"WILD CARDS OF THE PLANET" – (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

Kryon.com, November 19, 2016

This live channelling was given in Wilmington, North Carolina

Lee Carroll

To help the reader, this channelling has been revisited [by Lee and Kryon] to provide even clearer understanding. Sometime information is even added or condensed. Often what happens live has implied energy within it, which carries a kind of communication that the printed page does not. So enjoy this enhanced message given in Wilmington, NC.

Greetings, dear ones, I am Kryon of Magnetic Service.

Today I want to talk about wild cards. I wish to help explain what or who they’ve been over time, but in order for this explanation to be understood and accepted and beautiful to your soul, you’re going to have to do some pretending.

Adjusting Your Attitude

If you were a scientist coming from another planet to observe Human history, you would need to do it without emotion or bias. I can tell the story about wild cards, both for your grandfathers and for you, but there is often emotion and bias involved. Because of this, I will say one thing, and you may hear another. Dear ones, it can’t be that way for you to understand this message.

Warning: What comes next has to be disengaged from what you think you know, or from the emotions of who you think you are, what you think has happened, or even from what you feel is historical. Remember, in his pretending scenario, you’re aliens coming from another planet to learn what has happened. You’re pretending so you will disengage. Pretend history will be told to you about a race you’re not part of. This is so you will have no attachment to anything as you listen. This is the only way you will understand this lesson today. It is the only way you will begin to understand the beauty of a spiritual system that pushes you when you need to be pushed.

Wild Cards Examined

Wild card, as used in spiritual language, is a term that is difficult to define. Wild cards can be events, they can be inventions, they can involve one Human or a few. They can be one of many things or many of one thing, but they follow a timeline that you can look at. We want to talk about some of the wild cards that you’ve had in the past, and some attributes of their occurrence that you might not have thought of.

The basic attribute of any kind of wild card is that it’s a surprise event. It’s often shocking, sometimes revealing, but always a surprise. We’re also going to do some of the numerology as we go, and also take a look at the energies that help define what the energy is around specific wild cards.

Numerology is an ancient system that helps define an energy around something. For instance, an event may seem to be one thing, but the numerology will tell a story around it that may be more explanatory. When you see what we will call synchronized numerology – the same numbers repeated around a wild card – it’s very telling, for there are no accidents.

Dear Kryon, you might ask, “Does spirit create wild cards for the planet?” Answer: No, you do. Your consciousness at a certain point in time gives an allowance for a wild card. Sprit is ready to enhance some wild card scenarios and not others. But the energy and consciousness of humanity allows for their occurrence.

A wild card can be a person, an invention, a thing, an event, a new system or a new paradigm that changes the planet. It is unexpected, sometimes startling and often dramatic in its influence. If it’s an invention, it has to be outside of the purview of what would normally have occurred through the evolution of science or the timing of expected scientific evolution. It is often a paradigm shifter, and it’s usually from one person. When you see that, you will know there it’s a wild card. It isn’t always an individual invention, and sometimes it’s collective. But, dear one, you can tell because every single wild card takes everybody by surprise.

Wild Cards in History

You’ve had a number of them, and I’ll list a few so you get the idea. You’ll also get to see a system of singularity that comes to inventors. You’ll see this as I go.

Tesla was a wild card. His ideas were unexpected, controversial and advanced to a degree that even to this day those in electronic engineering shake their heads. They will take a look at what he invented and will comment, “How is it possible for any one person to have seen that? If you study alternating current, it’s a conundrum. Phase relationships of alternating current are brilliant beyond brilliant.” This was Tesla.

However, what you know about him is only what he brought to you. Now, a brilliant mind like that would have other things, don’t you think? Indeed, he did, so you might ask, “Well, where are those other things?” The answer is that those other things were stopped cold – all of them. He only was able to promote the one thing that you needed for the planet. The brilliance of his mind had many other profound ideas, but he was unable to proceed. He saw ways to alter mass in his workshops, but couldn’t. He was frustrated that he didn’t have the elaborate tools to be precise enough to make it work on a regular basis. That’s just one. Transmission of electricity without wires through the ground was the other. However, it would not have been correct at the time for those things to have been presented to humanity. You weren’t ready, but you were ready for alternating current, one of the most needed inventions for the time. Tesla died frustrated, poor, in a small room and alone. He came to do one thing, and was stopped from anything else, then he passed. If you have analyzed the people who were wild cards in your history, there is a pattern.

Other wild card inventors have come into the planet just because the earth was ready for a specific invention. Remember, Spirit does not give the information, but allows for it to be released, often all at once, all over the earth. Let me give you some examples.

Another wild card is the Wright brothers. Isn’t it odd to you that it wasn’t that long ago that you got powered flight? It was just yesterday! Some of your relatives were alive when flight was discovered! Dear ones, the Chinese have been flying kites for thousands of years. Don’t you think that they knew the dynamics of a bird? Do you think that century after century after century occurred and nobody figured out how to sustain flight with any kind of power source? Two bicycle makers figured it out!

That’s odd enough, but the fact that they only beat the French by two weeks is something worth looking at. That’s odd! It’s almost like this profound invention was ready to be given to the planet simultaneously, all over the earth, at the same time. Whoever got to it first would be the ones who got the credit. The real oddity is the timing. It’s not logical that it was so hidden, then suddenly so many were working on it all at once.

The Wright brothers were here to show it to you, then stop. All they did was what you saw at Kitty Hawk. They never went past basic wing warping, and did not have first intuitive thought about ailerons, or the basics of flight control today. For them, it stopped there. Dear ones, there was great frustration, and perhaps even health issues from it, from having others take the basics and develop flight so fast beyond them. Dysfunction and sorrow followed them both, and they died without ever being able to participate fully beyond the initial invention. One died far earlier than the other, creating sorrow for the one left behind. They came to do what they did and move on. This is more common than you know with wild cards, especially when it comes to inventions that change this planet.

Who invented the radio? Was is the Italian Guglielmo Marconi, or our frustrated wild card Tesla? Marconi got the credit, but the invention was everywhere, ready to be claimed. The earth was ripe and ready for it, and it was delivered to the consciousness of the planet at the right time. But both men got it at the same time, apart from each other. I’m giving you things to think about.

We have told you that there are wild card inventions coming in the future. One in particular is ready, but you will not receive it until the time is right. It’s almost like there’s a thinking ceiling on what you can do. We even gave you some of the attributes of the coming invention, but not the one who will bring it. We’re not even concerned that you’ll do it in advance, because we know the wild card is coming. An invention is coming. It is an invention that will rewrite physics as you know it. You’d see the patterns in quantum fields, and there would be the big aha! It would be like reinventing the wheel.

“Kryon, why can’t we have it now? What’s stopping it?” We told you, it’s too easy to weaponize. When you reach the point where you won’t weaponize it, it’s yours. All this is coming. It’s natural, and it will come when it’s time just like the Wright brothers, just like Tesla, just like Einstein.

Einstein was a genuine wild card. He was not a quantum thinker at all, but what he presented is still alive and well today and they’re still looking inside the atom for the concepts he gave you. So I will make this statement: Einstein isn’t finished yet, because the very concepts that continue to be received from his work are going to be applied to the invention of the century. So the Einsteinean principles, even though they are not quantum, will be very much involved in what is coming. You might say he was a wild card and continues to be one. The joke is that his concepts last and last, outside of time, yet his main ideas were with time. If you asked Einstein if he was happy with what he brought to the planet, he would tell you no. He was frustrated that he didn’t get to do what he really wanted. Like Tesla, he felt that something was just “out of reach” and he didn’t get to do it.

Then there was World War II. Dear ones, pretend you are an alien scientist. Disengage your emotion. You’ve come in from another planet to look at this.

World War II (WWII) was not a wild card, but the man who created and enhanced it was. This planet was teetering on the edge of ultimate dark energy and destruction. Nobody expected it. The most despicable old energy card played itself out exactly as it should have, with the consciousness of this planet going to where it had brought itself. You had just finished World War I (WWI), yet WWII ignited and continued. So WWII was simply an extension of WWI. You did it again, only this time the weapons were getting bigger and more able to destroy all of humanity. Remember the prophecy of your scripture? You were headed for mass destruction. WWII would become World War III, and by the year 2000, you would be almost gone.

As I mentioned, WWII wasn’t the wild card, rather it was the man who led the lowest consciousness in recent history who was. He was the wild card, and you know of whom I speak. This wild card killed millions of people who were not even participants in the military portion of the war. Genocide had begun, a race war had begun, and many were following his lead. It showed the darkest side of humanity – more than you had ever seen before, and it almost targeted the demise of civilization if he had won.

It was a horror wild card, and the planet had created it. However, when it was over, the entire world took a breath and for a moment, just for a moment, there was a glimmer of realization: “This cannot go on, for we will do it again.” Many things took place due to this realization. Without the wild card, you would not have the European Union, you would not have the United Nations or any attempt at unity on Earth. Disengage from your logic and emotion, dear ones. These things were not created from Spirit, but rather from the depth of lower humanity. This is the dark side at its worst, showing itself with almost free reign, but the world objected to it and started to climb out of it. It was the beginning over half a century ago of what you’re starting to see now in the shift.

The amazing shift that you’re in right now is something that goes slow. It didn’t happen all at once. The Cold War was a natural occurrence out of the consciousness that was part of the end of WWII. But, dear ones, you could never have the shift if that Cold War had continued the way it was. Enter another wild card: The Soviet system fell over.

The Cold War could not continue, and it was stopped in the form it was in. Dear ones, for those reading now, that was one of the biggest wild cards of all. The consciousness of earth said “no” and it ended. That was a huge wild card. It changed everything; it wasn’t expected; nobody saw it coming, and it changed everything. It may not have changed things immediately to the way you want it right away, but it created that which you needed at that time.

Then there was Steve Jobs. He was a wild card. What he did had little to do with technology, for that would have happened anyway soon enough. Instead, it had to do with the paradigm of the business of music on Earth. He freed it, and the paradigm of how music is obtained and heard will never be the same. However, Steve Jobs did basically one thing for all of you, and then he died. Do you see any kind of connecting of the dots to some of the inventors who come and give you the one thing, then leave? If he had lived, would there be more? Yes, but you’re not ready for it. Consciousness has to support what happens.

Yes, it would seem we have left some things out – the invention of DNA, the atomic bomb, etc. However, these were not wild cards. These are your civilization, within a normal evolution of science. Wild cards are very unexpected things, and there are more coming your way.

The Wild Card of 2016

Remember: No emotion now. You have come from another planet and you’re looking at the end of 2016 – and there is the election. Understand without bias.

So for 2016, let’s do the numerology. You add the numbers and get nine. Nine is completion in simple numerology, and when you see a nine it often means the completion of something. Often it is of a time cycle, an energy or the completion of a paradigm. But it’s very strong.

The nines are stronger than many of the other numerological aspects and you feel them. The president-elect (at this writing) is a strong wild card. He is scheduled to become the 45th president. What a coincidence! Forty-five is a nine. A nine and a nine together are more than significant. They tell a story about what is happening. I will tell you something else. This story is not finished yet and there is more coming. You don’t know what you don’t know, so don’t make up your mind in advance about any outcomes. You’re from another planet, remember? There’s no emotion, no bias, no politics and nothing to judge. Look at it for what it is.

A big stick has just been inserted into what is normal and it’s going to be turned. As the big stick turns, other things will respond that never would have responded otherwise. I wish to tell you, dear one, old soul, relax with upcoming wild cards. They do what they do on purpose so that you will have a better civilization in the future. Sometimes they show you what won’t work, and sometimes they change paradigms that would have never changed otherwise. But what you have now is a profound wild card. That is the message.

It’s so common for you to respond certain ways when you are invested in the process. The knee-jerk reaction is expected or you wouldn’t be a Human. However, for this lesson, you’re from another planet and you’re looking down and you’re seeing it. Pretend.

Isn’t that interesting about a nine and a nine together? It means that truly the end of something is here. Perhaps it’s the end of the old way things were done? Perhaps it’s a shake-up of the system so it can correct itself? Don’t dare make up your mind where it’s going, because it’s not finished yet. However, wait a moment. Did you also realize that 2017 is a “one” year? Not only is the energy one of completion with a double nine, but it moves into “a new beginning” (the definition of a one in numerology).

I have more to tell you about numerology, and also something that will be clearer about this whole situation. I will give this to you in the next channelling.

Can you relax in the face of uncertainty when it’s your own country? Can you relax in the face of not knowing what’s next? When you’re so involved, can you disengage from either side of the fray? That is the test of a Lightworker.

There’s something else coming. Dear ones, this is beautiful. No matter what you think and no matter what your reaction is to this channelling, what is happening is correct for your time and needed for your immediate future. I will speak of this later. The beauty is when you step away and see how grand it is, that Spirit cares enough that it would allow a big stick to occur that would stir your complacency at this time. The real reason? The shift is here.

How do you feel? I want you to relax and smile at what the shift has brought you. For those of you who felt all the “shift talk” was nonsense, this may be your wake-up call. It’s real. Here it comes.

This is the message of the day. I am Kryon, in love with humanity, and for good reason.

And so it is.

KRYON

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"Numerology" (3) - Dec 10 - 11, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - New

So say goodbye to the old, and hello to the 2.0 version of your world

Aisha North, Nov 30, 2012

The manuscript of survival – part 230 - (Constant Companions channeled through Aisha North)

Aisha North

As you are all aware, tomorrow is the beginning of that fabled month of December 2012, and we would like to give you a little update on what you have been through, and what you have in store. This is indeed a very complex process you are all a part of, so we would like to use a simple metaphor in order to make things mayhaps a little bit clearer. For what you have been working on, is indeed the same process you go through whenever you upgrade the operating system on a computer, and as such we would like to take you through the process using that image.

But let us first backtrack a little bit. As you all know by now, this beautiful planet was once set up as a training ground for intergalatic use. In other words, this is the place where spirits go to learn about the way of life inside a physical body. A sojourn here is much sought after, because the lessons given throughout just one human life are almost endless, and they are indeed something that cannot be experienced any other way. But if we go back to the image of the computer, this ”training program” was infected by a virus, or malware, inserted into this whole setup by beings more interested in controlling the process going on here for their own benefit than letting it all unfold in a more natural way. Hence, the skewed way of life that has developed on this planet, a far cry from what was originally intended. And just as in a computer infected by a secret virus by outsiders, the ”programs” running on this ”computer” started to do unexpected things, because they were in fact remotely controlled  by those who managed to implant this virus in the first place. And the fallout from all of this is well known to you all, as this planet has been sent reeling off its intended trajectory of development and onto a cliff ledge.

But then, the decision was made to reset it all back to normal again, and a huge taskforce was gathered to take on this monumental undertaking. And what is your role in all of this? Well, you are the taskforce sent down to uncover this hidden ”virus” and to clean up the computer and make sure it runs smoothly again. So what you in effect have already accomplished is indeed to pinpoint just where this virus has been hidden, and you have also made sure that it can no longer find anywhere for it to hide in this new system. Because what you have all worked so diligently at these last few, intense months is actually to install a brand new ”operating system”, and the only thing that can run on this new operating system are the new programs that are already in the process of being installed. So just like if you try to download a new version of a program designed for the most recent version of a pc onto your old one, they will not work. Because the old system is unable ro run any of these new programs. So, those still relying on the third level systems will be forced to keep running the same old programs, and these will soon become obsolete, unstable and prone to crashing.

But you, my dears, you are already hooked up to this brand new system, so you will have full access to all of these new programs. And this time, no virus will be allowed to enter in any way, because those responsible for the old one are not compatible with the vibrational level in the new. So they will be left behind, together with all of those still clinging to their old ”hardware” and old paradigms. Whereas you are all connected to the whole new setup, and you will of course receive all of the new upgradings as soon as they are available to you. So say goodbye to the old, and hello to the 2.0 version of your world. It will be a wonderful place indeed, without the same limitations the old system had inherent in it. And best of all, you are the ones who helped install it, so take some time to congratulate yourselves for a task well done! But what you have in store, is indeed what anyone changing from one system of operation to a new one will have, namely a small period for ”reebooting”, where you disconnect from all of the old and restart with the brand new. And that is what December will bring. But more on that later, let us just finish off this message by saying that this could never have been done without you, as you are literally the ones bringing down this whole new setup by accepting to take on the responsibility of being the anchors of this intelligent energy that is the main component of this new ”hard drive” you have all been hooked up to. You have not only done yourselves a huge service, but the rest of Creation is also beholden to you. So cudos to you all, you have worked so hard for such a long time, but now you have only the final fine tuning to go through. And, as we said, the most important part of that process will occur during the month of December. So be prepared for some stops and starts as everything will be run through this disconnect/reconnect period. It is a complicated process, so we will take time to do it step by step, but rest assured that we are all very confident indeed that everything will be just as we have all envisaged it for such a long time now.

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"THE BRIDGE OF SWORDS"– Sep  29, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)


"The End of History" – Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

(Subjects: Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Muhammad, Jesus, God, Jews, Arabs, EU, US, Israel, Iran, Russia, Africa, South America, Global Unity,..... etc.) (Text version)

" ..... Compassion and Unity are the New Energy

The energy of 2012 has been with you for 16 years as I sit here, and will be with you 20 more [as computed by the Mayan calendar]. That is how the alignment works as it moves literally through the center of the galaxy equator. As the precession of the equinoxes [wobble of the earth] takes its effect and you move into the middle of the alignment, it's a 36 year window of experience, not a crosshair on some winter solstice date. You are living within this energy and you have been for some years, New Ager. ....."

Solar Shield--Protecting the North American Power Grid: NASA

NASA Science, Oct. 26, 2010

Oct. 26, 2010: Every hundred years or so, a solar storm comes along so potent it fills the skies of Earth with blood-red auroras, makes compass needles point in the wrong direction, and sends electric currents coursing through the planet's topsoil. The most famous such storm, the Carrington Event of 1859, actually shocked telegraph operators and set some of their offices on fire. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences warns that if such a storm occurred today, we could experience widespread power blackouts with permanent damage to many key transformers.

What's a utility operator to do?

The sun rises behind high-voltage
power lines in North America.

A new NASA project called "Solar Shield" could help keep the lights on.

"Solar Shield is a new and experimental forecasting system for the North American power grid," explains project leader Antti Pulkkinen, a Catholic University of America research associate working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe we can zero in on specific transformers and predict which of them are going to be hit hardest by a space weather event."

The troublemaker for power grids is the "GIC" – short for geomagnetically induced current. When a coronal mass ejection (a billion-ton solar storm cloud) hits Earth's magnetic field, the impact causes the field to shake and quiver. These magnetic vibrations induce currents almost everywhere, from Earth's upper atmosphere to the ground beneath our feet. Powerful GICs can overload circuits, trip breakers, and in extreme cases melt the windings of heavy-duty transformers.

This actually happened in Quebec on March 13, 1989, when a geomagnetic storm much less severe than the Carrington Event knocked out power across the entire province for more than nine hours. The storm damaged transformers in Quebec, New Jersey, and Great Britain, and caused more than 200 power anomalies across the USA from the eastern seaboard to the Pacific Northwest. A similar series of "Halloween storms" in October 2003 triggered a regional blackout in southern Sweden and may have damaged transformers in South Africa.

While many utilities have taken steps to fortify their grids, the overall situation has only gotten worse. A 2009 report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the US Department of Energy concluded that modern power systems have a "significantly enhance[d] vulnerability and exposure to effects of a severe geomagnetic storm." The underlying reason may be seen at a glance in this plot:

Growth of the High Voltage Transmission Network and annual electric energy usage in the United States over the past 50 years. Credit: North American Electric Reliability Corporation and the US Dept. of Energy.

Since the beginning of the Space Age the total length of high-voltage power lines crisscrossing North America has increased nearly 10 fold. This has turned power grids into giant antennas for geomagnetically induced currents. With demand for power growing even faster than the grids themselves, modern networks are sprawling, interconnected, and stressed to the limit—a recipe for trouble, according to the National Academy of Sciences: "The scale and speed of problems that could occur on [these modern grids] have the potential to impact the power system in ways not previously experienced."

A large-scale blackout could last a long time, mainly due to transformer damage. As the National Academy report notes, "these multi-ton apparatus cannot be repaired in the field, and if damaged in this manner they need to be replaced with new units which have lead times of 12 months or more."

Permanent damage to the Salem New Jersey
Nuclear Plant GSU Transformer caused by
the March 13, 1989 eomagnetic storm.
Photos courtesy of PSE&G. [larger image]

That is why a node-by-node forecast of geomagnetic currents is potentially so valuable. During extreme storms, engineers could safeguard the most endangered transformers by disconnecting them from the grid. That itself could cause a blackout, but only temporarily. Transformers protected in this way would be available again for normal operations when the storm is over.

The innovation of Solar Shield is its ability to deliver transformer-level predictions. Pulkkinen explains how it works:

"Solar Shield springs into action when we see a coronal mass ejection (CME) billowing away from the sun. Images from SOHO and NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft show us the cloud from as many as three points of view, allowing us to make a 3D model of the CME, and predict when it will arrive."

While the CME is crossing the sun-Earth divide, a trip that typically takes 24 to 48 hours, the Solar Shield team prepares to calculate ground currents. "We work at Goddard's Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC)," says Pulkkinen. The CCMC is a place where leading researchers from around the world have gathered their best physics-based computer programs for modeling space weather events. The crucial moment comes about 30 minutes before impact when the cloud sweeps past ACE, a spacecraft stationed 1.5 million km upstream from Earth. Sensors onboard ACE make in situ measurements of the CME's speed, density, and magnetic field. These data are transmitted to Earth and the waiting Solar Shield team.

"We quickly feed the data into CCMC computers," says Pulkkinen. "Our models predict fields and currents in Earth's upper atmosphere and propagate these currents down to the ground." With less than 30 minutes to go, Solar Shield can issue an alert to utilities with detailed information about GICs.

Pulkkinen stresses that Solar Shield is experimental and has never been field-tested during a severe geomagnetic storm. A small number of utility companies have installed current monitors at key locations in the power grid to help the team check their predictions. So far, though, the sun has been mostly quiet with only a few relatively mild storms during the past year. The team needs more data.

"We'd like more power companies to join our research effort," he adds. "The more data we can collect from the field, the faster we can test and improve Solar Shield." Power companies work with the team through EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute. Of course a few good storms would help test the system, too. They're coming. The next solar maximum is expected around 2013, so it's only a matter of time.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

More Information:

• Solar Shield -- project home page
• Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) -- This is where Solar Shield calculations are done
• Severe Space Weather-Social and Economic Impacts -- (Science@NASA) A summary of the 2008 National Academy of Sciences report
• High-Impact, Low-Frequency Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System -- A Jointly-Commissioned Summary Report of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation and the U.S. Department of Energy's November 2009 Workshop"
• Super Solar Flare -- (Science@NASA)
  

Solar Weather NASA/SDO

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NASA Science

June 4, 2010: Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Many technologies of the 21st century are vulnerable to solar storms. [more]

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers can protect these assets from damaging electrical surges. Preventative action, however, requires accurate forecasting—a job that has been assigned to NOAA.

"Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we're making rapid progress," says Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Bogdan sees the collaboration between NASA and NOAA as key. "NASA's fleet of heliophysics research spacecraft provides us with up-to-the-minute information about what's happening on the sun. They are an important complement to our own GOES and POES satellites, which focus more on the near-Earth environment."

Click on the image to play a 39 MB movie about space weather and NASA's heliophysics fleet. [more]

Among dozens of NASA spacecraft, he notes three of special significance: STEREO, SDO and ACE.

STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is a pair of spacecraft stationed on opposite sides of the sun with a combined view of 90% of the stellar surface. In the past, active sunspots could hide out on the sun's farside, invisible from Earth, and then suddenly emerge over the limb spitting flares and CMEs. STEREO makes such surprise attacks impossible.

SDO (the Solar Dynamics Observatory) is the newest addition to NASA's fleet. Just launched in February, it is able to photograph solar active regions with unprecedented spectral, temporal and spatial resolution. Researchers can now study eruptions in exquisite detail, raising hopes that they will learn how flares work and how to predict them. SDO also monitors the sun's extreme UV output, which controls the response of Earth's atmosphere to solar variability.

On April 19, 2010, SDO observed one of the most massive eruptions in years. Earth was not in the line of fire ... this time. [full story]

Bogdan's favorite NASA satellite, however, is an old one: the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) launched in 1997. "Where would we be without it?" he wonders. ACE is a solar wind monitor. It sits upstream between the sun and Earth, detecting solar wind gusts, billion-ton CMEs, and radiation storms as much as 30 minutes before they hit our planet.

"ACE is our best early warning system," says Bogdan. "It allows us to notify utility and satellite operators when a storm is about to hit.”

NASA spacecraft were not originally intended for operational forecasting—"but it turns out that our data have practical economic and civil uses," notes Fisher. "This is a good example of space science supporting modern society."

2010 marks the 4th year in a row that policymakers, researchers, legislators and reporters have gathered in Washington DC to share ideas about space weather. This year, forum organizers plan to sharpen the focus on critical infrastructure protection. The ultimate goal is to improve the nation’s ability to prepare, mitigate, and respond to potentially devastating space weather events.

"I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather." Fisher concludes. "We take this very seriously indeed."

For more information about the meeting, please visit the Space Weather Enterprise Forum home page at http://www.nswp.gov/swef/swef_2010.html.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

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Add volcanoes to your disaster recovery plan, Gartner says

Computerworld, by Mitch Betts, May 10, 2010 06:00 AM ET

Computerworld - Your business continuity plan covers fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and maybe pandemics. But how about volcanoes?

It's time to update your crisis management plan, according to a report by Gartner Inc., since the ash cloud from the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano caused an epic disruption in air travel and stranded thousands of people last month.

"Take advantage of the publicity surrounding this event ... to raise internal awareness of your organization's vulnerability to transportation outages," the Gartner report said, noting that for the past 2,000 years, the larger Katla volcano has always erupted after Eyjafjallajokull.

The first priority is to help stranded employees find alternate transportation, accommodations and workspaces, the report said. And that requires a central system that tracks which employees are in transit.

Companies also need to figure out how critical work will get done when employees are out. Gartner suggested that a business process management system would help: "It could tell you what work is in progress, what the status is, and who was supposed to do it."

Technologies such as Skype, mobile devices and Web interfaces to company systems could make it easier for stranded employees to get work done. Telepresence rooms aren't widely available, but it might be possible for an employee to find a videoconference room that can be rented by the hour, the report noted.

Read more about Business Continuity in Computerworld's Business Continuity Knowledge Center.

(Solar and Heliospheric Observatory - website)

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After decade of silence, Y2K alarmist speaks out

NRC International, 30 December 2009 13:02 ,By Freek Staps in New York

A Korean shop holder selling Y2K preparedness packages at the end of the last century. Photo: Reuters

Before the turn of the century, Edward Yardeni spent years raising worldwide awareness of the Y2K-problem. When his predicted pandemonium failed to materialise, Yardeni dropped off the radar for almost a decade. Now, he is ready to speak out again.

Everything digital would collapse, causing death and destruction worldwide - or so those who feared the millenium bug predicted. The reasoning behind this, almost ten years ago, was internal clocks of the world’s computers were not built to understand the year 2000 (or Y2K) and would all jump from 1999 to 1900 at midnight, wreaking all sorts of havoc in their wake.

Nuclear missiles would launch automatically. There would be massive blackouts. The world financial system could shut down. Emergency services would fail en masse and air traffic controllers would be left helpless as planes fell from the skies.

In retrospect these predictions seems a bit far fetched. But the above list was actually summed up at hearing held by the American congress. The speaker: Edward Yardeni, then chief economist of Deutsche Bank Securities and the most famous Y2K alarmist in the world.

Yardeni’s reputation was impeccable. He attended both Yale and Cornell universities, worked for the US department of the treasury and the Federal Reserve. America’s largest newspaper, USA Today, called him the country’s most credible analyst. Yardeni even earned the honorific nickname “Wizard of Wall Street”.

Yardeni started speaking out on Y2K as early as 1997 and no one discussed the matter as much and as openly as he did. He spoke to the World Bank and the CIA, and he was a fixture at the annual forum of world leaders in Davos.

His dire words had an immediate effect. In the US, the White House formed a special task group, legislation was passed shielding companies from lawsuits emanating from the Y2K problem, insurance companies introduced special policies to cover the problem, and lawyers prepared themselves for a torrential flood of Y2K cases. According to the most conservative estimates, the American government spent 100 billion dollars fighting the problem.

So, what sort of horrible things happened in the end?

“Nothing. Perhaps two clocks showed the wrong date. It turned out to be completely uneventful.”

Some computer problems did occur though. In one casino, 150 slot machines broke down. The alarm system guarding an abandoned government building ceased to function, leaving its doors open that night. A client at a video store was charged thousands of dollars in late fees for a video more than a century overdue. Yardeni celebrated the new year at home, with his wife. When he woke up the following morning, the world was still there.

Afterwards, Yardeni quickly admitted he had been wrong and then withdrew from the public eye, remaining silent on the matter for a decade. Now, for the first time in almost ten years, he looks back on Y2K. Not on Wall Street. He doesn’t work there any more. Yardeni runs a small consulting firm from his home.

Your predictions did not materialise in the end.

“It is entirely possible that the problem never existed. It could also be that companies took action in time because people like myself sounded the alarm. In any case: when nothing happened and it turned out to have been a mistake all along, it was quite a relief.”

“I do blame myself for the fact that it seems the Y2K problem led to a recession. Quite a lot of money was pumped into computers to solve this problem. When nothing happened, that influx of cash dried up, contributing to the burst of the technology bubble.”

Does that mean you admit to contributing to the problem?

“It was never my intent to sow doom and gloom or cause depression. I am a family man and I don’t like to see people lose their jobs. But I did see a recession coming.”

At the time you called yourself “an alarmist”.

“I was trying to raise awareness because I felt business had to invest heavily in tackling this problem. Not because I thought people had to arm themselves or build bunkers. “

Still, your warnings had a seditious character.

“I was trying to garner attention – successfully I might add. Perhaps I stuck with it for too long. Maybe I should have called it proclaimed victory and called it quits six months before 2000.”

How could you have misjudged this problem?

“No doubt this was a major slip-up. The biggest in my career. Did computers end up breaking down? No. Did the recession I predicted occur? No. I admit to all that. But I do not regret a thing.”

But a lot of money was spent. The Wall Street Journal even said that an “end-of-the-world-cult” had perpetrated the “con of the century”.

“I think they were right about that,” Yardeni said, but after a moment’s reflection, he chose the offencive. “But if it really was a con-job, why did all those companies spent so much money?”

Perhaps because trustworthy authorities like you recommended it?

“Listen. Hold on. The executives in charge of major companies know what they’re doing. They won’t waste money on a false alarm.”

You are short-selling your own influence.

“I was not that important at all,’ Yardeni said, again pausing for reflection. “Perhaps I was credible and I had a good reputation – I still do, I think – but I did not invent Y2K. Besides, people were working on this day and night. They took it so seriously they spent a lot of money on it.

Some countries – Russia, Germany, and Italy – stood out because they spent no money at all.

“Yes”

And nothing went wrong there at the year’s end.

“Exactly.”

So what does that mean?

“That computers weren’t essential to those countries.”

What Edward Yardeni said in 1999

• “The communications’ systems of half of the world’s countries are at risk of imminent collapse.”
  
  
• “I am no longer certain that we have enough time to prevent a Y2K-recession.”
  
  
• “There is a 70 percent chance of a worldwide recession at least a serious as the one we had in 1973 and 1974.”
  
  
• “It worries me that nobody on this planet is trying to assess the consequences the computer problem might have for the worldwide food supply...it might be seriously disrupted.”
  
  
• “This is the American Titanic. There is an iceberg up ahead and we are still partying on the upper deck.”