WASHINGTON - Sun-spawned cosmic storms that can play havoc with earthly power grids and orbiting satellites could be 50 percent stronger in the next 11-year solar cycle than in the last one, scientists said on Monday.
Using a new model that takes into account what happens under the sun's surface and data about previous solar cycles, astronomers offered a long-range forecast for solar activity that could start as soon as this year or as late as 2008.
They offered no specific predictions of solar storms, but they hope to formulate early warnings that will give power companies, satellite operators and others on and around Earth a few days to prepare.
"This prediction of an active solar cycle suggests we're potentially looking at more communications disruptions, more satellite failures, possible disruptions of electrical grids and blackouts, more dangerous conditions for astronauts," said Richard Behnke of the Upper Atmosphere Research Section at the National Science Foundation.
"Predicting and understanding space weather will soon be even more vital than ever before," Behnke said at a telephone news briefing.
The prediction, roughly analogous to the early prediction of a severe hurricane season on Earth, involves the number of sunspots on the solar surface, phenomena that have been monitored for more than a century.
TWISTED MAGNETIC FIELDS
Every 11 years or so, the sun goes through an active period, with lots of sunspots. This is important, since solar storms - linked to twisted magnetic fields that can hurl out energetic particles - tend to occur near sunspots.
The sun is in a relatively quiet period now, but is expected to get more active soon, scientists said. However, there is disagreement as to whether the active period will start within months - late 2006 or early 2007 - or years, with the first signs in late 2007 or early 2008.
Whenever it begins, the new forecasting method shows sunspot activity is likely to be 30 percent to 50 percent stronger than the last active period. The peak of the last cycle was in 2001, the researchers said, but the period of activity can span much of a decade.
The strongest solar cycle in recent memory occurred in the late 1950s, when there were few satellites aloft, no astronauts in orbit and less reliance on electrical power grids than there is now.
If a similarly active period occurred now, the impact would be hard to predict, according to Joseph Kunches of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center in Colorado.
"It's pretty uncertain what would happen, which makes this work more relevant," Kunches said.
"What we have here is a prediction that the cycle is going to be very active, and what we need and what we're of course working on is to be able to predict individual storms with a couple days or hours in advance so the grids can take the action," Behnke said.
Story by Deborah Zabarenko
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
