November 19 2013 Breaking News Extreme Solar Flares could cause electromagnetic pulse This video will educate you on all the hype about Extreme Solar flares and the potential of a electromagnetic pulse knocking out our planets archaic electrical grid system that we depend on - just a simple over use of the grid system causes black outs so no doubt it is very fragile to solar radiation that gets through our atmosphere. The general consensus in the community of scientists and military who deal with EMP (electromagnetic pulse) on a day to day basis, is that a solar or military EMP is not a question of if, it is only a question of when. An EMP takes out electric grids taking out major cities very dangerous for mankind, On November 5, 2013, the Sun brightened when an X-class solar flare—the largest so far this year—burst from a large, active sunspot. The flare followed a series of more than a two dozen flares that have occurred since October 21, though the November 5 flare originated in a different active region. The event was classified an X3.3 flare, falling into the category of most intense explosions. This view of the flare comes from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and it shows the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light (blending 193 and 131 angstrom observations). The long streak of light is likely due to solar protons saturating the imager. The unusual color is due to the blending of false colors that are assigned to each wavelength by solar physicists to distinguish the different bands. The image is from 5:12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (22:12 UTC), the peak of the short flare. Since solar flares heat and distort the ionosphere, they can interfere with radio communication. The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center warned of a potential blackout of shortwave radio communication for about an hour after the November 5 flare. This type of communication is often used for long-range aviation, amateur radio, and emergency communication. Beyond radio interference, the flare did not affect Earth. The eruption that produced this flare also sent out a coronal mass ejection (CME), which is a mass of charged particles and magnetic field energy that bursts from the Sun like a volcanic eruption. Material from a coronal mass ejection takes two to three days to reach Earth, but in this case, the coronal mass ejection is going to miss Earth. Coronal mass ejections interact with Earth's magnetic field to generate auroras and magnetic storms. In 1859 a huge solar storm burned out telegraph wires across Europe and the United States. Dr Stuart Clark has written a book, The Sun Kings, about when that happened. He says that the "Carrington flare", as it was known, "smothered two-thirds of the Earth's skies in a blood-red aurora a night later, and crippled all of global navigation and global communication, such as it was at that time. Compasses span uselessly and the telegraph network went down as phantom electricity surged through the wire." The sun had indeed been running at a record high for the latter half of the 20th century, and has now died down to its lowest level for a century. But Dr Clark warns that "average levels of solar activity has fallen does not mean that the Sun is immune from large flares or even giant ones. Low average levels of activity may even promote the giant flares. "Perhaps like earthquakes, when there are constant flares/tremors the energy is dissipated evenly over long periods of time. But in periods of quiet, that energy can build up and then suddenly be released in a giant event. This remains speculation, however." if a proper "Carrington event" happens again, it has the potential to be far more problematic now than in 1859 when electric communication was barely in its infancy. Dr Clark says sooner or later we should expect there to be another Carrington event and that is what these scientists [at NASA] are trying to prevent. Legislation in the US has just passed Congress to help harden the grid against solar flares." So -- it's a real thing, and we should be concerned. But preventive measures can be taken -- satellites can be sent offline during big flares, power grids and communication networks can be shielded against electromagnetic radiation and so on. As Dr Bamford says: "The extreme events like the 1859 Carrington Event are 1-in-100-year probabilities, about the same probability as a storm of the level of Katrina hitting New Orleans -- and New Orleans did not build their defences to withstand the extreme-magnitude. The Katrina catastrophy is small compared to getting hit with solar flares. NOAA Space W Dr Ruth Bamford, a plasma physicist at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, agrees: "The sun has been particularly quiet for the last few years in a protracted solar minimum. It has just woken up, as it were, and started its usual 11-year cycle a bit later than most."

• published: 19 Nov 2013
• views: 1714