The sun is still very much a mystery and holds back many secrets from science. The most important piece of the puzzle is solar variability. What that means in layman’s terms is that the amount of energy our Sun radiates fluctuates over time. As radiation from the Sun is what makes Earth a habitable planet, it seems reasonable to assume that these fluctuations are also the number one threat to life here on Earth.
The venerable saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” truly captures the essence of visual communication’s potency in depicting intricate concepts more succinctly than textual or verbal explanations. This notion is vividly illustrated by the subsequent trio of remarkable diagrams.
Commencing with the inaugural chart, it delineates the findings from a research initiative spearheaded by Armstrong Economics, which endeavored to quantify solar energy emissions over a span of five millennia.
The empirical energy metrics employed for this analysis were extracted from the GRIP2 ice core compendium, situated in Greenland.
Exhibit 1
The gray-colored waves representing the energy output clearly show that changes in output are both abrupt and extreme. However, the true significance of Exhibit 1 cannot be fully grasped without some historical background. Therefore, in the subsequent chart, a number of pertinent historical milestones have been marked. These annotations allow for a comparison between Armstrong’s energy output figures and actual events that took place over the same span of 5000 years.
Exhibit 2
The historical pattern of the rise and fall of empires, nations, and city-states underscores the complexity of human civilization. While it’s tempting to attribute these fluctuations to a myriad of factors such as political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental influences, the Armstrong study posits a dominant role for solar activity. This perspective invites a reevaluation of historical causality, placing the Sun at the forefront of shaping human affairs.
The next chart will probably shock you.
The third and last chart reflects a recently developed theoretical framework for mitigating the risk associated with sudden changes in solar output. The chart is the same as Exhibit 2, but it has been overlayed with two sets of waves that propagate along magnetic field lines in plasma. One of the sets is centrifugal-outbound waves related to axial velocities. The other set is centripetal-inbound electrostatic waves emanating from the heliopause.
Exhibit 3 (Click chart to expand its size)
Both the inbound and outbound waves appear to be in near-perfect rhythm with the solar variability shown in Exhibit 2. To confirm that this high degree of correlation was real, an extended 15,000-year simulation was run which produced the same result.
The pivotal moments in solar output are identified by the peaks and troughs of waves, marked by their ascent or descent through the 100-unit threshold, their intersection with the baseline, or their convergence with other waves. These critical junctures are highlighted in Exhibit 3 with an aureate orb and a crimson cross.
After digesting the implications of what is shown in Exhibit 3, we must understand that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. But in this case, the wave sets are locked in a closed loop and can be traced directly from their source within the Sun to the heliopause and back, so there is a real possibility that these rhythms have an association with solar variability.
Assessing Risk:
Dr. Leif Svalgaard, a prominent solar physicist from Stanford University, has offered insights into the challenges of predicting solar variability and its associated risks. He cautions: “We simply do not know with any degree of confidence how the variable star, our Sun, has varied over the past 400 years, not to say over much longer time scales before that. It is thus difficult to assert future risk and to predict what to expect.” This underscores the need for bold ideas like those presented here.
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