Can Solar Storms Cause Wildfires? 87
astroengine writes "In the wake of recent solar activity, some space cadets were very quick to point out a causal link between geomagnetic storms and the wildfires currently ravaging the landscape surrounding Moscow. Of course, this is patently false. But is there a scenario when the onset of a solar storm could have secondary effects, sparking fires in already arid regions? Possibly. What's more, it already happened, 150 years ago."
Does not compute (Score:5, Funny)
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Explanation for the hard of comprehending:
this is patently false
The current wildfires in Russia were not caused by solar storms.
Possibly
There is a scenario where solar storms could potentially start fires.
it already happened
The scenario has occurred, but didn't result in fires that time.
Re:Does not compute (Score:4, Informative)
The scenario has occurred, but didn't result in fires that time.
Except that this statement is false. There's newspaper reports from all over he US from the latter parts of 1859 of wildfires happening all over the place. Because the US had just covered itself in this really neat continent-sized antenna (the telegraph network) which was throwing sparks all over the place (feel free to peruse the references in this paper [leif.org]).
Re:Does not compute (Score:5, Insightful)
No scientist has any obligation to study each new theory that someone publishes. If they did that they wouldn't have any time left to do science. That's why there are scientific publications that are "peer reviewed".
When someone sends a paper to one of those magazines, the editor first checks the sender's credentials, to make sure he has done the preliminary work to study enough of the matter to get a degree, then he sends a copy of the paper to someone who knows enough of the subject to form an opinion.
If you want to publish an entirely new and revolutionary theory, like that "electric universe" thing, well, the burden of the proof is with you. It's not enough that your theory explains a grass fire that happened in 1859. Your theory also has to explain everything else that "conventional" physics (i.e. what's in peer researched papers) explain.
The "electric universe" isn't viewed as a "conspiracy theory" by scientists. It's just another of those thousands of theories that fail to explain the known facts of the universe.
Re:Does not compute (Score:4, Funny)
I just can't believe that those damn scienticians keep rejecting the Time Cube Universe. Clearly there must be a conspiracy in the journals to prevent Mr. Ray from publishing his groundbreaking discoveries.
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It's because they are all educated evil. They are paid to teach a propaganda book - not Cube Truth - for which they would be fired. Evil teachers betray students, as ONE is a Death Value.
Not that it helped, since Mr. Ray has published his four-cornered day theory.
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See, astroengine knows that it's "patently false". Know why? Cuz he set the fricking fire.
Course, the dolt doesn't realize that it's the solar flare that triggered the sequence of signals in his brain leading him to commit the act.
Oh the convoluted chain of life.
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I was thinking along similar lines - I'm sure Russia has its fair share of crackpots and plenty of vodka as a bonus.
Nutters are the duct tape of causality.
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Oh yeah?
"Intense solar flares release very-high-energy particles that can cause radiation poisoning to humans (and mammals in general) in the same way as low-energy radiation from nuclear blasts."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm [wikipedia.org]
I'll be heading to the basement with my tinfoil hat on while you "skeptics" get burnt to a crisp!
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lightning, arson and others are more likey (Score:3, Insightful)
lightning, arson and others are more likely
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Yeah. In this corner, weighing in at "I guess it *might* not be impossible", is the Solar Storm theory.
And in this corner, weighing in at 100% certainty are the tag-team of cigarette-smoking russians, lightning, campfires, accidents, and deliberate arson.
The call every parent dreads (Score:5, Funny)
The worst part was that he did it during a coronal mass ejection. That makes it a sex crime.
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An even more likely explanation for the fires to get this big, is the fact that Putin fired a lot of firefighters and forest guards a few years ago. All the fire lanes that kept the forests compartmentalized are now gone, and that allows forest fires to get this far out of control.
Re:lightning, arson and others are more likey (Score:5, Insightful)
That and apparently during those early lusty Soviet times, there was a grand vision to power the USSR and Moscow in particular with peat. Peat is in bogs. To burn it you have to get the water out. So they drained the bogs. Fast forward to the latter Soviet times when natural gas was discovered (no, I'm not talking about Politburo speeches) and a half century of Communist WTF 5 year projects caught up with them. So they dropped the peat idea and started cooking with gas. That was all nice and tidy but no one wanted to go back and rewater the bogs. Now, a bit of global warming, a bit of La Nina, a bit of nasty drought...add some lightning, dumb Russians tossing their cigarette butts in the bogs, etc. and we have the spectacle of Putin pushing a button on a fire plane to drop a giant raindrop of water to show his solidarity with the proles.
The only reason the bogs didn't attempt to kill the Russians before was the amount of rainfall they normally receive which put out the bog fires they normally have. That works fine until you have a drought, and even more Russian screwups like you mentioned.
Power lines. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Power lines. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, if the enviromental nazis ...
Who are these Nazis?
just let controlled burns continue
Whoever these Nazis are, they seem to have far less power than you imagine. Controlled burns are proceeding everywhere. We just had a swathe of bush backing onto our place burnt a few months ago, thank you RFS. Do you live in the city or something?
we wouldn't have the magnitude of devestation [sic.] that hits so often
Well how you explain the Victorian fires then? Taking into consideration the intensive hazard reduction campaign undertaken in the year leading up to them.
Could the frequency of extreme fire events during the last decade have had anything to do with that much of SW-Australia was in one of the -- if not the --deepest and most prolonged droughts in history? Could it have had anything to do with record breaking spells of hot weather --especially in Victoria, where Melbourne not only recorded it's single hottest temperature on record, but where the state recorded it's longest run of extreme heat? ... low humidity? ...
Oh gosh, how silly of me, it was the Nazis! Of course.
MODS (Score:2)
As someone who has lived in both city and country Victoria for half a century I would say the parent is informative and the GP is a know nothing bogon [youtube.com].
Aside from the acurate points in the parent post, natives did not control burn mountain forests as the GP claims. They lit uncontrolled fires in grasslands, purely for hunting purposes.
Re:MODS on crack (Score:2)
I could have added that the most devastating events involved crown fires, which don't respect our puny attempts at burning off.
Now it may have been true that too little hazard reduction had been undertaken in the years leading up to the first in the series of truly horrific seasons, the summer of 2000-01. But, at least where I live, that all changed pretty quickly thereafter (along with the building codes). And there was an day this winter when the Sydney CBD was choked with smoke from burning in the Blue
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You mean the environmental Nazis that prosecute companies for poisoning our air and water? Dumbass.
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I'm sorry, but I think Oz itself is a major cause of bushfires. When a bucket of water left out in the sun causes your back-yard to catch fire, you might want to consider blaming the locale.
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Depends on what you're looking for. Good beer and great women? Stay there! A less flammable environment? I dunno ... hell?
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assignment or equality?
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Assignment... people stopped caring about wildfires, so it's just being replaced with Global Warming...
Recent reports state that Global Warming is spreading across Russia, some people are worried this years Global Warming season in California could result in the most Global Warmings to date.
Declare war on the Sun! (Score:5, Funny)
I've had just about enough of this "Sun". First, we've learned it's to blame for global warming, now it's setting fires throughout the world. Why, why does it hate our liberties? How many innocents must die of skin cancer before someone acts? How many children must we let it burn on metal playground equipment? When will it strike you with sunburn in your very own backyard?? The world must stand up to this terrorism! We must strike fast and we must strike hard! All good men must stand up and demand the world governments strike with the biggest atomic - no, hydrogen bomb and wipe this great evil from the sky above!!!
Urge your leaders to act now before it is to late! Think of the children!
Re:Declare war on the Sun! (Score:4, Informative)
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CrazyJim! You're losing your edge! That was actually clever and funny. Where's the crazy?!
Tell us about your comic about the guy with rocket-katanas! Tell us how you single-handedly invented every single popular video game!
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Super man already tried and failed to destroy the sun with atomic weapons.
Samantha Carter dit it (yes, it was not our sun but still). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_(Stargate_SG-1) [wikipedia.org]
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In general, Stargate was very cool, but that episode stank like a Pak'marah with dysentery.
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Super man already tried and failed to destroy the sun with atomic weapons.
So nuking from orbit isn't the only way to be sure?
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Schthink of the children!
Fixed that bug, Can I take tomorrow off . . . . ?
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We did take action... back in '81 at WUSTL. If anyone from WUGS is hanging around here... Remember the SOTS campaign?
Stamp Out The Sun!!
Because any amount of radiation is dangerous.
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We should also have a stiff word or two with Oracle, they didn't see this coming and they bought Sun recently (possible cover up!).
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Gee, I thought it was George W Bush's fault (Score:1, Flamebait)
Or maybe Nancy Pelosi caused it...
It all depends on which wing of the bird you sit on.
Wait, WHAT? (Score:2)
So their logic is that the telegraph (so phone, now?) lines can get overwhelmed and break, sparking fires?
Wow, that seems like a long way to go. (For one thing, I think that phone and power lines have more protection on them now. You might overload a transformer or even take down an entire grid, but I should think widespread sparking would be uncommon. They'd have had problems all over in Canada already, if not.)
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But (Score:3, Funny)
If it causes fires on earth, it might singe Uranus too.
22 year solar cycle linked to droughts (Score:1)
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Correlation does not imply causation. There are a boatload of other factors that take place. This planet used to be very lush with rain forests. And with the ever increasing population of man on this planet, and our need to destroy without care, lower rainfall amounts and drought are more likely to occur. So as we lose more and more forest / rain forests the correlations will appear to be more and will be naturally lead people to believe that it is causeation.
doomsday (Score:1)
It's happened many times before. Of particularly interesting note are the legends of "the gods" from various societies which have arisen shortly after periods of relatively poor advancement.
The solar storms output huge amounts of radiation - electromagnetic as well as other frequencies. Being as the earth is, essentially, a large (but significantly smaller than the sun) magnet, the interference with the Earth's magnetic/electrical field will quite certainly have observable effects: increased/more intense st
Wait! What about Evolution? (Score:1)
Solar lull can foster wildfires, indirectly (Score:2)
Actually, there is some evidence that the recent Russian wildfires, while not caused by solar storms, were in fact fostered by jet stream blocking events that seem to occur more often during lulls in solar activity [newscientist.com].
In case of massive CME how do you protect elect... (Score:2)
Logic Errors (Score:2)
You can have "Possibly."
OR "What's more, it already happened, 150 years ago."
Either it may have happened 150 years ago, which would be "Possibly" or did which would be "Yes."
abusing a meme (Score:2)
Ummmm... In Soviet Russia the wildfires start solar flares?