I really don't want to live in a John Ringo novel
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A pandemic, and now solar cooling
Our sun has gone into lockdown, which could cause freezing weather, earthquakes and famine, scientists say.
The sun is currently in a period of “solar minimum,” meaning activity on its surface has fallen dramatically.
Experts believe we are about to enter the deepest period of sunshine “recession” ever recorded as sunspots have virtually disappeared.
Astronomer Dr. Tony Phillips said: “Solar Minimum is underway and it’s a deep one.”
“Sunspot counts suggest it is one of the deepest of the past century. The sun’s magnetic field has become weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system.”
“Excess cosmic rays pose a health hazard to astronauts and polar air travelers, affect the electro-chemistry of Earth’s upper atmosphere and may help trigger lightning.”
NASA scientists fear it could be a repeat of the Dalton Minimum, which happened between 1790 and 1830 — leading to periods of brutal cold, crop loss, famine and powerful volcanic eruptions.
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Well crap! We better pump out some CO2 to protect us!
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in I really don't want to live in a John Ringo novel:
You will notice they published this in the coldest May anyone can remember.
Actually, it was published in 2009.
I read it last year: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/the_new_coffee_room/what-are-you-reading-now-t111528-s3560.html#p1484455
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Read it for free...
http://baencd.freedoors.org/Books/The Last Centurion/index.htm
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I think Mik was referencing the scientists, not the Ringo book.
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@LuFins-Dad said in I really don't want to live in a John Ringo novel:
I think Mik was referencing the scientists, not the Ringo book.
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The Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 1921
May 12, 2020: 99 years ago this week, people around the world woke up to some unusual headlines.
“Telegraph Service Prostrated, Comet Not to Blame” — declared the Los Angeles Times on May 15, 1921. “Electrical Disturbance is ‘Worst Ever Known'” — reported the Chicago Daily Tribune. “Sunspot credited with Rail Tie-up” — deadpanned the New York Times.
They didn’t know it at the time, but those newspapers were covering the biggest solar storm of the 20th Century. Nothing quite like it has happened since.
It began on May 12, 1921 when giant sunspot AR1842, crossing the sun during the declining phase of Solar Cycle 15, began to flare. One explosion after another hurled coronal mass ejections (CMEs) directly toward Earth. For the next 3 days, CMEs rocked Earth’s magnetic field. Scientists around the world were surprised when their magnetometers suddenly went offscale, pens in strip chart recorders pegged uselessly to the top of the paper.
And then the fires began. Around 02:00 GMT on May 15th, a telegraph exchange in Sweden burst into flames. About an hour later, the same thing happened across the Atlantic in the village of Brewster, New York. Flames engulfed the switch-board at the Brewster station of the Central New England Railroad and quickly spread to destroy the whole building. That fire, along with another one about the same time in a railroad control tower near New York City’s Grand Central Station, is why the event is sometimes referred to as the “New York Railroad Superstorm.”
What caused the fires? Electrical currents induced by geomagnetic activity surged through telephone and telegraph lines, heating them to the point of combustion. Strong currents disrupted telegraph systems in Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the UK and USA. The Ottawa Journal reported that many long-distance telephone lines in New Brunswick were burned out by the storm. On some telegraph lines in the USA voltages spiked as high as 1000 V.
From a blog....
John Ringo emails: “Pandemics almost invariably correlate to solar minimums. So do massive volcanic eruptions. SWEET DREAMS!”
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@LuFins-Dad said in I really don't want to live in a John Ringo novel:
I think Mik was referencing the scientists, not the Ringo book.
Yeah, but ya gotta know the book...
