Science History: Escalating Activities of the Sun, Earth and Moon
Like Mexican Jumping Beans
In the 2010s, the media reported many escalations in sun, Earth and moon activities. The Sunspot Cycle numbered 24 was found to contain the largest and strongest solar flares in decades and more frequent eruptions like CMEs (coronal mass ejections) than in many other years.
Parts of Earth are warming up while other parts are cooling down. What is this uneven temperature change going to cause? -- In metals, plastics, and woods, it would cause warping. Will the Earth warp, or will there be a continued increase in seismic activity - perhaps with larger, more frequently occuring sinkholes? I don't have the simulation software to know all the possibilities. remember The Day After Tomorrow? Planet cooling rapidly followed planet warming, but I'm not convinced the cooling would happen so quickly.
One point to recall is that once, the Earth had no ice on it at all, and creatures apparently lived successfully on the planet. This scenario may or may not occur again naturally.
A Coronal Mass Ejection Strikes Earth
Sunspot Cycle 24: 2008 to 2020
X-Class flares and GM Storms Damage the MidWest
The hot weather or heat waves in the Midwest USA during May and July of 2012 were accompanied by several X-class solar flares (the strongest class) and several strong geomagnetic (GM) solar storms.
Some communications systems went down, including the cellphone tower near my house. Power went out and my garage door would not open for this and other reasons, trapping the car. temperatures were at and above 100° F from early morning to after sundown. The National Guard went door to door to check on people, but they did not come to my neighborhood and several elderly people became sick from heat exhaustion and heat stroke. electrical workers came from other states to help us and groups of them reported to the hospitals nightly for treatment of heat related conditions.
I don't know the practical upper limits to the heat that humans can actually tolerate daiy - our soldiers in Iraq endured 120° F in full uniform and gear and survived. The general population, however, probably cannot survive that temperature if intensely increasing frequency and class of solar flares and GM storms continue.
Speculation exists that explosives directed into sunspots may reduce the size and strength of solar flares, but not much research has been completed in this query.
Historic Lunar Explosion
In mid-May 2013, a Lunar explosion via meteoroid was large enough to be visible from Earth without a telecope. The new crater was made at 56K mph and became 65 feet wide, or 20 meters wide. The crashing object was tiny in comparison, estimated to be about 12 inches or approximately 0.35 meters wide. It was heavy, though - about 90 pounds' weight. All that is hard to imagine, is it not?
In the recent past, the US Government supposedly bombed another part of the moon. I'm not sure that that happened, but how many impacts can the moon endure before it begins to crack and break up under principals of erosion? If it breaks apart, then Earth's tides will be affected in some way. With less of a single moon to pull on the tides with less gravity, perhaps the tides will become shallower. If tides disappear altogether, I think we will have some large bodies of increasingly stagnant water and dying sealife.
NASA video explantation of moon explosion in May 2013.
Music Of the Spheres
One point to be made is that part of the American public is becoming frightened by all these reports, especially after viewing films such as Seeking a Friend For the End of the World. At the same time, another portion of Americans feel that the sun and moon have no effects on Earth at all - tides, weather, anything. Yet another percentage of Americans insist that we have no space programs, when private companies send more spacecraft into the skies every month and NASA is still active. There is turmoil and argument.
Even though the sun going supernova or an asteroid crash of significant power would destroy the Earth, the probability is high that the dstruction will be instantaneous and not felt by humans. As college Christians of the 1970s began saying, "It's all gonna burn!" Yet, people seem generally fearful.
The Sun Goes Supernova
- "The Outer Limits" Music of the Spheres (TV episode 1997)
Directed by David Warry-Smith. A college student records what he believes to be an intelligent transmission from outer space...
Alternative Events
Alternative suggestions from physical sciences remind us that the Earth's deserts are expanding from erosion resulting from increasing amounts of trees and plants being removed for any reason. The Chinese dust storms of the Gobi Desert reached California more than once by 2013. The Sahara Desert is increasing its boundaries, as are other deserts. A possibility exists that the Earth can become hotter and drier nearer the Equator and just drier or even cooler and drier near the poles. This may not cause the end of the world and good news is that at the same time, experimentation with irrigation in these areas is under way.
In the ancient past when there were no ice caps on the planet, the difference in temperature between the Equator and the poles is estimated at only 45°F. Ocean levels were much higher than they are today. Even in thse circumstances, the planet supported wildlife and native plants, so perhaps it is not the end of the planet if we lose the ice caps.
The planet will likely lose some species to extinction, even if worldwide climate changes are natural and cyclical - and it may be that the notion that all species are meant to exist forever in only human and romantic. That is not, however, a call or license to begin destroying species for commercial gain anew. Here are examples:
In Ohio, the bag limit during Deer Hunting Season used to be 1 deer. In recent years, because of deer overpopulation, the bag limit became 9 deer. For the 2014 season, it was lowered to 4 deer, based on reducing deer populations. That all seems sensible. However, in New Jersey in the 1980s, a breed of goose came under Endangered Species protection. The birds ate all the vegetation down to the dirt across a large swath and miles of of land, causing erosion; so, culling the birds began. The most nonsensical example is that of elephants in Africa - some areas of the continent have very few and the animals are protected legally, while in other areas, elephants proliferate and are culled. Helping Nature with protected species laws does not always help nature. Now, scientists want to clone the Woolly Mammoth and about four of those beasts would stomp Ohio flat while eating all the plants.
Mammoths are felt by some to be good food animals to be sold at a good price and a handsome profit, but I don't think raising herds of mammoth will work today. Whether solar activity, an asteroid impact, or other contributor caused their extinction, it may be best to allow them to remain extinct. And interestingly, the news is full of information about near-Earth asteroids and comets and what they might do to Earth and the moon in 2013.
Discussion, re: Sustainability in Future
Deserts Expand
- (We) can do better | Australian Deserts
Australian fires from space: another look at this continent and climate change.
Melting Ice
- Scientists: Long winter in U.S. the result of melting Arctic ice cap
"Melting sea ice...explains extreme weather both HOT and COLD."
We can use the deserts for energy production.
Some Desert Areas Are Expanding
Will there be another mass extinction soon? -- Doubtful.
Four Factors In Past Extinction, the Fifth Being Eliminated
- Multiple Causes Of Extinction: Dinosaurs -- PBS
Dinosaur Extinction: 1) an asteroid, 2) volcanic activity (almost equal to asteroid contribution), 3) continental drift, and 4) mammal competition for food (smallest contribution to extinction). Solar activity is not a factor and algae is ignored.
- In the mid-1990s, much research was completed toward answering the question of what role the increasing algae growth in the oceans played in forcing Earth toward an Ice Age. The huge and growing algae blooms apparently blocked sunlight and further, absorbed and held sunlight, preventing it from reaching the waters below. Algae was the Fifth Factor in dinosaur extinction for a time (see the link above for the first four factors). Funding for this algae-related research was reduced in favor of government funding toward supporting research related to the asteroid impact in the Yucatan. I cannot help but be reminded of the 2013 studies insisting that diet soda causes obesity being released at the same time that the US Federal Government was giving Bailout Money to the Sugar Industry. Scientists have worked on methods of controlling all factors in extinction, but funding is limited. However, we already have methods in development of blowing up approaching asteroids (in future, also solar flares), using explosives to stop volcano eruptions, protecting species, and changing algae into oil. I don't know what can be done about continental drift (?).
An asteroid hit inland on the Yucatan Peninsula. Computer simulations show that the dust it raised could blot out the sun, but I am not convinced.
Sun - Earth - Moon
Thw sun, Earth and moon create a system. Solar activity affects Earth's weather and the moon affects at least Earth's tides. Changes in the sun and moon will and do change Earth weather and tides.
Despite global climate change, and whether it is man made or cyclical in nature, I think losing the polar ice caps and some species of wildlife/plantlife will not mandate the end of the world.
Sun Song and Sunspots
- Sun and Weather Changes - Sunspots, Sun Song, Solar Flares, Solar Maximum, and 2013 Solar Events
Sunspots indicate the sun's weather, much stronger than Earth's. It affects our weather strongly. Sun activities increased more than usual during Cycle 24, with a bigger peak in 2013.