Will the world end in 2012 ?
Some people are actually concerned about this, especially following the recent weather events.
- Cyclones and Floods in Australia
- Drought and Bush Fires in Australia
and those two are both this last week !!
- Severe winter weather in New York, and the list goes on..
Does 2012 have some bearing on this ?
Well, to calm down a young teenager with questions, I did some checking…
NASA was a good starting point….
This article was produced almost 5 years ago, back in 2006 on March 10, at nasa.gov. Read the full article in the link, as I am only quoting some exerts here:
March 10, 2006: It’s official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet.
Like the quiet before a storm.This week researchers announced that a storm is coming–the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.
Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati’s forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011.
“History shows that big sunspot cycles ‘ramp up’ faster than small ones,” he says. “I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011.”Who’s right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming.
Well, it is now 2011, five years after that was written, and it appears to be just about right.
What is a Solar Maximum ?
a time when sun spots and solar flares are very active. This kind of activity really can cause problems. Such activity can disable and damage satellites and can have a dramatic effect on the Earth’s weather.
It is just a weather event, not the end of the word according to the Mayan calendar and Nostradamus, (as some say).
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