Hi Martin,

Good to see a bit of perspective on this issue.  In 1989, there was a 
serious issue with a sever solar storm.  But time has not stood still since 
then.  More recently launched satellites have been hardened to withstand 
greater solar activity.   Some though certainly not all power grids have 
been strengthened against such events.  Anything is possible.  We could walk 
out the door tomorrow and one of us could theoretically be hit on the head 
by a meteorite large enough to kill us.  I wouldn't waste time worrying 
about it.

Just think of all the things predicted in the past several decades that 
didn't happen.

In 1970, The Late Great Planet Earth predicted  the tribulation and end of 
the age by 1988; didn't happen but made Hal Lindsey several tens of millions 
of dollars.
In 1989, Father Malachi martin assured us that a blaming bolloid would 
strike the earth on or about June 28, and destroy civilization--evil for its 
acceptance of homosexuality (we weren't burning them at the stake in 1989)

Heaven's gate, Jonestown, ETC. ETC. and so on.

And then there was y2k; enough said!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin McCormick" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 12:31 PM
Subject: Solar flare and Calamities, Not So Fast!


I read the link recently posted about the Solar flare. It is
pretty good, but we should be careful about dire warnings. We
have had bad Solar storms in the past and they did, in fact,
disrupt some power and telecommunications systems but it is more
likely to be annoying and frustrating than disastrous. Some
Solar storms disrupt the Earth's magnetic field and make it seem
to move around. The huge Solar storm in 1989 actually caused
magnetic compasses in the North Sea to be off by as much as 5
degrees which made Petrobium operations in the North Sea stop
for a while.

What can happen when the magnetic field varies is that
long runs of wire such as telephone and electrical cables start
to behave like generators. One would see low DC voltages at high
currents begin to ebb and flow in the wires. It is possible to
reach several amps of what might look like DC on the wire. The
current would rise and fall and reverse polarity so you could
really call it an ultra-low-frequency alternating current.

A really bad thing that would not immediately be
apparent is that electrical currents would also try to flow in
long pipelines under ground and water and those currents would cause
electrolysis of the metal which could eventually lead to early
failure.

As for 2012, the only Solar disturbances we can predict
are the ones we just had. In other words, we can't predict
individual events ten minutes from now much less a year.

As for those big currents in long wires, they are more
likely to occur in the far North and the far South as
geomagnetic disturbances cause more disruption in Polar regions
than they do in most of the world.

The power systems that have been effected suffered
interesting failures such as tripped breakers and maybe even the
magnetic saturation of the iron cores in power transformers, but
they were able to restore power eventually.

I am saying, annoying and possibly expensive, yes but
cataclysmic ending of civilization, not likely.

Martin