(OPINION) The giant ball of fire that our planet revolves around has been far more active than scientists originally anticipated this year, and that could have very serious implications for all of us in the months ahead.
Fluctuations in solar activity affect our climate more than anything else does, and we also tend to see more earthquakes when solar activity is at elevated levels.
The current solar cycle is supposed to reach a peak at some point during the next 12 months, but so far there are no signs that solar activity is slowing down. In fact, the average number of sunspots that we witnessed last month was the highest that we have seen since 2001…
The average number of sunspots reached 215.5 in August, according to the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center at the Royal Observatory in Belgium. It’s the highest number since Sept.-Dec. 2001, according to SpaceWeather.com.
July’s total was 196.5. Last month, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued a preliminary statement that solar activity is at its highest since March 2001.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Scientists were originally projecting that we would see about half as many sunspots during the month of August…
Experts had predicted that August would only see half as many sunspots, indicating that the solar maximum is imminent, and it may be more active than anticipated, possibly bringing intense solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
The number of sunspots has been increasing at an exponential rate for the past couple of months. Hopefully, we will get a reprieve here in September.
Because if we don’t, we could see more severe geomagnetic storms like we did in May… In May 2024, Earth experienced its strongest geomagnetic storm in over 20 years, with auroras visible much farther south than usual, including regions as far as Florida and Mexico. If another large sunspot appears around the time of the September equinox, it could lead to a similar or even stronger event.
When a very large geomagnetic storm occurs, it can disrupt our lives in countless ways. Back in May, even farm equipment was dramatically affected…
Ronald Rabon, the owner of Double R Farms, said back in May when the G-5 extreme solar magnetic levels occurred, he was out spraying his cotton field when his equipment started acting up.
“I didn’t know what was wrong with it,” Rabon said. “All I knew, it was, and you could get it straightened up and go for a few minutes. And it might go 20, 30 minutes and whatever minutes from then, all of a sudden, you’d be going through the field and it might just take a left.”
Rabon said one of the biggest problems with the solar flares is preventing his sprayers from being accurate. His GPS uses precise alignments for spraying, and when knocked out of its track, could overspray his crop and kill it.
Of course if our planet is hit by a large enough storm, it could fry power grids, take down the Internet, and cause massive societal problems all over the world.
Hopefully such a scenario will not play out any time soon.
All of the solar activity that we have been witnessing is also the primary reason why there has been so much intense heat this summer…
Summer broke global heat records for the second straight year, scientists have confirmed — putting 2024 firmly on track to be the hottest year in recorded history.
The period between June and August — summer in the Northern Hemisphere — was the world’s hottest such period since records began in 1940, according to data published Friday by Copernicus, Europe’s climate change service. (READ MORE)
