Solar Flares do not cause earthquakes or tsunamis

by Dr. Ed Berry

A lot of good people got taken in by bad science recently. This is to set the record straight.

On May 17 and 19, some people predicted the recent solar flare may cause earthquakes in northeast USA and a tsunami in the North Atlantic Ocean. One also said the asteroid 2013 KB would come only 20,000 miles from Earth on May 22 and this would add to the danger of earthquakes.

First, let’s check asteroid 2013 KB on NASA’s JPL website. It says the close approach on May 22 would be 0.0081 Astronomical Units, which is 1,215,000 km or 760,000 miles. This is 3.16 times the distance from Earth center to Moon center. The asteroid’s diameter is between 10 and 22 meters. Clearly, there never was any danger from this asteroid.

Second, anyone with basic knowledge of physics knows solar flares do not cause earthquakes. They cause good auroras as the charged solar particles follow Earth’s magnetic field lines toward the magnetic poles. They can cause damage to sensitive electronics and therefore to anything controlled by sensitive electronics.

If we do a Google search on “solar flares and earthquakes” we find a good article on the Huffington Post, “Solar Flares don’t cause earthquakes.” I recommend it to everyone who wishes to understand this.

Conclusion

Be wary of predictions of coming disasters. Some of these predictions are based upon a misunderstanding of physics and miscalculations in mathematics.