Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Death Star
09 Mar 2012
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Historically the Carrington Event is the largest such event in the last 450 years (based on nitrate concentrations in ice cores going back to 1561). However, much larger solar outbursts have occurred in the past. A record of solar activity has been reconstructed using fluctuations of isotopes 14C and 10Be recorded dendrochronologically (in tree rings) and in polar ice cores respectively. This has been done with considerable accuracy back to circa 9500 BCE (essentially the end of the last ice age), and the results are rather startling – our Sun has been more active over the last few decades (since about the middle of the twentieth century) than it has been for thousands of years. Depending on how the data is interpreted (the translation of the isotope data to solar activity is not straight-forward, but requires various forms of analyses), the overall level of solar activity is the highest it has been since about 9500 to 9000 BCE, the end of the last ice age!
Paul LaViolette has marshaled evidence that a major solar flare accompanied by a super solar proton event (SPE) (or events) at the end of the last ice age fried the Earth (to use the description of LaViolette’s hypothesis put forth in the popular Space Daily). LaViolette bases his conclusions on meticulous analyses of radiocarbon concentrations in sediment cores from the Cariaco Basin (off the coast of Venezuela) correlated with acidity spikes, high NO–3 concentrations, and rises in 10Be deposition rates in the Greenland ice record, all of which he argues are indicators of a sudden cosmic ray influx, in turn correlating with solar activity as expressed specifically through solar flares and SPEs. Additionally, there would also have been accompanying coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on an enormous scale. LaViolette dates the SPE event, which is the major focus of his 2011 paper, to “12,837 +/- 10 cal [calendar] years BP” and equates it with major faunal extinctions in North America at this time. LaViolette also notes that there may have been other SPE events at the end of the last ice age, stating,
"This suggests that an overly active Sun may have played a significant role also in causing abrupt climatic change at the end of the ice age."
In his paper LaViolette discusses some of the effects of a massive SPE and attendant solar activity for the Earth. The ozone layer, our protection from deadly UV rays, would have been greatly depleted with major ozone holes forming in some areas, that is if the ozone layer was not altogether destroyed completely! Increased doses of damaging, and potentially lethal, UV radiation could have posed a major hazard for organisms on Earth, especially in high and middle latitudes. Besides the increased UV radiation, high-energy cosmic rays that are part of a major SPE would penetrate the atmosphere and raise radiation levels on the ground.
According to LaViolette’s calculations, unprotected organisms at sea level during the major SPE event he studied could have accumulated radiation doses of three to six Sieverts (a unit of radiation exposure) over a period of two or three days. Lethal radiation doses for humans are in the range of about 3.5 Sieverts, and for many large mammals in the 3 to 8 Sievert range. The best mode of protection at the time, both from the UV radiation and the cosmic ray radiation, may have been to seek safety in caves and other underground shelters. Interestingly, Austrian archaeologist and speleologist Dr. Heinrich Kusch and his wife Ingrid Kusch have documented hundreds upon hundreds of tunnel systems under Neolitihic settlements found throughout Europe and Turkey, some dating back to around 12,000 years ago.
LaViolette also determined that an enormous SPE would significantly disturb the geomagnetic field of Earth and induce a partial (or possibly complete, at least for a short period of time?) collapse of the magnetosphere. Earth is surrounded by a dust cloud, composed of interplanetary debris plus particles that the solar wind blows off of the surface of the Moon. These particles are trapped in the magnetosphere, held and essentially protected there. But with a partial or complete collapse of the magnetosphere, cosmic rays, SPEs, and CMEs could heat the particles up, causing them to melt, and subsequently they would re-solidify, forming spherules. Furthermore, dust particles and spherules could be jettisoned into the atmosphere, and eventually fall to the surface of Earth – as has been found at numerous sites dating back to the end of the last ice age.
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http://www.dailygrail.com/Guest-Articles/2012/3/Death-Star


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NASA | Massive Solar Flare gets HD Close Up

Uploaded by NASAexplorer on Mar 7, 2012

Take a closer look at the flare that erupted on March 6, 2012.

This movie of the March 6, 2012 X5.4 flare was captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in the 171 and 131 Angstrom wavelength. One of the most dramatic features is the way the entire surface of the sun seems to ripple with the force of the eruption. This movement comes from something called EIT waves -- because they were first discovered with the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) on the Solar Heliospheric Observatory. Since SDO captures images every 12 seconds, it has been able to map the full evolution of these waves and confirm that they can travel across the full breadth of the sun. The waves move at over a million miles per hour, zipping from one side of the sun to the other in about an hour. The movie shows two distinct waves. The first seems to spread in all directions; the second is narrower, moving toward the southeast. Such waves are associated with, and perhaps trigger, fast coronal mass ejections, so it is likely that each one is connected to one of the two CMEs that erupted on March 6.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xKRBkBBEP0


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Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection recorded by SOHO on January 19th, 2012

Uploaded by ImperiumSolis on Jan 20, 2012

AR1402 erupted on January 19th, 2012, producing an M3-class solar flare and a full-halo coronal mass ejection (CME). The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud expanding almost directly toward Earth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLdmLqzzB_M