Solar Flares and Earth

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I want you view on this diagram. One idea is that the flares are somehow 'penentrating' the magnetic 'bubble' surrounding Earth, heating the mantle, and after a few years, the plates will be able to move freely. Personally, I think that this ideaology is ludicrous! But, my knowledge of AstroPhysics is not brilliant. So, please, if you understand this concept. Explain your ideas!

Happy Debating/Agreeing!
HelixStein

Electrically charged matter clumps ride. the magnetic field envelope around to the poles. That is why we have the Northern and Southern Lights. If the magnetic field weakens sufficiently we are in for a world of hurt.

The heat of the subterranean plates is do mostly to pressure and the decay of radioactive material in the Earth's core. We have a heat engine down that which could go for another billion years. In theory, we could live on (or in Earth) even if the sun stopped shining. Down in the depths of the ocean there are living things that never received a lumen of sunshine. The live off the heat produced by volcanic vents at ocean bottom. In principle, we could do the same.

ruveyn

When the poles shift in 2012, we are in for that world of hurt as ruveyn said.

But seriously, the poles will shift someday... and it COULD be in 2012, it could be tomorrow, and it could be 500,000 years from now.

I think it's a bout every 250,000 years that the poles shift on average, based on geological evidence in the polarization of sedimentary rock. (oddly 250,000 years is also the length of 10 great years)

Evidence shows that rather than a "shift" it's that the magnetic field dies.... and that is re-established.

The last shift was between 750,000 and 800,000 years ago, so maybe we're over due.

So, there is no way to tell if the field doesn't die more often, but have a high percentage chance of having the same polarity as what it was previously.
For example, 90% chance of being the same, 10% chance of being opposite would create a system that would coincide with a polar drop every great year.
The time between the collapse and the reforming of the field likely gets longer with each time it occurs, because the spin of the earth has greatly slowed... I think the day was only 18 hours long when the dinosaurs lived, and was at one time as short at 6 hours back just before the moon was first formed/caught. I don't know the math, but I would think halfing the spin would more than double the time to regenerate.
Some scientists believe it takes hundreds or thousands of years to reform, others believe days or hours. No consensus.

BTW... a Great year is one revolution of the solar system around the galaxy.. analogous to a year which is the earth once around the solar system.

If a magnetic field collapse were to co-occur with a period of increased solar flares, then the situation would be worse. And I do believe we are approaching a solar maximum. I THINK it would allow more solar flares to hit the earth.

There is a minority (very minority) view that a pole shift has already started, and that the collapse and reforming is a SLOW process.. The magnetic north pole IS moving at 25 miles per year, but few believe it's connected to pole shifts.

So... if you wanna be paranoid and believe the mayan hocus pocus, get your lead umbrella and air conditioned clothes out for Dec 21, 2012.

We will both have a good laugh in 2013, g-d willing and the overpass don't collapse.

ruveyn

Most likely thing to happen is that a bunch of satellites get fried and if a major flare event occurs the powerlines could overload (induction of current in wire due to a change in magnetic field). I read in New Scientist a year ago or so that there was once a solar maximum so strong that it generated auroras as far south London in the 1800's (19th century).

The skies over Fredricksburg during the Battle of Fredricksburg (Civil War, December 1862) were lit at night by the aurora. It was quite a light show for the survivors of the battle up the hill toward Maryes Height.

ruveyn

Um, this is basically the plot in the 2012 movie!
I'm not a geologist, but I'm pretty sure the plates do move 'freely' anyway, this is plate tectonics.
A big solar flare will cause lots of electronic things to break, and fry, but I wouldn't think that a solar flare would actually heat up the earth.
If they make it into a (science fiction) movie, it most likely isn't true. there are lots of movies like this, like The Core, where the core of the earth stops rotating. Somebody forgot conservation of (rotational) momentum, so this would be impossible to happen!
lots of other movies/miniseries like this, which they attempt to make sound believable, but anyone that has a bit of education in science can tell that it is just stupid.
You might have heard about yellowstone being 'overdue', which it isn't. the last three eruptions were 2.1 Myr, 1.2Myr and 0.64Myr. the times between the first two is 0.9Myr, and beween the second and third is 0.56Myr. the average of these two is 0.73Myr, so based on THREE DATA POINTS, you can come to the conclusion that the next eruption 110,000 years (obviously not overdue). predicting an event from three other events is just ridiculously stupid!

as for the earth being warmed up, lets say that 0.01% of the mass of the earth gets warmed up by 100 K
this mass is about 6*10^20 kg. I will approximate this as being the mantle, which is mostly silicon dioxide, which has a heat capacity of 700 J *K^-1*kg^-1
total energy required = 6*10^20 kg * 100 K * 700 J *K^-1*kg^-1 = 4.2*10^25 J
lets say that the particles are travelling at 0.9 times the speed of light (which is unusually fast I think). the kinetic energy = m*(c^2 *y - c^2) where c is the speed of light, and y is gamma, the relativistic speed factor, which is 1/(sqrt(1- (v/c)^2)) which in this case is 2.3
so energy = mass * 1.17*10^17 m^2*s^-2
rearranging and calculating, I get a mass of 359 million kg, which is quite a lot.

Wikipedia says that solar flares can have as much as 6*10^25 J of energy, but this is the total energy. even if one of this size was headed for earth, most of the energy wouldn't hit the earth, and I have no idea if the energy would actually heat up the mantle anyway.

This is such a low-intensity period of solar activity that I don't find it likely our star will somehow violently flare up. Actually, that (historical) 11-year solar cycle seems to be in doubt...

I read somewere that in 1859 there was a severe solar storm that caused a telegraph station in England to ignite into flames. Before then Humanity was unaware of the solar storms.

That one disaster movie starring John Cusack had to invent Thermal Neutrinos for the disaster scenario. Think of Neutrinos as like positrons and electrons, except that they hold no charge. The only way to detect neutrinos is by having a pool of heavy water (tritium) deep underground.

The Sun has not killed us yet, but about 1500 the Crab Nebula Supernova does seem to have ended the Little Ice Age.

That's life in the toster.

On the Pole Shift part I believe that the Earth's atmosphere is thick enough to protect us from the solar radiation. The only problem is that solar flares are due in 2012 so therefore the radiation from the flare could cause major problems with communications and electronics. Such as in the 1859 Solar Storm which caused the failure of telegraph lines.
If this occurs on a major scale the Solar Storm could possibly disrupt the grid and cause major panic.