Last updated by The POOG on March 07, 2023.

Solar Irradiance

Solar irradiance is the amount of electromagnetic radiation energy from the sun hitting a square meter of area. It can be measured at ground level or at any level in the atmosphere. Photons that carry this energy have wavelengths from X-rays and gamma rays on the high end of the spectrum through UV and the visible spectrum into the infra red and microwave regions. Since different layers of the atmosphere absorb certain energies, not all reach the surface. Those that do may be attenuated.

Solar spectral irradiance is a measure of the brightness of the entire Sun at a specific wavelength of light. Important spectral irradiance variations are seen in many wavelengths, from the visible and IR, through the UV, to EUV and X-ray. As we look at the solar irradiance we should remember that space weather is related to ionization, while climate is related to absorption of heat.

NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory

The Solar Radio Microwave Flux

In an essay, Dr. Lief x explains that “the microwave radiation is a good ‘measure’ of ‘general’ solar activity[2]. The high correlation with sunspot numbers can be seen by these graphs of the microwave flux, Figure 1, and the sunspot numbers, Figure 2.

Figure1. The ~23,000 daily noon values [pink curve] and a running 27-day mean [black curve]: One sfu = 10-22 Watt per square meter per Hz.
Figure 2. Source: NASA

Sunspots and Solar Cycles

A solar effect with corresponding impact on the strength of solar cycles has been posited, called the “Termination Event”[3], the end of a Hale magnetic cycle[4]. The ominous sounding name refers to moving magnetic field bands of opposite polarity that meet at the sun’s equator and annihilate each other.

The length of time between termination events is inversely proportional to the strength of the next solar cycle. That the last event around 2011 that created cycle 24 means that if we get one soon, cycle 25 may be very strong, a predictions at odds with the median estimate from other sources for cycle 25 as about the same as the weak cycle 24.

This research also identifies a high statistical correlation between these events and global weather phenomena. The authors note that:

[over] some six decades we can, with high statistical significance, demonstrate a correlation between the occurrence of terminators and the largest swings of Earth’s oceanic indices: the transition from El Niño to La Niña states of the central Pacific.

Leamon (2021)[4]

Follow the work of Scott McIntosh at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The associated University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) has some interesting free data tools. Aldo, Nicholas Wynn Watkins.

Solar Flares and Micro Novas

There is evidence of some solar disturbance, quite possibly a micro-nova that creates a mass extinction roughly every 12,000 years. The research on this is very young but covered from a layman’s perspective by Ben Davidson at SuspiciousObservers.org. We should have warning time possibly on the order of many decades or centuries to prepare. It won’t happen tomorrow.

A more immediate threat is that of a polar reversal. It has been known for decades that the north magnetic pole is not stationary and does not align with the north geographic pole. The concern is that the magnetic pole movement has increased dramatically over the last couple of decades and is accelerating.

Loss of Grid

This topic doesn’t fit anywhere else so here it is

A friend wrote to me about the last post that it “scared the crap” out of him. Here’s my response:

Welcome to the crapless state. ANY event that takes the grid down for an extended period of time will be an extinction event. Before I left Ottawa, I interviewed about 3 dozen managers and representatives of a variety of businesses – banks, grocery stores, malls, the Civic Hospital, the Fire Department, etc. Most smaller businesses have battery operated emergency lighting only which gives them as I recall, about 36 hours at the outside. IKEA was an interesting exception. They have enough backup generation to operate their store at full operating levels. Until they run out of diesel. The key issue is the supply chain. Even if you have redundant backup generation like the Ottawa hospital, it’s only good as long as your diesel fuel lasts, your supplier still has reserves and refineries as the last rung on the ladder, still have reserves.

When you lose your diesel backup, the water loop as I call it shuts down. On the front end, you can’t pump fresh water into the purification plant which is now inoperable. On the back end you can’t pump sewage to the treatment plant which is now inoperable. In other words, Ottawa and Toronto have lost their water supply for household use and fighting fires, and sewage is starting to pool in low areas leading to cholera and typhoid, etc.

As for handicapped people above the first or second floor or the person in the penthouse on the 72nd floor in downtown Toronto where the elevator ceased working the first day …

The food industry is a just-in-time supply system. Stores will be cleared out in a couple of days – by looting since they shut down operations when the power fails. Gas stations, even if they could pump diesel which they would not be able to do –  will have empty tanks within the week. Transport trucks at this point are off the road and most supply chains are broken, likely at numerous points.

Oh, and point of sale terminals are down, banks are closed because they can’t operate even teller services without access to records which are maintained in central data centers. I don’t know what backup power there is for data communications links OR cell towers. The financial system will have shut down within a week at most I would estimate.

This is off the top of my head. Please show me which if any statement above is incorrect.

Loss of Grid

China, Russia Preparing For “Blackout Warfare” With “Super-EMP” Bombs.

References

  1. Paschal O’Hare, Florian Mekhaldi, Florian Adolphi, et al. Multiradionuclide evidence for an extreme solar proton event around 2,610 B.P. (∼660 BC). PNAS March 26, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1815725116.
  2. Svalgaard L. The Solar Radio Microwave Flux.Watts Up With That? May 14, 2009.
  3. Phillips T. The Termination Event. Space Weather. June 10, 2021.
  4. Leamon RJ, McIntosh SW, and Marsh DR. Termination of Solar Cycles and Correlated Tropospheric Variability. AGU. February 24, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EA001223.

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