HERE COMES THE SUN - (WITH A Vengeance)

I'm not a physicist, so its not my domain. But, could the charged particles, when they arrive, be large enough in collective magnitude to generate an EMP event? I seem to recall former solar flares causing disruptions.

EMP, according to many, can cause widespread destruction of electronic devices that are not sufficiently shielded or protected with surge arresters.

If this was a large eruption, we could be looking at chaos on Monday or Tuesday. Heavens, imagine all the I-Phones and I-Pads getting zapped all at once. Would that be covered under the fruit basket warranty?

 

Solar physicists need funding, too. What better way to attract more funding than to scare everyone with dire warnings about how everything is going to get frizzled by solar flares.

I'm not convinced that EMP from solar activity is any substantial threat to small battery powered consumer electronics. And most other stuff runs off of wall-warts these days not direct AC plug-in. At most I think some wallwarts would get fried. Wallwarts are cheaper than good surge protectors, and more sensitive to surges, so no big deal.

I don't think people are going to want to go back to vacuum tube electronics and iron core transformers with 16 gauge sheet metal chassis' to ensure their electronic can take an EMP. More likely they'll just throw away their fried gizmos and get new ones. People upgrade their electronics about once a year now, anyway. There must be millions of old cell phones tossed in the trash every day.

Hey, Lee, I just had an idea. Let's sell "Solar Flare" insurance to hams. I bet there's plenty that would be . . . uh, smart enough . . to buy it, that we could retire earlier and live comfortably for years. Special rate for Hospital Hams (Hospihams, as I call them). I'll market the Washington DC area and you can have the rest of the country.

I think more of a concern is the large-scale stuff where you could get large induced currents. Power grids.

 

I get a big laugh when reading about the solar weather predictions. Scientist can't even figure out the weather on this planet. They are not that smart.

I can predict with certainty however, that the sun will do whatever it wants.

K2WH

 

due to the shifting of the current belts in the ocean, yes ?

 

besides earth

It's my understanding that other planets in the solar system are showing signs of "global warming" in the form of melting icecaps and such... How can CO2 levels on earth have anything to do with that?

Inquiring minds want to know...

 

I love audience participation!

It took exactly 3 replies for this to become a discussion on global warming...

by the way, what's up that ice shelf the size of Manhattan breaking of Greenland?

Sunspots, schmunspots, I'm just having a blast


IST
KC0GDN

 

Hey, Ron. Great idea!! They say Warren Buffet makes most of his profits from his GEICO subsidiary, so insurance definitely could be profitable.

I seem to remember a couple of power companies in Florida that sold insurance after customers paid for surge arrester installations.

You're right about the wall warts, whether conventional or switchers being the most likely points of failure on electronic widgets. It would take one heck of an H field for the small area of a handheld device.

Yes, true. Very long lines. But, those have plenty of surge arresters at terminals and sometimes in between in places like Florida. Of course, the arresters could go, causing some outages, if the energy is sufficient. If they are gap-types, and they tend to be in very high transmission voltages, they self-destruct and result in no protection......think like very large ceramic hand grenades. So, multiple hits could do some damage to transformers, circuit breakers, capacitors, etc, if brought back on line without them. Lower voltage types on wood poles are usually gap and MOV combinations.

 

I was just reading about old tests done with PRC-25's and PRC-77's
and a HEMP simulator.

(PRC-25 = PRC-77 but PRC-77 had a transistor final PRC-25 had a tube final), and apparently with a HEMP (mostly not the same as a solar event), the PRC-77s did fine, the PRC-25 did not.

We may be over-generalizing what would or would not survive certain events.

I really wish there was a gloom and doom forum to focus on this kind of thing.

Joel

 

There's no worry about EMP from solar flares -- any solar event is far too gradual to produce any sort of "pulse." Solar-related events do one of the following:
1) High-energy protons arriving 15 minutes to ~hours after a significant flare can cause deep charging or sudden event upsets in satellites at GEO orbits. These can range from relatively minor occurances as a satellite going into safe mode, to uncommanded satellite operations, or even spacecraft failure. Even if nothing happens, high proton fluxes "erode" solar cells, decreasing their lifetime. Spacecraft at LEO are relatively protected, except near auroral latitudes, though astronauts in the shuttle or ISS could be exposed to higher levels of ionizing radiation.
2) High electron fluxes can cause surface charging events on GEO satellites, perhaps at LEO in the auroral latitudes. Again, these will cause satellite anomalies (perhaps as bad as going into "safe" mode), but generally not fatal.
3) X-rays cause increase D-region ionization, leading to shortwave fades, perhaps minor fading of satellite signals passing through the ionosphere. Again, astronauts could be exposed to higher levels of radiation. In severe events, even high-altiude aircraft can receive higher than normal X-ray levels.
4) Eventally, plasma from the solar event could reach the earth, causing extreme fluctuations in the earth's geomagnetic field. This is what induces currents in power lines, pipelines, etc.; causing difficulties on the ground. This also causes small-scale disturbances in the ionosphere (known as scintellation) which can cause problems with satellite-to-ground communciations (data drop-outs, data rate reduction, etc.) and can induce large errors in GPS accuracy.

That's the short version... the solar events we've been seeing over the last week or so are pretty minor -- way to minor to cause any serious problems. The issue with "zombie sat" is a pretty rare fluke for this level of solar activity. However, if we see a return to some of the high levels of solar activity we've seen before we had such wide-spread technology, we could see some interesting problems... Stay tuned!

 

We are not in a global warming but we are experiencing the beginning of a MINOR ICE AGE. This was predicted in Scientific American Magazine many years ago. A Minor Ice age is not necessarily ice, but strange weather conditions, like cold where it was warm, warmer where it was colder, more earth disturbances (volcano eruptions, earthquakes, etc). I think if you look at whats been happening thats exactly what we are experiencing. I did not read in that article that sunspots had anything to do with the ''minor ice age''.

w6vnr

 

Well, that was a surprise...

I expected that from our current Commander-in-Grief or W6EM..

Ya live, ya learn, ya get surprises!

73

Steve, K4YZ

 

I was addressing the ability of tube type finals to provide protection against pulses... There was a common misconception that tube finals provide more protection than solid state ones, which may not be the case.

Joel

 

Indeed the summers

are much warmer, but, you just wait till the winter comes, it will indeed
be felt !

 

Record Summer Warmth

The global record summer warmth of 2010 is being caused by La Nina not CO2.

In the nino3.4 zone in the eastern Pacific Ocean the temperature from the surface down to 300 meters has cooled rapidly from a strong El Nino (+1.9 deg C) state to a moderate La Nina (-1.2 deg C) state.

This creates abnormally strong and sinking high pressure (Hadley Cell)around the globe in the mid latitudes and therefore hotter and drier than normal weather.

I'm a retired meterologist and space plasma physicist. Check out my weather web page at http://www.lakelandfloridaweather.com

 

Great Thread!

I think we all long for the days when 10-20 watts and a dipole and DX to the South Pacific or more was easy. I hope we see those days so we can relive the excitement when many of us were kids and getting into ham radio. We all share a great interest in this science hobby that in some ways shows how little we control in life. Keep up the predictions and I'll fire up my 10 meter beacon when the propogation starts to occur.

Maybe my 5 watt beacon can repell the alien invasion from space and send a counter pulse of plasma back to the sun to recharge it? I only stopped operating it because of the ET QSLs received from outside the galaxy and I was concerned that I might get triangulated by the Klingons and they might send a star ship here to invade or send a photon torpedo and nail the sun for good.

Serious replies only...73s...John WB4JHS

Orlando Florida
Epicenter for the paranormal, stagnant retention ponds and where IQs are often below sea level