Question

Confused about 2012 "Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months" is a report on the Fox News website. They stated the report was commissioned and paid for by NASA. It was reported by The National Academy of Sciences and includes a comment by Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics division at NASA. If nothing is going to happen as a result of the event in 2012, why would NASA allow such nonsense to be reported.

There is nothing wrong with the National Research Council report on heliophysics, and NASA is very pleased with it. As you note, this report includes a worst-case analysis of what could happen today if there were a repetition of the biggest solar storm ever recorded (in 1859). The problem is the way such information can be used out of context. There is no reason to expect such a large solar storm in the near future, certainly not in 2012 specifically. Your reference to “the event in 2012”, and the use of this information by Fox News, illustrates this problem. There is no prediction of an “event in 2012”. We don’t even know if the next solar maximum will take place in that year. There is analogous misunderstanding or misuse of statistics on asteroid and comet impacts. Such impacts are extremely rare, but always possible; but there is no connection between this low-level risk and the dire claims some people are making for 2012. The whole 2012 disaster scenario is a hoax, fueled by ads for the Hollywood science-fiction disaster film “2012”. I can only hope that most people are able to distinguish Hollywood film plots from reality.

David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist
March 23, 2009