New Scientist, 2nd June 2009
"Sky watchers in the northern hemisphere have snapped the first images of this year's noctilucent clouds – silvery blue structures that are the highest clouds to form in Earth's atmosphere. This season's crop of clouds could be the biggest in years due to the lull in the sun's activity. [...]

Although the average number of noctilucent clouds has been increasing in recent decades, their abundance also seems to rise and fall with the sun's 11-year cycle of activity. The clouds thrive when the sun is quiet and spews less ultraviolet radiation, which can destroy water needed to form the clouds and can keep temperatures too high for ice particles to form."

Comment: Maybe, we have just been given a big clue that these 'strange' clouds are created by galactic cosmic rays or by the cosmic dust that is pouring into our solar system as the shielding by the sun systematically drops. If there is a tie-in with the 11 year solar cycle, then we know for sure that's got nothing to do with any possible mechanism associated with man-made global warming, see previous comments and evidence that the IMF is at rock bottom, The Interplanetary Magnetic Field: lowest point since 1913?.

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Giant Balloon Flying High Over Atlantic To Catch Cosmic Rays
Science Daily, 22nd May 2009
"Delaware researchers in Sweden have launched a giant balloon taller than a football field that is now flying at the edge of space to collect data on cosmic rays -- the most super-charged particles in the universe. The balloon, which is 396 feet tall and 459 feet in diameter when fully inflated, was set aloft at 4:34 a.m. on May 17 from Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden, in the Arctic Circle. It is flying at a speed of more than 40 knots and an altitude of nearly 27 miles. Its payload of cosmic ray detectors, housed in a pressurized shell, will be cut free in northwestern Canada and float back down to Earth on a parachute, and then secured and recovered, likely by helicopter."

Comment:I don't think this experiment will fail to catch cosmic rays since NASA and other scientific institutions have informed the world that cosmic rays are increasing. In infact, in March 2009, NASA stated, "Cosmic rays at near record-high levels". This must be in comparison with previous solar minimum's on record but about 40,000 years ago, the Earth's magnetic field dropped to about 10% of today's value and the Earth was flooded with cosmic radiation for about 3,000 years. According to Swiss scientists we experienced climate and evolutionary change, just like what we are seeing now. However, now we are being told that the Earth's magnetic field which acts as our protection from cosmic rays, sometimes parts like a pair of curtains, (in July 2007, this was measured as being 4 Earth's wide and 7 Earth's deep, but in media reports, scientists did not state for how long this took place but previous "cracks" have been measured that were at open for at least 9 hours) and therefore we are getting huge influxes of cosmic radiation which can be compared to an electromagnetic flood of biblical proportions. See, NASA solicits new studies on the current solar minimum .

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GPS system 'close to breakdown'
Network of satellites could begin to fail as early as 2010
The Guardian, 19th May 2009
"It has become one of the staples of modern, hi-tech life: using satellite navigation tools built into your car or mobile phone to find your way from A to B. But experts have warned that the system may be close to breakdown. US government officials are concerned that the quality of the Global Positioning System (GPS) could begin to deteriorate as early as next year, resulting in regular blackouts and failures – or even dishing out inaccurate directions to millions of people worldwide. The warning centres on the network of GPS satellites that constantly orbit the planet and beam signals back to the ground that help pinpoint your position on the Earth's surface. [...]

In recent years, the Air Force has struggled to successfully build GPS satellites within cost and schedule goals," said the report. "It encountered significant technical problems … [and] struggled with a different contractor." [...] Tom Coates, the head of Yahoo's Fire Eagle system – which lets users share their location data from their mobile – said he was sceptical that US officials would let the system fall into total disrepair because it was important to so many people and companies."

Comment:Well, those who have been following this blog for some time, will know that I have clearly stated that our whole satellite communication infrastructure is under threat from Space Weather. Yet, even I am totally and utterly amazed with reports that the U.S. GPS system is now so fragile that it could shut down as early as 2010. It is obvious that something major has happened, as it was planned that all airplanes will be using GPS for navigation by 2012, see quote below.

At this time, we can only speculate that insurance costs for satellites have rocketed, excuse the pun. The technical difficulties are probably associated with spacecraft charging due to the new brutal electrical conditions in space, causing sensitive satellite components to age quickly, combined with the recent disaster of military satellites crashing creating a massive problem of satellite controllers trying to out-manoeuvre debris and redundant satellites ie space junk. Obviously, there is also the issue of our planet being assailed with Near Earth Objects [NEOs], asteroids and meteorites, but reports have now started to mention 'tiny' space rocks which are apparently a new factor. So, I imagine that there will be quite a shocked reaction from business users and one would anticipate there will be more reports to follow. Please consider the following quote from the infamous US National Academy of Sciences report: Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts,

"For the spacecraft industry, however, the primary approach to mitigating the effects of space weather is to design satellites to operate under extreme environmental conditions to the maximum extent possible within cost and resource constraints. GPS modernization through the addition of two new navigation signals and new codes is expected to help mitigate space weather effects (e.g., ranging errors, fading caused by ionospheric scintillation), although to what degree is not known. These technologies will come on line incrementally over the next 15 years as new GPS satellites become operational. In the meantime, the Federal Aviation Administration will maintain "legacy" non-GPS-based navigation systems as a backup, while other GPS users (e.g., offshore drilling companies) can postpone operations for which precision position knowledge is required until the ionospheric disturbance is over."

"It would be difficult to overstate the societal contribution of GPS. As discussed in the first workshop session, GPS is in the process of revolutionalizing aviation navigation.

• GPS receivers enable users to determine the time to within 100 billionths of a second, without the cost of owning and operating atomic clocks. This capability can be of enormous value to firms that need to synchronize their network computers or instruments. [BANK TRANSACTIONS!]
• GPS technology is revolutionizing transport logistics by making it possible to track and forecast the movement of freight.
• GPS may one day result in a significant reduction in highway fatalities by warning drivers when their car is about to leave the roadway.
• GPS-based applications enable farmers to adopt precision agricultural methods of planning, field mapping, soil sampling, tractor guidance, crop scouting, and yield mapping. For example, GPS allows more precise application of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, thereby increasing output at lower cost.
• GPS provides the fastest and most accurate method for mariners to determine their location. This is a significant benefit, given the nation's reliance on imported oil carried by tankers and the environmental consequences of oil spills. "

With the background of the Obama Administration's concern about 'planetary challenges', it looks like the 2012 'fraternity' have completely missed the Mayan predictions of 'A New Age dominated by space or the ether'. What's more the build-up of energies is still predicted to be increasing exponentially while low solar activity has still not added to the fray! Unbelievable!

Update 24th May
There is enough information and links on this blog for people to do their own research and establish that unless the world quickly develops new technology, then a meltdown is inevitable. It is with complete incredulity that I have to note that when a world superpower asks members of the metaphysical community about what is taking place on the planet, the response is a request for cash so that they can find out. It's 20 years since scientists first acknowledged the new phenomena of Space Weather and many books and channelled messages have been written over the decades about the delivery of New Energy, the possibility of a new future for mankind and the importance of the 25 year period leading up to 2012. Therefore, I have to report that Universal energies are not hanging around waiting for people to do more research. The increase in evolutionary energies has been predicted to rise at an exponential rate of 100,000x year on year from 2007 - 2012 and explains why the US Air Force can't provide accurate data using their GPS satellite network. The reports from NASA and the rest of the space community inform us that our satellite communication infrastructure is now operating in extreme conditions, with a magnetic field that periodically opens up massive breaches to allow in massive volumes of solar and cosmic energies and the Earth's reaction to the build up of energies is to generate massive magnetospheric substorms that occur 3/4 times daily about every three hours, regardless of specific space weather events like solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Therefore we can only assume that the ionosphere used for signal propagation has now reached the point of being in a constant state of turbulence and therefore GPS accuracy can no longer be assured.

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Meltdown! A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages - and one is due in just THREE years
Daily mail, 19th April 2009
"The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire. Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies. Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years. And then, 90 seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky - they will dazzle until dawn - but the lights on the ground. Within an hour, large parts of Britain are without power."

Comment:OK, this article is quite apocalyptic but as we now know, quite possible if we get some extreme space Weather. I really don't think the extremes will be before 2012, but the Sun is confusing everybody, so who knows what will happen. However, as the Earth's cosmic environment is rapidly changing and the Earth's magnetic field now dramatically morphing, if we do get a burst of galactic energy in the form of a superwave then that would set the sun off and anything could happen. Practically, the main priority is a clean water supply, so people need to be prepared to filter their own water to give them a chance as power failures will stop water being pumped into homes. It's good that the mainstream are starting to warn people, I feel quite relieved about that. Nevertheless, it must be stated that if we had taken up certain 'alternative' power sources ie energy direct form the EM quantum vacuum, we would not be facing such a huge problem now and we can thank greedy world controllers for their lack of foresight.

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Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe
New Scientist news, 23rd March 2009
"I don't think the NAS [US National Academy of Sciences] report is scaremongering," says Mike Hapgood, who chairs the European Space Agency's space weather team. Green agrees. "Scientists are conservative by nature and this group is really thoughtful," he says. "This is a fair and balanced report." [...]

The report outlines the worst case scenario for the US. The "perfect storm" is most likely on a spring or autumn night in a year of heightened solar activity - something like 2012. Around the equinoxes, the orientation of the Earth's field to the sun makes us particularly vulnerable to a plasma strike."

Comment: Here, we have news article based on the Space community's hellish NAS report that someone describes as "fair and balanced.....". For quite some time I have been wondering if I was living on the same planet as everyone else, but now I know there are at least a few who may not have a metaphysical understanding, but at least they are far more aware than Joe Public of what could happen if solar cycle 24 gets violent. As the Earth lowers her shields to create massive breaches, like the one in July 2007 that was 4 Earths wide and 7 Earths deep, we are going to get whatever the Universe has got planned for the evolutionary destiny of mankind. By the way, when I wrote my book ACE provided a 45 minute warning, now they are saying 15-45 minutes.... so what's changed? If you have studied world mythology and warnings of Earth catastrophe, the quote about the equinoxes here is quite chilling and may help explain why certain cultures spent so much effort working out astronomical alignments. Copy: here.

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The Day the Sun Brought Darkness
NASA News, 13th March 2009
"On March 13, 1989 the entire province of Quebec, Canada suffered an electrical power blackout. Hundreds of blackouts occur in some part of North America every year. The Quebec Blackout was different, because this one was caused by a solar storm! On Friday March 10, 1989 astronomers witnessed a powerful explosion on the sun. Within minutes, tangled magnetic forces on the sun had released a billion-ton cloud of gas. It was like the energy of thousands of nuclear bombs exploding at the same time. The storm cloud rushed out from the sun, straight towards Earth, at a million miles an hour."

Comment: The Sun is still in a sunspot 'funk' but NASA still thinks they should warn people about the possibility of massive coronal mass ejections (CMEs) knocking out national power grids. Actually, to be more correct, the electrical power grid of Quebec shut down in 90 seconds after the commencement of the massive 1989 storm that became the point when scientists coined the phrase 'Space Weather'.

Well, I am quite confident that the majority of people are totally unware of what might be on the cards IF and WHEN we start to get some serious solar activity. Whatever, despite the fact that NASA's prediction record for this solar cycle has been dismal, the Solar Storm:Perfect Disaster documentary-drama encapsulates NASA's concerns, YouTube linkhere. So, as we have been also told that the Earth's magnetic shielding is now generating configurations that will generate MASSIVE geomagnetic storms, you have been warned!

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NASA Warns of 'Space Katrina' Radiation Storm
The Register, 7th January 2009
"A study funded by NASA has flagged up yet another terrible hazard for those no longer able to get excited about nuclear war, global pandemics, terrorism, climate change, economic meltdown and asteroid strike. Top space brainboxes say that even if the human race survives all those, there is a serious risk of civilisation being brought crashing to its knees by a sudden high-intensity solar radiation storm."

Comment: For the metaphysical folk, it must be now much easier to understand why there was such a fuss in the effort around 07-07-07 – 17-07-07, the period of Al Gore's "Live Earth", Tom Kenyon's Hathor inspired "Planetary Creatrix" and Shelley Yate's "Fire The Grid". According to The Hathor's, the Earth's grid or powerlines were reset to a higher "bandwidth" so that when the planet was hit with massive blasts of energy, it could cope with the higher volume of energy. We were told that this was the last opportunity to do this work. At the time, I watched with great interest and was amazed to see the NOAA data showing the Earth bathed in X-rays for about a week! The Hathors have stated that what happens now is mostly up to geophysics, which made me conclude that we have just not done enough to stop some major catastrophes. Now folks, the problem is the that our technological infrastructure is not designed to cope with billions of tons of highly charged sub-atomic plasma. At the same time, our spiritual leaders have generally failed to explain that we have changed our destiny since 1987 and the world is facing a spiritual revolution. The most important thing is to spiritually evolve and strengthen your energy field which will allow you to cope and thrive in the new "terms and conditions" that are now being imposed on our planet. Those with high consciousness, are already downloading the new light codes and updating their DNA and acting as beacons, broadcasting the new morphogenetic templates for humanity. Hence all the talk of critical mass, but I prefer to talk about the 100th monkey syndrome. I also think that there will be an evolutionary split as some cope and others deteriate, the proverbial sorting out of the wheat from the chaff. There can be no other conclusion as our science supports this metaphysical synopsis.

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NASA-Funded Study Reveals Hazards of Severe Space Weather
Spaceref.com, 5th January 2009
"WASHINGTON -- A NASA-funded study describes how extreme solar eruptions could have severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth. [...]

NASA requested the study to assess the potential damage from significant space weather during the next 20 years. National and international experts from industry, government and academia participated in the study. The report documents the possibility of a space weather event that has societal effects and causes damage similar to natural disasters on Earth.

"From a public policy perspective, it is quite significant that we have begun the extremely challenging task of assessing space weather impacts in a quantitative way," said Daniel Baker, professor and director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Baker chaired the panel that prepared the report. "Whether it is terrestrial catastrophes or extreme space weather incidents, the results can be devastating to modern societies that depend in a myriad of ways on advanced technological systems,"

said Baker. "We were delighted that NASA helped support bringing together dozens of world experts from industry and government to share their experiences and begin planning of improved public policy strategies. [...]

The sun is currently near the minimum of its 11-year activity cycle. It is expected that solar storms will increase in frequency and intensity toward the next solar maximum, expected to occur around 2012. The Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington provided funding for the study. The division seeks to understand the sun, its solar processes and the interaction of solar plasma and radiation with Earth, other planets and the universe. Understanding the connections between the sun and its planets will allow better prediction on the impacts of solar activity on humans, technological systems and even the presence of life itself in the universe."

Comment: Watch Out! Severe Space Weather on the way! Scientists finally admit there will be an impact on humans! Well, this report suggests space scientists believe we could experience "severe" space weather with a "devastating" impact on modern societies. This report even states there is an impact on humans which NASA et al. are now finally prepared to admit. The predictions for the Sun by NASA solar scientists Dipakti et al. was a late start with 50% increase in solar activity from the previous Solar Cycle 23. Well, we have a very late start to Solar Cycle 24 and so the Sun could now be gearing up for some extreme activity. The documentary-drama Solar Storm: Perfect Disaster, will explain what these scientists fear could happen, yet if you want to know 'The Big Picture', then you can get that from reading Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spiritual Evolution. So with all these recent annoucements, it seems that space scientists must now be in an extreme state of anticipation as we face unchartered waters and we align with the center of our galaxy, at the same time our solar system's protective shield is quickly fading away....

Update

• Full report Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts report, (the .pdf summary can be downloaded here)
  
  
• 2012: Leaks Found in Earth's Magnetic Field [3:32]
  YouTube/Fox News, January 2009
  

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Solar Storm:Perfect Disaster
YouTube, 28th December 2008
Comment: I was amazed to see this documentary-drama on mainstream UK TV on the 28th December. It was originally made for Discovery Channel and has been placed on Youtube in it's entirety. It starts off by informing people that there are occasional storms from the Sun that consists of a blast of electrical charged particles from the sun but it states they have "little effect" living things, which cannot possibly be true or else astronauts would not have to run for cover during solar storms when they are aboard the International Space Station. Then it goes on to dramatically depict the consequences of a massive Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun burning out transformers and taking down national power grids around the world. With the recent announcements from NASA it seems that this has to be now seriously considered as a distinct possibility. Note the comment in part 3 about "super big" geomagnetic storms only being produced by solar magnetism with a largely southward component, this is now out of date. It seems that we are now experiencing certain magnetic configurations resulting in the Earth lowering her shields to large blasts of space weather in the form of coronal mass ejections with any magnetic polarity. Also the Sun is still in a funk, the peak of solar cycle 24 will be in 2012, if not later. Meanwhile, the citizens of planet Earth are largely unaware that we are facing crunch time....

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Magnetic Field Hole Could Cripple Communications
Fox News, 19th December 2008
"Scientists have found two large leaks in Earth's magnetosphere, the region around our planet that shields us from severe solar storms. The leaks are defying many of scientists' previous ideas on how the interaction between Earth's magnetosphere and solar wind occurs: The leaks are in an unexpected location, let in solar particles in faster than expected and the whole interaction works in a manner that is completely the opposite of what scientists had thought.

The findings have implications for how solar storms affect the our planet. Serious storms, which involved charged particles spewing from the sun, can disable satellites and even disrupt power grids on Earth."

Comment: Good to see this being widely reported in the mainstream press. However, when you consider that NASA have just announced that there is a MASSIVE HOLE in the roof of the world and it's just about to start raining heavily [Space Weather], it really makes you wonder about making this announcement 1 week before christmas.

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Sun Often 'Tears Out A Wall' In Earth's Solar Storm Shield
Physorg.com, 16th December 2008
Earth's magnetic field, which shields our planet from particles streaming outward from the Sun, often develops two holes that allow the largest leaks, according to researchers sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation. "The discovery overturns a long-standing belief about how and when most of the solar particles penetrate Earth's magnetic field, and could be used to predict when solar storms will be severe. [...]

Surprisingly, recent observations by the THEMIS spacecraft fleet demonstrate that the opposite is true. "Twenty times more solar particles cross the Earth's leaky magnetic shield when the sun's magnetic field is aligned with that of the Earth compared to when the two magnetic fields are oppositely directed," said Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of one of two papers on this research, published May 2008 in Geophysical Research Letters.

Comment: This physorg.com report gives slightly more technical details on the NASA THEMIS discovery. It highlights the issue of our scientists being faced with the new phenomena of Space Weather and previously unknown geomagnetic conditions that completely confound our scientific understanding, such that current theory has to be scrapped and replaced to match the hard evidence of observational data. The observation of a massive tear 7 Earths wide by 4 Earths high is certainly incredible and in the future, it means Earth will be exposed to geomagnetic storms of billions of tons of plasma, highly charged sub-atomic particles that will result in Earth becoming increasingly electrified and spiritualised.

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A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field
NASA News, 16th December 2008
NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to "load up" the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.

"At first I didn't believe it," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction. [..]

"The opening was huge–four times wider than Earth itself," says Wenhui Li, a space physicist at the University of New Hampshire who has been analyzing the data. Li's colleague Jimmy Raeder, also of New Hampshire, says "10^27 particles per second were flowing into the magnetosphere–that's a 1 followed by 27 zeros. This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible." [...]

The size of the breach took researchers by surprise. "We've seen things like this before," says Raeder, "but never on such a large scale. The entire day-side of the magnetosphere was open to the solar wind." The circumstances were even more surprising. Space physicists have long believed that holes in Earth's magnetosphere open only in response to solar magnetic fields that point south. The great breach of June 2007, however, opened in response to a solar magnetic field that pointed north.

"To the lay person, this may sound like a quibble, but to a space physicist, it is almost seismic," says Sibeck. "When I tell my colleagues, most react with skepticism, as if I'm trying to convince them that the sun rises in the west." Here is why they can't believe their ears: The solar wind presses against Earth's magnetosphere almost directly above the equator where our planet's magnetic field points north. Suppose a bundle of solar magnetism comes along, and it points north, too. The two fields should reinforce one another, strengthening Earth's magnetic defenses and slamming the door shut on the solar wind. In the language of space physics, a north-pointing solar magnetic field is called a "northern IMF" and it is synonymous with shields up!

"So, you can imagine our surprise when a northern IMF came along and shields went down instead," says Sibeck. "This completely overturns our understanding of things." Northern IMF events don't actually trigger geomagnetic storms, notes Raeder, but they do set the stage for storms by loading the magnetosphere with plasma. A loaded magnetosphere is primed for auroras, power outages, and other disturbances that can result when, say, a CME (coronal mass ejection) hits.

The years ahead could be especially lively. Raeder explains: "We're entering Solar Cycle 24. For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway. It's the perfect sequence for a really big event."

Sibeck agrees. "This could result in stronger geomagnetic storms than we have seen in many years.""

Comment: Gaia is letting down her defences to cosmic forces! It's now SHIELDS DOWN! Here it seems that our scientists are in shock because the Earth's magnetic field is not providing the expected defence against Space Weather, but instead opening up a HUGE hole to space weather thereby accelerating evolutionary change. The date of this discovery in June 2007 during solar minimum, is particularly interesting as that coincides with metaphysical predictions of a MASSIVE exponential increase in evolutionary energies....

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Boundary Between Earth's Upper Atmosphere And Space Has Moved To Extraordinarily Low Altitudes, NASA Instruments Document
Science Daily, 16th December 2008
"Observations made by NASA instruments onboard an Air Force satellite have shown that the boundary between the Earth's upper atmosphere and space has moved to extraordinarily low altitudes. These observations were made by the Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) instrument suite, which was launched aboard the U.S. Air Force's Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite on April 16, 2008. [...]

CINDI's first discovery was, however, that the ionosphere was not where it had been expected to be. During the first months of CINDI operations the transition between the ionosphere and space was found to be at about 260 miles (420 km) altitude during the nighttime, barely rising above 500 miles (800 km) during the day. These altitudes were extraordinarily low compared with the more typical values of 400 miles (640 km) during the nighttime and 600 miles (960 km) during the day. The height of the ionosphere/space transition is controlled in part by the amount of extreme ultraviolet energy emitted by the Sun and a somewhat contracted ionosphere could have been expected because C/NOFS was launched during a minimum in the 11-year cycle of solar activity.

However, the size of the actual contraction caught investigators by surprise. In fact, when they looked back over records of solar activity, they found that C/NOFS had been launched during the quietest solar minimum since the space age began. This extraordinary circumstance is providing an unparalleled opportunity to study the connection between the interior dynamics of the Sun and the response of the Earth's space environment."

Comment: Well, the Sun is now very inactive whilst in a deep solar minimum, therefore the boundary between the ionosphere and space is not being inflated by chemical reactions caused by UV radiation from the Sun, which varies 6-8% in amount, when the Sun is active. Even so, I am wondering if there are major implications for the shielding properties of a thin ionosphere, especially as the planet is now more exposed to galactic cosmic rays. The ionosphere can be compared to the Earth's skin providing us with some protection against direct cosmic influences, so it seems this is another layer of Earth's defence that is 'evaporating'. Certainly, with the numerous atmospheric and geomagnetic changes taking place, there can be no doubt, that all life on Earth will be getting a thorough cosmic inspection. Now, it's easier to see why there are some really crackpot geoengineering schemes being proposed to place a shield in space, but it seems those who understand their relationship with universal forces and the need for spiritual evolution are much more likely to cope with the new terms and conditions for living on planet Earth.

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Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth
NASA News, 30th October 2008
"During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn't believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page. "It's called a flux transfer event or 'FTE,'" says space physicist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn't exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible." Indeed, today Sibeck is telling an international assembly of space physicists at the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, that FTEs are not just common, but possibly twice as common as anyone had ever imagined."

"Several speakers at the Workshop have outlined how FTEs form: On the dayside of Earth (the side closest to the sun), Earth's magnetic field presses against the sun's magnetic field. Approximately every eight minutes, the two fields briefly merge or "reconnect," forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth. The European Space Agency's fleet of four Cluster spacecraft and NASA's five THEMIS probes have flown through and surrounded these cylinders, measuring their dimensions and sensing the particles that shoot through. "They're real," says Sibeck."

Comment: The formation of these "magnetic portals" or Birkeland currents is very much dependent on the region of space, the amount of plasma (ionised particles) and the strength of the local magnetic field. So, this report tells us that there now exists a quick delivery mechanism for particles from the Sun to the Earth, proving that those who still believe that the Earth is isolated in space are as ignorant as those who once thought the Earth was flat. Anyway, this has major implications for when the Earth's atmosphere is suddenly struck by highly charged particles. Therefore Space Weather is now a real issue and of interest for those who are interested in staying balanced, in extreme geomagnetic conditions.

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Sun's protective 'bubble' is shrinking
The Telegraph, 19th October 2008
The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.

"Dr David McComas, principal investigator on the IBEX mission, said: "It is a fascinating interaction that our sun has with the galaxy surrounding us. This million mile an hour wind inflates this protective bubble that keeps us safe from intergalactic cosmic rays. "With less pressure on the inside, the interaction at the boundaries becomes weaker and the heliosphere as a whole gets smaller." If the heliosphere continues to weaken, scientists fear that the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including Earth, will increase. This could result in growing levels of disruption to electrical equipment, damage satellites and potentially even harm life on Earth.

But Dr McComas added that it was still unclear exactly what would happen if the heliosphere continued to weaken or what even what the timescale for changes in the heliosphere are. He said: "There is no imminent danger, but it is hard to know what the future holds. Certainly if the solar wind pressure was to continue to go down and the heliosphere were to almost evaporate then we would be in this sea of galactic cosmic rays. That could have some large effects."

Comment: Dr McComas is braver than me and has dared to suggest that the heliosphere might "evaporate". Yet, in presenting the facts mixed with speculation by NASA scientists, the general public are not being told that this is happening in conjunction with galactic cycles and Earth's precession (slow wobble on it's axis that takes approx. 26,000 years) where we are now directly aligning with the center of our galaxy, so we will be fully exposed to galactic space weather. Nevertheless, the world has now received official notification and validation of prophecies by Mayan Elders, that we are entering a New Age dominated by space or the aether. Moreover, the implications are that we will experience tremendous evolutionary change as the Earth is bombarded by increasing amounts of highly electromagnetic sources of energy, as discussed in my book, Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spiritual Evolution.

Update As I have dedicated my life to taking the message of evolutionary change being driven solar, cosmic and galactic energy, collectively known as by Space Weather, I am amazed that NASA and the mainstream press are helping me with marketing! Thanks!!

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Galileo satellite knocked offline
BBC News, 1st October 2008
"A test spacecraft for Europe's future satellite-navigation system has been rocked by a surge of space radiation. The incident forced the Giove-B satellite to adopt a "safe mode" for two weeks in which only essential power systems were kept running. European Space Agency (Esa) engineers have brought the satellite back up and are now studying what happened."

Comment:Incredible! The Galileo project has a 3.4 billion euro budget and the satellite gets knocked out for 15 days and there is not a peep in the media for 3 weeks! This article tells us that the Giove-B , and its sister demonstrator Giove-A satellites have been placed in the high-radiation environment of a medium-Earth orbit (MEO), at an altitude of 24,000km and satellite controllers wonder why it gets knocked out! I have not seen any reports of a solar flare or CME around the 9th September 2008, that could have caused this failure but since the Giove-B satellite has only been in orbit since April 2008, launched at the time of a deep solar minimum, it really makes you wonder what will happen when there is some serious space weather.

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Puzzling Property Of Night-shining Clouds At Edge Of Space Explained
Science Daily, 26th September 2008
"An explanation for a strange property of noctilucent clouds--thin, wispy clouds hovering at the edge of space at 85 km altitude--has been proposed by an experimental plasma physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), possibly laying to rest a decades-long mystery."

"Twenty-five years ago, researchers at Poker Flat, Alaska, discovered that the clouds were highly reflective to radar. This unusual property has long puzzled scientists. Bellan, reporting in the August issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, now has an explanation: the ice grains in noctilucent clouds are coated with a thin film of metal, made of sodium and iron. The metal film causes radar waves to reflect off ripples in the cloud in a manner analogous to how X-rays reflect from a crystal lattice."

Comment: Well, if you have read my book, you will know why would be particularly interested in this explanation by a plasma physicist.

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Facility set up to stop destructive solar rays
China Daily, 24th September 2008
"China has started construction of a facility in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region that can detect solar bursts. Known as the Chinese Spectral Radioheliograph (CSRJ), it will be operated by the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

When completed in 2010, the CSRJ will be able to detect solar flares and forewarn of coronal mass ejections (a plasma consisting primarily of electrons and protons) that can disable satellites and knock out power grids."

Comment: The headline is misleading, all that can be done when we get an explosion on the Sun is to provide various technology operators time to mitigate the damage on Earth, that's all.

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Ulysses Reveals Global Solar Wind Plasma Output At 50-Year Low
NASA News, 23rd September 2008
WASHINGTON -- Data from the Ulysses spacecraft, a joint NASA-European Space Agency mission, show the sun has reduced its output of solar wind to the lowest levels since accurate readings became available. The sun's current state could reduce the natural shielding that envelops our solar system.

"Galactic cosmic rays carry with them radiation from other parts of our galaxy," said Ed Smith, NASA's Ulysses project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "With the solar wind at an all-time low, there is an excellent chance the heliosphere will diminish in size and strength. If that occurs, more galactic cosmic rays will make it into the inner part of our solar system.

Comment: It's official, Earth's shielding against Space Weather is dropping quickly. The New Cosmic Age has arrived!

Well, if the Universe was going to take the opportunity to blast our planet with galactic cosmic rays, it seems that our defenses are well and truly down to do anything much about it. When I wrote my book, I was very cautious and only quoted NASA's anxiety about heightened solar activity at 2012 and so I emphasised the combination of solar, cosmic and galactic energy driving evolutionary change on Earth. Now if there is a "surge" of galactic energy or even a galactic superwave coming our way, that would coincide with promised increases in energy x 100,000 year on year from 2007 - 2012.

Update 26th September
At this time, I am in a state of awe and jubilation that my understanding that Space Weather, the culmination of solar, cosmic and galactic energy is driving evolutionary change on Earth, is being vindicated over and over again. Now that NASA has taken this unprecedented step in telling the world that EVERY LIVING THING ON THIS PLANET WILL BE SUBJECT TO MORE COSMIC & GALACTIC ENERGY IN THE YEARS AHEAD, I hope more people will start to understand that the resultant will be evolutionary change, as many scientists have claimed has occured in the past, from studying the evidence. Therefore, this must be understood by all;

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change." .....Charles Darwin

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Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low
NASA News, 23rd September 2008
Summary: "In a briefing today at NASA headquarters, solar physicists announced that the solar wind is losing power. "The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s," says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

"This is the weakest it's been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago." ....Curiously, the speed of the million mph solar wind hasn't decreased much–only 3%. The change in pressure comes mainly from reductions in temperature and density. The solar wind is 13% cooler and 20% less dense.

"What we're seeing is a long term trend, a steady decrease in pressure that began sometime in the mid-1990s," explains Arik Posner, NASA's Ulysses Program Scientist in Washington DC. ...."The solar wind isn't inflating the heliosphere as much as it used to," says McComas. "That means less shielding against cosmic rays."

In addition to weakened solar wind, "Ulysses also finds that the sun's underlying magnetic field has weakened by more than 30% since the mid-1990s," says Posner. "This reduces natural shielding even more."

Unpublished Ulysses cosmic ray data show that, indeed, high energy (GeV) electrons, a minor but telltale component of cosmic rays around Earth, have jumped in number by about 20%. These extra particles pose no threat to people on Earth's surface. Our thick atmosphere and planetary magnetic field provide additional layers of protection that keep us safe.....Also, there are controversial studies linking cosmic ray fluxes to cloudiness and climate change on Earth. That link may be tested in the years ahead.

Comment: The Terms and Conditions for Living on Planet Earth Have Changed! The "quality control inspection" is about to start in earnest! The statement about "no threat to people on Earth's surface", is rather misleading and does not take into account the DNA mutations that will be passed down from generation to generation. (Scientific FACT). Metaphysical sources are warning people to protect their energy fields and if you are familiar with my assessment and conclusions, you will know that the energy bombardment is from many different sources. I note some researchers think an energetic bombardment will only effect the brain, but this can be compared to putting a car through a carwash and saying the only thing that will get wet is the windscreen. Very poor analysis. Anyway, it seems that NASA's public denial about cosmic ray studies and the effect on climate, ignores the fact that studies are taking place in some of the top scientific institutions in the world. So, it seems the writer Dr. Tony Phillips has realised that with the Earth receiving less and less protection, we will all be soon facing increased cosmic radiation. The big question has to be: Is your energy field ready to cope?

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Solar Stake-out To Improve Space Weather Forecasts
ScienceDaily.com, 11th July 2008
"The sun is about to undergo unremitting scrutiny. About six times each minute of every hour for at least five years, a soon-to-be launched NASA satellite will measure the sun's quirky--and sometimes stormy--output of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light."

"Changes in the sun's magnetic field driven by the solar wind in turn affect the Earth's atmospheric electric currents and magnetic fields, and can cause such disruptive effects as wreaking havoc with the Nation's electric power grid. In addition, the ionization of atmosphere gases by EUV and X-ray irradiation disrupts the high-frequency radio communication and decreases the accuracy of GPS systems. Related phenomena can change the density of the upper atmosphere, increase the drag on satellites in low-Earth orbit, and knock them out of orbit."

Comment: Despite the "dead" Sun (virtually no sunspot activity at the moment), scientists are just not taking any chances. Once again, besides astronauts, there is no mention of the impact of Space weather on humans living on Earth, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

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GPS Inaccurate During Space Storms
Live Science News, 18th June 2008
"In bad weather, it can be hard to tell where you are. It turns out that your GPS unit may not be entirely sure, either, if the weather in space is bad. It is now known that space weather -- specifically electrical disturbances in our planet's ionosphere -- can throw off the accuracy of GPS units appreciably. Scientists are working to remedy the situation."

Comment: There is an "armada" of space probes parked up in space watching the Sun. The Sun was supposed to be out of solar minimum by now and on the way to causing historic disruption to the inhabitants of Earth, hence the perceived need for this article.

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Cosmic threat to tomorrow's computers
ZDNet.co.uk, 5th February 2008
"...cosmic rays of the sort pouring down to Earth from exploding galaxies, neutron stars and other energetic events. These are largely shielded by the atmosphere, but more than enough get through to sea level to cause problems. Engagingly, this also means that SER goes up with altitude - you'll get five times as many just 2,600 feet above sea level, and if you're living in Denver (5,280 feet ASL) expect ten times as many.

Cosmic rays are now the biggest source of soft errors - and they're common enough that on average, a gigabyte of RAM will have one soft error every couple of weeks."

Comment: Why worry about computer crashes, when you have your own DNA to consider.

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Sun shield to let space crews boldly go to Mars
Scientists simulate solar wind in Oxfordshire lab: Magnets give protection against cancer risk
Guardian Unlimited, 28th January 2008
"The team simulated the solar wind in the lab using an intense beam of charged high-energy particles. They placed a powerful magnet in this beam to investigate how effective it was at deflecting the particles. Bamford said it worked perfectly. The pinky glow of the plasma beam curved around the magnet just as the team had predicted.

"It seems like quite a simple thing to do and it is, but what we are trying to do is put numbers on how effective this is," said Bamford. "I think a lot of people in space science didn't necessarily believe it could work as well as it did - and it worked superbly well."

Comment: Now that "Space Weather" is becoming an issue, humans are also required to build up their magnetic fields and the only way to do that is to evolve. See Tuning the Diamonds – sample page here.

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Beginning of 11-year cycle of space weather could affect GPS satellites
Kansas City Star, 9th January 2008
"Memo to the U.S. military, airlines, power companies and all others who depend on global positioning satellites and, well, technology to keep life humming: Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say that within the next few years Earth will be in a powerful astronomical cycle with enough technological consequences to create a neat scientific thriller. Call it Space Weather."

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Sunspot Is Harbinger Of New Solar Cycle, Increasing Risk For Electrical Systems
SpaceDaily.com, 8th January 2008
ScienceDaily (Jan. 8, 2008) – A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals and even cell phones and ATM transactions, showed signs it was on its way late Thursday when the cycle's first sunspot appeared in the sun's Northern Hemisphere, NOAA scientists said.

"This sunspot is like the first robin of spring," said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. "In this case, it's an early omen of solar storms that will gradually increase over the next few years."

Comment: Maybe they should have mentioned that as humans are electromagnetic, there is an impact on our subtle bodies thus effecting us mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

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Mysterious Clouds More Common Due to Climate Change?
National Geographic News, December 11, 2007
"Mysterious "night-shining clouds" that light up the polar skies have become more luminous and frequent in recent years–and climate change may be the culprit, scientists announced Monday."
br> "But "in all honesty, we don't know of any other plausible reasons why it wouldn't be global climate change," he said. "If that's true, that says not only are we changing the atmosphere where we're living, we're changing a very remote, rarified part of our atmosphere."

Comment: I suggest these scientists check out the increase of "star dust" in our solar system, which is predicted to dramatically increase until 2012, according to the European Space Agency.

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Strange Space Weather over Africa
NASA News, 13th November 2007
"Something strange is happening in the atmosphere above Africa.... The Africa Space Weather Workshop kicked off Nov. 12th with nearly 100 scientists and students in attendance. The strange phenomenon that brings all these people together is the ion plume – "a newly discovered form of space weather," says University of Colorado atmospheric scientist and Workshop co-organizer Tim Fuller-Rowell." Researchers liken the plumes to smoke billowing out of a factory smokestack–except instead of ordinary ash and dust, ion plumes are made of electrified gas floating so high above ground they come in contact with space itself. "The plumes appear during geomagnetic storms and they can interfere with satellite transmissions, airline navigation and radio communications," says Fuller-Rowell. Indeed, it is their effect on GPS signals that led to the discovery of plumes over North America just a few years ago.

Comment:Very interesting developments for those who understand that Space weather and not CO2 is driving climate change. Update: Electric Universe theorist response.

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'Polar rain' is triggering new kind of aurora
NewScientist.com, 8th November 2007
"A previously undiscovered type of aurora could be brightening the skies over the poles. That's the conclusion from satellite images of the poles showing the new phenomenon above Antarctic in 2004."

Comment: A new type of space weather, high energy particles on a fast-route from the Sun and no mention magnetic reconnection, which is the currently evolving theory that ignores standard plasma physics.

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'Don't trust Sat Nav' warnings
Reuters, 29th August 2007
The first official road signs to warn drivers about the dangers of trusting their satellite navigation devices (satnavs) were introduced in a Welsh village. "Some have reported that software glitches have sent drivers down one-way streets or up impassable mountain tracks. One ambulance driver with a faulty satnav drove hundreds of miles in the wrong direction while transferring a patient from one hospital in Ilford east of London to another just eight miles (13km) away."

Comment: When solar activity starts to kick in and really mess up GPS signals, this problem will get a whole lot worse!

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Reasons For Mysterious Computer Crashes
Rense.com, 20th May 2007
Do you get that "blue screen of death" on your PC now and then for no reason, requiring you to reboot? Does your Apple give you that infamous fatal error message requiring you to re-boot? You're not alone. Defective software can certainly cause these events to happen. The hardware industry is now pointing their finger at Microsoft - while Microsoft points their finger right back in a very crafty way.

Comment:Short article here that suggests reasons for the increase in mysterious computer crashes and cosmic rays are cited as a possible cause. Well, car manufacturers have already realised that there is a serious problem with cosmic rays inducing errors in car electronics and here we see that software and hardware manufactuturers would rather point the finger at each other, possibly because of the financial implications of overcoming this problem. Well, our planet is being inundated with galactic cosmic rays in the process of evolutionary change. Extremely high energy particles can set off "extensive air showers" which result in billions of secondary particles arriving at ground level. Interesting that Microsoft's report for engineers was "confidential", I wonder why?

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Scientists discover source of killer electrons
Hindustan Times, 18 July 2007
Using satellite detectors to probe the outer radiation belt, the team found that killer electrons occur extremely unevenly. Such localized peaks in intensity, the researcher said, could only be caused by electromagnetic waves accelerating electrons to "killer" status within the radiation belt.
"I think we show conclusively they do not come from further out (in space). They are accelerated in the radiation belt itself."

Comment: The Killer Electrons are a worry to the satellite communication industry because they kill satellites worth 250-500 million dollars. Just imagine trying to run a high tech war when you can't rely on GPS or if your satellites will be operational.....

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Mysterious Clouds Creeping Out of the Arctic
News, 28 June 2007
"It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means," said atmospheric scientists James Russell III of Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. "These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed."

Comment: My hunch is that we are seeing the effects of the increase of cosmic dust in our solar system. The European Space Agency tells us that this cosmic dust will increase three fold from 2005 - 2013. Nobody wants to talk about the effect on our Sun either.

Computer crash hits space station
BBC News, 14 June 2007
Russian computers controlling the International Space Station's (ISS) orientation and supply of oxygen and water have failed, Nasa officials say.

Comment:This is the exact same reason why the Russian Mir Space station was abandoned, the computers were being fried over and over again by Spaceweather. Shielding ordinary commercial computers against even the mild radiation of low earth orbit has been officially described by NASA as "futile". The prevailing belief is that if the computer crashes then it can be rebooted. For critical systems like oxygen supply space agencies use special radiation-hardened computer chips which are obviously more expensive to produce. Yet down here on Earth Spaceweather is becoming a problem and software and hardware manufacturers are arguing about who will take responsibility for solving this problem and delivering more expensive robust solutions to the consumers.

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Screaming CMEs Warn of Radiation Storms
Physorg.com, 28th May 2007
A CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) is a solar body slam to our high-tech civilization. CMEs begin when the sun launches a billion tons of electrically conducting gas (plasma) into space at millions of miles per hour. A CME cloud is laced with magnetic fields, and CMEs directed our way smash into Earth's magnetic field. If the CME magnetic fields have the correct orientation, they dump energy into Earth's magnetic field, causing magnetic storms. These storms can cause widespread blackouts by overloading power line equipment with extra electric current. But wait; there's more.

Comment:Another Space Weather discovery, that will allow space scientists to predict trouble ahead. This time scientists have worked out that Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), which generated a radio signal also produced radiation storms, but CMEs without a radio signal do not. CMEs begin when the sun launches a billion tons of electrically conducting gas (plasma) into space at millions of miles per hour.

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The Ions are Coming!
YubaNet.com, 28th May 2007
A scientist using the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has found a way to forecast solar radiation storms. The new method offers as much as one hour advance warning, giving astronauts time to seek shelter and ground controllers time to safeguard their satellites when a storm is approaching.

"Solar radiation storms are notoriously difficult to predict-they often take us by surprise," says physicist Arik Posner who developed the technique. "But now we've found a way to anticipate these events." [...] Spacecraft and satellites would also benefit. Subatomic particles striking CPUs and other electronics can cause onboard computers to suddenly reboot or issue nonsense commands. If, say, a satellite operator knows that a storm is coming, he can put his craft in a protective "safe mode" until the storm passes.

Comment:It just amazes me that thousands of scientists are busy researching the new phenomena of space weather and the massive impact on our modern technological world, knocking out satellites, generating huge currents that can effect power grids and causing pipeline corrosion. Yet poor Joe Bloggs, the man on the street, is not aware that there is an impact on his consciousness when geomagnetic fields are wildly fluctuating, nevermind that environmental frequencies have already been pumped up, effecting his everyday reactions to emotional events. Then to add to this situation, the Universe is going to get serious in the very near future and people with weak magnetic fields are going to really suffer. Does anyone care about Mr Joe Bloggs? Well, I do, I wrote a book!

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"Night-shining" clouds bring mystery
Denver Post, 4th April 2007
Comment: More climate change mystery. Noctilucent clouds are very beautiful clouds that form at night, very high up in our atmosphere and require freezing temperatures. Until recently they were confined to the polar regions but now they are creeping towards the equator, getting brighter and more numerous. Our scientists are mystified but don't understand their existence. Again, more evidence that our scientists don't understand the basic origin of atmospheric features like clouds, but we are told that whatever, climate change is due to human activity!

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