2012 countdown?

B

bobby

New member
NOTE: This thread has NOTHING to do with religious ramblings about the end-of-days. It is purely based on scientific observations of the Sun from reputable (up for debate) sources and how the Sun's solar activities might cause a telecommunication breakdown in the year 2012, possibly leading to some major human inconveniences. So please, try to refrain from religious references or uneducated commentary from God-fearing zealots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN9RyIa6jQE
Also.... NASA does a report on solar storms in 2012
Do you guys believe in this theory?
Btw, Fox News reporters are really stupid sometimes.




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EDIT: (So people will read before commenting)
Further evidence of increased sunspot activity

CNN report


NASA Sunspot observations
A more recent report.

Ars Technica

Older report: BBC reports Sun's highest sunspot activity in 1000 years.

Fox News report, 2008


National Geographic, 2008 report on an increase in solar storms. - very good read!
 
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listen to him talk. he gives no proof. he gives no assurance. he just says something, and says how to prevent this something that has never affected us before. and when asked what if it's a dud, listen to his reply. and then he just keeps telling us to reinforce this, reinforce that. and about our satellite this, satellite that malfunctioning..

it's obviously a scare. fearmongers...the same people who reported about the swine flu "pandemic"..
 
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*rolls eyeballs*

Why is everyone so hyped up about 2012 when there is zero proof about it in the first place? Somehow, every conspiracy theory always gets linked back to 2012, but there is very little proof to substantiate it in the first place
 
theliverevolution said:
*rolls eyeballs*

Why is everyone so hyped up about 2012 when there is zero proof about it in the first place? Somehow, every conspiracy theory always gets linked back to 2012, but there is very little proof to substantiate it in the first place
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I don't think this is a 'conspiracy theory'. Let's not mix up sunspots with the religious blabbering of Satan's return, etc, which popularized the 2012 theory of 'doomslay' in the first place: It's not.

This is more of a presumption based on scientific studies - how accurate these studies are is the question raised here. More importantly, there isn't a mention of doomslay in the report at all.

As for the man who raised these concerns, he is Michio Kaku, a fairly reputable, if somewhat un-orthodox, scientist (i.e. Not a religious hick) who specializes in theoretical physics. Once again, how accurate these theories are is up for grabs. However, one important thing to note: He did not cite 'the end of the world' scenario as a possible outcome; only the disruption of telecommunication devices due to a peak in sunspot activity.

CNN has reported this to be possibly true as well.
CNN report


So does NASA...
NASA Sunspot observations
A more recent report.

Ars Technica

Older report: BBC reports Sun's highest sunspot activity in 1000 years.

Fox News report, 2008


National Geographic, 2008 report on an increase in solar storms.

My response to you, theliverevolution, is this: If you want to debunk a theory, you are most definitely entitled to doing so, BUT do it with logic, research (thorough, relative or otherwise, but some form of it at least), and debatable precision. I admit that the media has been wrong on many counts (swine flu, Y2k, etc), but right as well on many others (plane crash reports, scientific breakthroughs, etc). But simply rolling your eyes because a theory refutes your system of belief is no different from what the religious hicks, who predict 2012 to be the end of days or Armageddon because of God's almighty smite, do. Presumption is the bane of the ignorant, logic is divine.

This topic is about what the consequence of these sunspot activities will be and how they will affect us as inhabitants of this planet. Is it a scientic exaggeration or over-prediction, or are the scientists right this time? It has nothing to do with 'the 2012 hype', as you put it.
 
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evident said:
listen to him talk. he gives no proof. he gives no assurance. he just says something, and says how to prevent this something that has never affected us before. and when asked what if it's a dud, listen to his reply. and then he just keeps telling us to reinforce this, reinforce that. and about our satellite this, satellite that malfunctioning..

it's obviously a scare. fearmongers...the same people who reported about the swine flu "pandemic"..
Click to expand...

I am not certain of the accuracy of his predictions, which is why I raised the topic in the first place. I am not well versed enough in the cycles of sunspots to give an educated commentary. However, it is important for you to realize the fundamental flaw in your response. It is this human gaffe that has been the crux of most of the problems the world faces today: "why prevent something that has never affected us before?" Simple. Prevention, under almost any circumstance, is better than any cure. The ozone layer's depletion, pollution, terrorism, etc; most of which could have been reduced with a greater understanding of its prevention rather than a cure. Are we only going to look at the dead Amazon jungle 50 years later and go "Damn, we should have prevented this when we could! Oh well, too bad. The people who warned us about this were only fearmongers anyway." Do we only look at the grey smog in the sky seventy years later and shrug our shoulders, thinking "Well, it never affected us before!" ?
 
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the earth has been around for 4 billion years ...... and prolly 4 billion more I reckon ....

donno if mankind will still be around though
 
fgl said:
the earth has been around for 4 billion years ...... and prolly 4 billion more I reckon ....

donno if mankind will still be around though
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You are probably right in that, though the Sun is expected to swallow us in its red giant phase in about 5 billion years time, which would be no biggie to us cause we'd all be in The Great Gig in The Sky by then. If our telecommunication devices are affected, however, that would majorly suck! But I don't think it'd be a permanent thing, perhaps just a reconfiguration, but I don't know enough about communication devices to say so. :)
 
Well, from the title of 2012 "countdown" I won't be surprised if someone linked it back to Armegeddon. And everyone who seems to mention 2012 will always link it back to "End Of The World"
I did not attempt to debunk any theory, but honestly I am quite tired of people fortelling that the world will end in 2012, for various reasons

Fair enough, I'm reading those reports and have to agree that perhaps this sunflare activity is quite interesting. My apologies for the earlier post
 
theliverevolution said:
Well, from the title of 2012 "countdown" I won't be surprised if someone linked it back to Armegeddon. And everyone who seems to mention 2012 will always link it back to "End Of The World"
I did not attempt to debunk any theory, but honestly I am quite tired of people fortelling that the world will end in 2012, for various reasons

Fair enough, I'm reading those reports and have to agree that perhaps this sunflare activity is quite interesting. My apologies for the earlier post
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You are right about the unclear phrasing of my topic title. :) The word 'countdown' does seem to point towards the whole Armageddon thing. It isn't though but I apologize if it wasn't obvious from the topic. I for one remember how they predicted the year 2000 would be the end of times, then 2008 (or something like that), blah blah blah. Nonsense doomsayers.

But I think in the case of the sunspots, which is a very real occuring event, this predicted incident is a little more interesting and perhaps more probable. But the scientist did say that telecommunication could be out for months, which would be a big annoyance to tech-reliant people but definitely not the big end-game for the human race. :) On the flipside, just like the Y2k bug incident, nothing could happen and it could all be a case of overestimation.

Actually, did the Y2k bug really happen but was prevented, or did totally nothing happen at all? I'm not sure about that one cause I haven't read much on it.
 
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Nazman said:
sick and tired of this annoying threads starting..
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Try sammyboy's forums instead then? As far as I know, this is the first thread about sunspots on SOFT. It is a thread about ACTUAL scientific observations of the Sun's solar activities; not a religious standpoint nor the preachings of any faith. Please read carefully before putting your half cents(sense) worth.
 
these kinda threads usually attracts the type first before thinking softies.
hence there will definitely be alotta dumb replies.

ive had a great read man, thanks for the links
 
LadyInTears said:
these kinda threads usually attracts the type first before thinking softies.
hence there will definitely be alotta dumb replies.

ive had a great read man, thanks for the links
Click to expand...

You're welcomed! :) I just added a kinda-a-bit-like a disclaimer at the start so nobody misunderstands the title, which is my own fault.

The National Geographc reports that it might affect things like withdrawing money from the ATM, cellphones, television, radio, GPS satelites, etc -a lot of the things we take for granted in our daily lives that relies heavily on telecommunications. Whether it actually does affect to a great extent or not, nobody's sure.
 
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2012 was predicted even in the begining in the mayan civillization isnt it ?
hmm~ sun's rays ... dooms day ...

who knws? maybe true maybe not. but one thing for sure is most of us will live to see what will happen during the year :cool:
 
Thanks for sharing this with us, Bobby. Very interesting.

After consulting wiki, this Michio Kaku guy seems to be a pretty reputable theoretical physicist, having lectured for more 30 years, released numerous papers, articles, written tons of books and such. :eek:

Think about it, why would a 62 year old man of his academic standing and education appear on international news and ramble about the end of the world and whatnot? Surely he has viable reason to do :???:
 
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bobby said:
I am not certain of the accuracy of his predictions, which is why I raised the topic in the first place. I am not well versed enough in the cycles of sunspots to give an educated commentary. However, it is important for you to realize the fundamental flaw in your response. It is this human gaffe that has been the crux of most of the problems the world faces today: "why prevent something that has never affected us before?" Simple. Prevention, under almost any circumstance, is better than any cure. The ozone layer's depletion, pollution, terrorism, etc; most of which could have been reduced with a greater understanding of its prevention rather than a cure. Are we only going to look at the dead Amazon jungle 50 years later and go "Damn, we should have prevented this when we could! Oh well, too bad. The people who warned us about this were only fearmongers anyway." Do we only look at the grey smog in the sky seventy years later and shrug our shoulders, thinking "Well, it never affected us before!" ?
Click to expand...

fair enough, but if you know how to government and media works you'll see through this. notice a common thing among all your sources, they are all "credited" media organizations mostly owned by the government. and there's no real proof other than the endless assertion that "it's GOING TO happen".

in the CNN report, they mentioned that forecasters can't agree how intense it's going to be and they give no real evidence just predictions of what might happen IF the sunspots do occur.

NASA just gives a whole junk of words but they slip some stuff in between so that they won't look TOO certain (because they aren't). stuff like "obeying no obvious pattern". of course they end off with an unsure statement "Who's right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming." and leaves us all befuzzled once again.

i didn't read the liveindia one. the ARS technica seems pretty sure about it going to happen. and gives pretty good explanations of what actually happens and why.

BBC is a funny thing. i don't think they were there for the entire past 1000 years. it's all prediction of what happened and what's to happen and yet they start off with a statement that makes us assume there's some 1000-year old oracle who had these devices to monitor the sun back then. How far back could these people observe the star activity? BBC just gives a bunch of numbers and years and stuff.

i didn't read the FOX news one because i didn't bother to. everyone knows how the people at FOX are like when they report, not worth to read. Natgeo seems pretty alright too. Short report not based on some vague calculations.

one thing that i'm personally more concerned about is that will it just be a short blast or will it last for a period of time?
 
to avoid a confirmatory bias.. its important to seek information on the other side

recent reports and findings disagree.

May 8, 2009 -- The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has reached a consensus decision on the prediction of the next solar cycle (Cycle 24). First, the panel has agreed that solar minimum occurred in December, 2008. This still qualifies as a prediction since the smoothed sunspot number is only valid through September, 2008. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the predicted date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May, 2013. Note, this is a consensus opinion, not a unanimous decision. A supermajority of the panel did agree to this prediction.
-NOAA/Space Weather prediction Centre


recent Scientific findings
1. Bhatt Et Al. (2009) estimated the expected annual maximum amplitude for cycle 24 to be about 92.8±19.6 (1-sigma accuracy), indicating a somewhat weaker cycle 24 as compared to cycles 21 – 23.

2.Ahluwalia and Ygbuhay (2009), forecast for the smoothed sunspot number at cycle 24 maximum is 101 ± 5, indicating that cycle 24 will be about 20% less active than cycle 23.

Although the figures are slightly different. The trend is the same, solar cycle 24 is weaker

Fyi,
Solar cycle 23 : 1996 - 2008
solar cycle 24 : 2008 -2013

these are all very recent findings, so perhaps the original source of information is no longer valid or relevant?
 
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