It is finally a sunny day in Aucklun, Nu Zulun with an almost clear blue sky.The sun is shining and it made me think of one of the most serious threats we face making so-called anthropogenic global warming fade by comparison.
You may of may not be aware of a recent increase in solar flares. These coincide with an increasing number of sunspots.
Well, there is also such a thing as a solar storm - the mother, if you will of all solar flares. With these storms there are Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). These things hurtle through space to wards the earth at millions of miles per hour.
Back in 1859 there was such a storm which paralysed telegraph machines.
The CME took 18 hours to reach the earth.
Such a storm today could have a disastrous effect on all our electric systems and repairs would take months if not year. Transformers blown to kingdom come.
In the words of the immortal Frazer form Dad's Army : We're doooomed I tell you, .... we're all dooomed!"
The sun works on an eleven year cycle of solar minimums and solar maximums. The next solar maximum is 2012.
It is sobering to think on just how dependent we are on electricity and just how little we are prepared to survive without it compared to our ancestors.
Will the lights go out in 2012 and not come back for months?
No comments:
Post a Comment