A huge solar storm is heading to earth. I suppose we are going to see a lot of disruptions to traffic usually using the 5 polar routes.
The storm erupted some 20 hours ago when some flights were already in the poplar regions. Granted that the heavier protons take quite sometime to reach earth, the EM components would have reached within 8 minutes.
I wonder if any flights in the polar regions in the last 36 hours reported any communication or navigation problems.
Oh dear, I was flying along rte P4 yesterday and not a pip squeak from flight watch! I guess they reckon the EM radiation that arrives in about 8 minutes may not be a big deal; it's the bigger protons that can wreck havoc and these arrive much later.
This may or may not be a big deal, I'm not one to cry "chicken little".
But this is a nice video from solar satellite telescopes. All the snow at the end of the two "coronagraph" images (the blue and the red) is from radiation from the outburst:
As a Radio Ham (no doubt Hancock jokes will follow), the last time we had a big magnetic storm in 2011. LF to HF radio went down for about half an hour.
On VHF-UHF the opposite happened with better propagation between stations in the higher latitudes, just after the storm.
As for sat nav, we will have to see what happens. When I am sailing, I do not use sat nav. Give me a chart, compass and a stop watch any time.
Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
This solar flare has a intensity rating of X5.4.
To put this into prospective we have had 30 solar flares X9.0 or above in last 36 years... The biggest was X28 on 04/11/03... 17 have been X10.0 or greater.. The Most Powerful Solar Flares ever Recorded
Completely lost count of the things that were going to kill us all. I am getting fed up with no talent scientists trying to scare more tax money out of governments with a conveyor belt of cock and bull stories.
Me, I'm going to grab a chair and see what colours if any appear in the sky tonight.
Looks like the effects of the flare started being felt by satellites a few minutes ago. Nothing wrong so far.
Quote:
This solar flare has a intensity rating of X5.4. To put this into prospective we have had 30 solar flares X9.0 or above in last 36 years... The biggest was X28 on 04/11/03... 17 have been X10.0 or greater..
It's a good point - but worth noting that the majority of these did not produce Earth-directed CMEs.
Solar flares happen frequently/daily. We can be sure there will be lots more. No need for remote viewing. Anyone can predict there will be more big ones. Meaningless unless you can also predict when exactly they will occur.
The sun erupted with one of the largest solar flares of this solar cycle on March 6th, 2012 at 7:00pm EST....
About an hour later, at 8:14pm ET, March 6th, the same region let loose an X1.3 class flare. An X1 is 5 times smaller than an X5 flare.
The models also predict that the leading edge of the first CME will reach Earth at about 1:25am EST on the morning of March 8th (plus or minus 7 hours).
Sigh! People, sheeple and all naysayers you ain't seen nothing yet. My view is that this latest one is a small precursor to what are more to come in this present cycle of solar agitation. I can't say it gonna be a doomsday scenario but we have to prepare for extreme hyperactivity of our nearest star.
On Wednesday, there was certainly wonkiness in satellite reception and I had difficulty in using the satellite phone. Even the satellite TV reception was intermittent for awhile. It remains to be seen if the power grids will affected, the coming 24 hours will tell.
I am not a scaremonger, but the recent global warming trends and so called climate change are clear signs of hyper solar activity that affected the core temperature of Earth.
The increasing use of the polar air routes certainly increase our awareness of the effects of solar and cosmic radiation on aircrews. As far as I know, Aeroflot had some nasty experience affecting the health of their aircrews when they embarked on using polar routes in the 70's and 80's. With the forecast of high solar hyperactivity due after the long lull of quiescence during the past decade, it's prudent that aircrews plying the polar routes be cognizant of the health risks to themselves as some airlines keep rostering the same crews over the polar regions many times a year.
