USGS Monitors Earth’s Magnetic Field to Prepare Citizens for Magnetic Storms

Everyone is familiar with weather systems on Earth like rain, wind and snow. But space weather – variable conditions in the space surrounding Earth – has important consequences for our lives inside Earth’s atmosphere.
Solar activity occurring miles outside Earth’s atmosphere, for example, can trigger magnetic storms on Earth. These storms are visually stunning, but they can set our modern infrastructure spinning.
On Jan. 19, scientists saw a solar flare in an active region of the Sun, along with a concentrated blast of solar-wind plasma and magnetic field lines known as a coronal mass ejection that burst from the Sun’s surface and appeared to be headed for Earth.
When these solar winds met Earth’s magnetic field, the interaction created one of the largest magnetic storms on Earth recorded in the past few years. The storm peaked on Jan. 24, just as another storm began.
“These new storms, and the storm we witnessed on Sept 26, 2011, indicate the up-tick in activity coming with the Earth’s ascent into the next solar maximum,” said USGS geophysicist Jeffrey Love.” This solar maximum is the period of greatest activity in the solar cycle of the Sun, and it is predicted to occur sometime in 2013, which will increase the amount of magnetic storms on Earth.
Magnetic storms, said Love, are a space weather phenomenon responsible for the breathtaking lights of the aurora borealis, but also sometimes for the disruption of technology and infrastructure our modern society depends on. Large magnetic storms, for example, can interrupt radio communication, interfere with global-positioning systems, disrupt oil and gas well drilling, damage satellites and affect their operations, and even cause electrical blackouts by inducing voltage surges in electric power grids. Storms can also affects airline activity — as a result of last weekend’s storm, both Air Canada and Delta Air Lines rerouted flights over the Arctic bound for Asia as a precautionary measure. Although the storm began on the 19th of January, it did not peak until January 24th.

Read full article here - http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/the-usgs-monitors-earth’s-magnetic-field-to-prepare-citizens-for-magnetic-storms/?from=image

Snow buries parts of eastern, central Europe

BUCHAREST, Romania — Parts of eastern and central Europe were hit hard by heavy snow and frigid temperatures for a second day Thursday, leaving hundreds trapped in cars, dozens of communities without power and at least one person dead. Some areas saw as much as 10 feet of snow.

Some 340 people were evacuated overnight from stranded vehicles on roads across Romania, Prime Minister Emil Boc said, and another 100 people were transported during the day to Bucharest after getting stuck on two major roads.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46154329/ns/weather/

Global Cooling Coming?

Global Cooling Coming? Archibald uses solar and surface data to predict 4.9°C fall

David Archibald, polymath, makes a bold prediction that temperatures are about to dive sharply (in the decadal sense). He took the forgotten correlation that as solar cycles lengthen and weaken, the world gets cooler. He refined it into a predictive tool, tested it and published in 2007. His paper has been expanded on recently by Prof Solheim in Norway, who predicts a 1.5°C drop in Central Norway over the next ten years.
Our knowledge of they solar dynamo is improving, and David adds the predicted solar activity ’til 2040 to the analysis. Normal solar cycles are 11 years long, but the current one (cycle 24) is shaping up to be 17 years (unusually long), and using historical data from the US, David predicts a 2.1°C decline over Solar Cycle 24 followed by a further 2.8°C over Solar Cycle 25. That adds up to a whopping 4.9°C fall in temperate latitudes over the next 20 years. We can only hope he’s wrong. As David says ” The center of the Corn Belt, now in Iowa, will move south to Kansas.”

Read the full article here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/01/global-cooling-coming-archibald-uses-solar-and-surface-data-to-predict-4-9c-fall/

UK preparedess month September 2012

In 2007 I proposed to set aside December as a month of UK National Preparedness towards an awareness and understanding of preparedness activities in readiness for disasters and emergencies.

From this year, 2012, I propose to change the month to September in order that we will align with the US-FEMA preparedness month of September. Hopefully this way we will attract and encourage more interest and responses and to discuss ways and means of readiness/responses and preparations in times of emergency and disasters

 

Go here to the Preparedness month site http://ambilacuk.com/safesurvival/december.html

 

Are we going to feel the economic and global ice cold freeze in 2012?

Last year, 2011, the US for example, experienced 99 major natural disasters alone, causing claims totalling 35 Billion bucks in insurance  - and still yet more claims are in the offering.
2011 witnessed  major global disasters such as floods, fires, earthquakes and tsunami - all of which are yet to feel the backlash on our economic climate.
Russia, one of the three main world grain suppliers, suffered massive fires, resulting in a large drop in grain supply and thus for Russia to stop grain exports.
The same story unfolds in many other parts of the world - in addition, with the issues and problems with the Euro, 2012 looks to give way to some scary economic situations.

The tragic earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan, caused not only many deaths, but opened up a barrel of questions on the use of Nuclear power plant operations...the radiation has still not been cleaned up, and there are many reports of the West coast of US with high radiation counts, and only this week we have observed many tons of wreckage from Fukishima being washed up on the coasts of British Columbia..

All of the above is causing what we know as the 'Domino effect' - eventually all our reserves will be depleted. This has been known for some time, which is why many Economists and bankers in the know have already left American soil for more eastern shores - and the opnes in the know and still at home are preparing to bunker down and buying up major shares, food supplies and equipment to ride the storm out.

I have not even mentioned the strong possibility of severe weather events that are forecast for 2012, which will also affect our daily lives and cost of living.
My advice, for what it is worth, is to start to prepare now, there is no harm in prepping up, and to sort out your larder and home supplies - remember B safe B Prepared B wise SURVIVE

Electro magnetic pulse - you have been zapped!

Following on from my 2012 introduction, readers may find this article I wrote some time ago - it is a chapter in the on-going and developing freely available on-line publication 'Are You Prepared for a 'Jericho-type' Event?' (From the idea of the TV series 'Jericho' where the premise is based upon the triggering of a number of nuclear blasts on US soil.

This chapter concerns an EMP - or Electro Magnetic Pulse event, whether caused by a major solar electromagnetic storm or man-made, the result is the same.... I include the intro here with the direct link.

Chapter 5 - High Power Microwave HPM - or, Get out of the Kitchen!

 

You awake one morning and discover your digital radio alarm clock is blank, not even flashing the display of '12:00' which normally occurs when there has been a temporary power outage. You reach for your non digital watch and discover you have overslept by 45 minutes - cursing you try the other radios and TV in the house and find... nadder! you try the house lights, again nadder -You check your mobile phone, no signal, so you try and ring a family member from the house landline to see what has happened..again..silence on the line!

You go outside and notice a few neighbours across the street attempting to start their cars, with no success, you also notice there are a few vehicles lying abandoned in the middle of the road. You try to start your vehicle - absolutely dead as a dodo! Suddenly, in the distance you hear a vehicle, not the sound of your 'normal' modern day engine relying on all those complex computerised chips, but the typical engine noise of a carburettor and plug system. It is old Joe who runs a VW workshop in town, trundling down the road in his pride and joy a 1969 VW transporter.

You scratch your head and go inside to make that morning cup of coffe and curse when you realise again there is no power.

You now realise someting very serious and odd has occurred!

This would be the initial effect of an Electro Magnetic pulse (EMP) EVENT.

The event can be caused by natural means, such as a major solar storm, or man-made by the reaction of a nuclear explosion high up in the atmosphere. Or, in today's modern technological orientated world, an 'E' bomb! - You have been well and truly 'zapped'!

http://www.ambilacuk.com/jericho/5emp.html

Welcome to 2012

The year 2012 has been hailed as one that is going to offer diverse extremes, both on the weather and natural events and on the 'man'made' front - e.g. escalation of conflicts and possible 'one minute to midnight' scenarios.
One particular natural occurence that will increase significantly is that of the activity of the sun - solar activity is expected to arrive in major doses, with extreme Coronal mass ejections bringing Geo active storms earthbound - one of the resulting issues of this activity will be the increase in Electro magnetic storms affecting our earth.
Our outer planetary Electromagnetic protective sphere has been rapidly eroding for some time, thus it will not take much for a severe EM storm to make its effect on our planet.
It has happened before in recent history, and will occur again - and soon.

The effects will cause major power outages, satellite communications disruptions and break down in regional power plants - Just be aware that this type of event is a certainty, knowing when is another question, just be prepared!