Scientists Agree We Are Facing A Worse Case EMP Scenario In Which Half The Population Could Die

Worst case EMP scenario? Half in U.S. dead





The sun has kicked into high gear and produced four so-called X-class solar flares over the past week from a solar spot that is expected to come more into alignment with Earth as the sun’s activity peaks this year and next. The intense solar storms are expected to last as long as until 2020. NASA estimates that a direct hit to Earth from one of these enormous flares would have a catastrophic impact on the nation’s critical infrastructures over a very wide geographical area. In the first year alone, NASA estimates, such a disaster could cost just the U.S. upwards of $2 trillion. It also would take from four to 10 years to recover – if that even would be possible – and affect the lives of some 160 million people, threatening starvation and death. Some EMP experts say that such a catastrophic event could wipe out America’s urban centers, due to their total dependency on critical infrastructures for electricity, communications, food and water delivery, oil and gas, transportation, automated banking and financial institutions and even emergency services. The experts say grocery stores, for example, would have their shelves cleared in a matter of hours due to the panic that would sweep the population. Normally, grocery stores carry a maximum of three days of products before being restocked. However, restocking would come to a halt due to the inability of trucks to function, with fueling stations unable to pump the fuel needed to run the vehicles.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/worst-case-emp-scenario-half-in-u-s-dead/#ZkEvrp6stj8PlhGr.99

They keep calling for Doom on these sunspots and Cme's but so far, they've been ~zip~ harmless.

Delfi, don't forget it happened in 1859, every 500 years but it could happen......



THE 1859 SUPER SOLAR STORM THAT CAUSED HAVOC AROUND THE WORLD
Imagine what one would do to us in our technology driven world:


-Bracing the Satellite Infrastructure for a Solar Superstorm-

-A recurrence of the 1859 solar superstorm would be a cosmic Katrina, causing billions of dollars of damage to satellites, power grids and radio communications-


* The solar superstorm of 1859 was the fiercest ever recorded. Auroras filled the sky as far south as the Caribbean, magnetic compasses went haywire and telegraph systems failed.
* Ice cores suggest that such a blast of solar particles happens only once every 500 years, but even the storms every 50 years could fry satellites, jam radios and cause coast-to-coast blackouts.
* The cost of such an event justifies more systematic solar monitoring and beefier protection for satellites and the power grid.


As night was falling across the Americas on Sunday, August 28, 1859, the phantom shapes of the auroras could already be seen overhead. From Maine to the tip of Florida, vivid curtains of light took the skies. Startled Cubans saw the auroras directly overhead; ships’ logs near the equator described crimson lights reaching halfway to the zenith. Many people thought their cities had caught fire. Scientific instruments around the world, patiently recording minute changes in Earth’s magnetism, suddenly shot off scale, and spurious electric currents surged into the world’s telegraph systems. In Baltimore telegraph operators labored from 8 p.m. until 10 a.m. the next day to transmit a mere 400-word press report.

Just before noon the following Thursday, September 1, English astronomer Richard C. Carrington was sketching a curious group of sunspots—curious on account of the dark areas’ enormous size. At 11:18 a.m. he witnessed an intense white light flash from two locations within the sunspot group. He called out in vain to anyone in the observatory to come see the brief five-minute spectacle, but solitary astronomers seldom have an audience to share their excitement. Seventeen hours later in the Americas a second wave of auroras turned night to day as far south as Panama. People could read the newspaper by their crimson and green light. Gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke up and ate breakfast at 1 a.m., thinking the sun had risen on a cloudy day. Telegraph systems became unusable across Europe and North America.

The news media of the day looked for researchers able to explain the phenomena, but at the time scientists scarcely understood auroral displays at all. Were they meteoritic matter from space, reflected light from polar icebergs or a high-altitude version of lightning? It was the Great Aurora of 1859 itself that ushered in a new paradigm. The October 15 issue of Scientific American noted that ‘‘a connection between the northern lights and forces of electricity and magnetism is now fully established.” Work since then has established that auroral displays ultimately originate in violent events on the sun, which fire off huge clouds of plasma and momentarily disrupt our planet’s magnetic field.

The impact of the 1859 storm was muted only by the infancy of our technological civilization at that time. Were it to happen today, it could severely damage satellites, disable radio communications and cause continent-wide electrical blackouts that would require weeks or longer to recover from. Although a storm of that magnitude is a comfortably rare once-in-500-years event, those with half its intensity hit every 50 years or so. The last one, which occurred on November 13, 1960, led to worldwide geomagnetic disturbances and radio outages. If we make no preparations, by some calculations the direct and indirect costs of another superstorm could equal that of a major hurricane or earthquake.

Hey ColZ look at your points 2222 that's gotta mean something. I think I remember doing a cheer for high school basketball that went 2-2-2-2 clap- clap -clapclapclap. Just sayin...

I'm with Delfi on the solar flare thingy. Nothing ever comes of them. Thank goodness, btw.

Tbh, not yet but soon.