Biscuit Blog: 2007

2012 COINCIDENCE

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The peak of the next sunspot cycle is expected in late 2011 or mid-2012 -- potentially affecting airline flights, communications satellites and electrical transmissions. But forecasters can't agree on how intense it will be.

A 12-member panel charged with forecasting the solar cycle said Wednesday it is evenly split over whether the peak will be 90 sunspots or 140 sunspots.

The government's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado, tracks space weather and forecasts its changes, which can affect millions of dollars worth of activities such as oil drilling, car navigation systems and astronauts.

Half of the specialists predicted a moderately strong cycle of 140 sunspots expected to peak in October of 2011, while the rest called for a moderately weak cycle of 90 sunspots peaking in August of 2012.

"We're hoping to achieve a consensus sometime in the next six to 12 months," said Douglas Biesecker, a space environment center scientist who is chairman of the forecast panel.

An average solar cycle ranges from 75 to 155 sunspots.

During an active solar period, violent eruptions occur more often on the sun, the agency said. Solar flares and vast explosions, known as coronal mass ejections, shoot highly charged matter toward Earth.

Making these predictions is important for many businesses, which have been asking for a forecast for nearly a year, Biesecker said.

Just like coastal residents want a hurricane forecast as early as possible, so do those affected by solar activity, said Joseph Kunches, chief of forecast and analysis at the center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder, noted that more than $200 billion satellites in space can be affected by changes in solar radiation as the cycle rises and falls.

In addition, Baker said, other problems include:

Airlines flying over the pole face loss of communications that could force them to use a different, longer route at an added cost of as much as $100,000 per flight.

The Global Positioning System is immensely important to commerce and can be disrupted by solar activity.

Operating floating oil rigs in the ocean requires keeping them positioned within a few inches to prevent damaging drilling gear. "They have to know when GPS is going to be accurate."

There is an increased radiation risk to humans in space.

Currents can be induced in long electrical transmission lines, causing blackouts.

In the past, such problems have been caused by solar superstorms, he said.

"Storms don't have to be so super any more" to cause problems, Baker said, as more and more systems become susceptible to solar effects.

W. Dean Pesnell of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory said the solar storms also can heat the Earth's upper atmosphere, causing it to expand. This increases drag on satellites, slowing them down. It also affects the position of the space debris encircling the planet, and it is essential to keep track of that debris for the safety of space flight.

The forecasters said the current solar cycle will probably end next March, when Solar Cycle 24 will begin. That will mean Cycle 23 lasted 12 years, slightly longer than the usual 11-year cycle.

OR...

2012 is sometimes claimed to be a great year of spiritual transformation (or apocalypse). Many esoteric sources interpret the completion of the twelfth B'ak'tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar (which occurs on December 21 by the most widely held correlation) to mean there will be a major change in world order.

Accordingly, several eclectic authors claim that a major, world-changing event will take place in 2012:

The 1995 book The Mayan Prophecies linked the Maya calendar with long-period sunspot cycles.
The book 2012: Mayan Year of Destiny claims the Maya may have been instructed in their wisdom by discarnate entities from Orion and the Pleiades. Contact was maintained through shamanic rituals conducted in accordance with the movements of planets and stars.
The 1997 book The Bible Code claims that, according to certain algorithms of the Bible code, a meteor, asteroid or comet will collide with the Earth.
The book The Nostradamus Code speaks of a series of natural disasters caused by a comet (possibly as above) which will allow the third Antichrist to disperse his troops around the globe under the guise of aid in preparation for a possible nuclear war, although in the strictest sense it is unspecific as to nuclear war or some other natural or man caused destruction.
The book The Orion Prophecy claims that the Earth's magnetic field will reverse.
The 2005 book Beyond 2012: Catastrophe or Ecstasy by Geoff Stray reviews several theories, prophecies and predictions concerning 2012 and finds where authors have used faulty information or have bent the truth to fit their theories.
The 2006 book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck discusses theories of a possible global awakening to psychic connection by the year 2012, creating a noosphere. It also discusses many other aspects of the 2012 phenomenon from a neutral perspective.

Other prophecies and apocalyptic writings and hypotheses for this year include:

Terence McKenna's mathematical novelty theory suggests a point of singularity in which a great number of things could happen, including "hyperspatial breakthrough", planetesimal impact, alien contact, historical metamorphosis, metamorphosis of natural law, solar explosion, quasar ignition at the galactic core, or nothing. [10]
The Prophecy of the Popes, attributed to Saint Malachy, speculated that Pope Benedict XVI would reign during the beginning of the tribulation of which Jesus spoke, and sometime later a future pope described in the prophecy as "Peter the Roman", the last in this prophetic list, would appear, bringing as a result the destruction of the city of Rome and the Last Judgment.
Many new age spiritualists and philosophers ("new-agers") believe humankind will enter an age of enlightenment in 2012. There are a range of varying, generally positive, beliefs shared by a subset of spiritualists from the mundane to exceptional -- including a positive social shift and age of peace, mankind becoming psychic and connected by a collective, and/or an evolution of the human race into non-corporeal beings made of "spiritual" energy, or light energy, i.e. 'ascension'.
Some alien-enthusiasts, along with some new-agers, believe 2012 to correspond approximately with the return of alien "watchers" or "caretakers" who might have helped the first human civilizations with developing their technology and may have been waiting for us to reach a higher level of technological and/or social advancement. Beliefs range from the extra-terrestrials having benevolent purposes -- such as to help human society evolve -- to malevolent purposes -- such as enslavement of mankind and/or manipulation.^{[citation needed]}
The Nepalese ascetic Ram Bahadur Bomjon, the so-called "Buddha boy", reportedly told his followers that he would return around 2012.
Some proponents of a peak oil catastrophe place major events in 2012. Richard C. Duncan's book The Peak of World Oil Production and the Road To The Olduvai Gorge claims that the Olduvai cliff will begin and permanent blackouts will occur worldwide. Several studies predict a peak in oil production in or around 2012.