2012: Killer Solar Flares Are a Physical Impossibility, Experts Say

Misconception has a wonderful way of capturing imagination and spawning all manner of attention grabbing headlines suggesting imminent and immediate distress, threat and mayhem.

Novelty “news” articles abound and probably serve to mask and distort many fundamental truths which unfortunately become buried in the alternate “media” frenzy so popular on the Internet. The result is an erosion of credibility for events and circumstance deserving of better treatment.

The whole topic of the so-called Mayan 2012 doomsday mythology is typical.

One such urban myth concerns the destruction of our planet and life through a mega blast of plasma radiation originating from the sun. While such blasts, called C.M.E (Coronal Mass Ejection) are not uncommon and can deliver an energy blow to earths protective magnetosphere, the sun ejections present no direct destructive power to life or the planet itself, although many labor under the misconception it could.

That is not to say a CME event could not create a huge threat in the form of secondary reactions to it.

For example, extreme instances of CME blasts do distort the earths protective magnetosphere much like a fist can punch a water bed, the distortion of the magnetosphere then buckles other layers of our atmosphere and therefore influences and changes the flow of high altitude winds called “jet-streams”, which in turn influence what we would think of as “local weather” systems and conditions.

Often extreme weather outbreaks are directly attributable to and associated with CME activity of the sun.

In a more sinister example, CME of sufficient energy and force can and do have a destructive effect on electrical and communications systems here on earth.

In a worst case scenario our satellites, electrical grid systems and electronics components can be destroyed or seriously damaged as a result of electromagnetic pulses generated by CME activity.

Damage by sun explosions can be said to be a secondary threat to the lifestyle and even survival of humanity dependent upon electricity.

Loss of electricity for an extended period would be far more than inconvenient for millions of inhabitants whose reliance on electricity is inclusive of environmental controls such as  heat and cooling, access to fuels such as gasoline and natural gas, potable water supply and food source. Loss of electricity would certainly spell final demise for millions of people and so such an eventuality should not be taken lightly.

2012: Killer Solar Flares Are a Physical Impossibility, Experts Say

(Even this “legitimate” headline is misleading if not put into context.)

Anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through such a solar maximum with no harm. In addition, the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in late 2013 or early 2014, not 2012.
Most importantly, however, there simply isn’t enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth.

This is not to say that space weather can’t affect our planet. The explosive heat of a solar flare can’t make it all the way to our globe, but electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles certainly can. Solar flares can temporarily alter the upper atmosphere creating disruptions with signal transmission from, say, a GPS satellite to Earth causing it to be off by many yards. Another phenomenon produced by the sun could be even more disruptive.

Known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), these solar explosions propel bursts of particles and electromagnetic fluctuations into Earth’s atmosphere. Those fluctuations could induce electric fluctuations at ground level that could blow out transformers in power grids. The CME’s particles can also collide with crucial electronics onboard a satellite and disrupt its systems.

So, while we should not fear an X-class flare directly, we should pay attention to the serious secondary consequences represented by it notably…

… extreme weather conditions and a potential loss of electricity for an extended period of time.

Stay tuned…

Read more at Beyond Prophecy