The National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) has developed the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model to analyze past solar cycles. Based on its 98 percent accuracy in back-testing, scientists predict the coming sunspot cycle, number 24, could be 30-50% stronger than the last one.
This article touches on some of the mayhem that could be in store:
An 11-year epoch of increasingly severe solar storms that could fry power grids, disrupt cell-phone calls, knock satellites back to Earth, endanger astronauts in space, and force commercial airliners to change their routes to protect their radio communications and to avoid deadly solar radiation could begin as soon as this fall, scientists announced Monday.Power grid disruptions such as the Quebec example above are caused when these storms introduce DC into AC power lines, tripping circuit breakers and/or causing transformers to overheat and fail.
When the solar cycle reaches its peak in 2012, it will hurl at Earth mammoth solar storms with intense radiation and clouds of high-speed subatomic particles millions of miles across, the scientists said.
A storm of that magnitude could short-circuit a world increasingly dependent on giant utilities and satellite communications networks. Such a storm in 1989 caused power grids to collapse, causing a five-hour blackout in Quebec.
In addition, these stronger geomagnetic storms, which have caused havoc in the past, will batter ever-finer electronic circuitry, which is correspondingly more sensitive to disruption.
Science trivia? Absolutely, but don't forget it.
