The Geostorm Series (Book 4): Geostorm [The Flood]

by Akart, Bobby

  That being said, while scientists are unwilling to predict exactly when the next full reversal will occur, most don’t think it could lead to a mass extinction event unless humans have evolved to the point where they, literally, can’t live without their electronic devices.

  And we’re not there yet…right?

  Right?

  Thank you for reading the Geostorm series.

  Real-World News Excerpts

  EARTH’S MAGNETIC NORTH IS SHIFTING AT AN ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ RATE

  ~ UK Daily Mail, December 13, 2019

  The Earth’s magnetic North Pole is travelling at an unprecedented rate and is picking up speed as it moves towards Siberia, according to new satellite data.

  This is the fastest recorded shift of the Earth’s north since the mid-16th century…

  The World Magnetic Model has also located ‘caution zones’ on Earth around the magnetic fields…

  If this continues, the field could eventually reverse, which would have dire consequences for any civilization around to witness it, because the magnetic field would no longer shield the Earth against damaging solar and cosmic radiation.

  DAYS OF TERRIFYING DARKNESS, COLD AND HUNGER AMID POWER BLACKOUTS

  ~ Los Angeles Times, October 31, 2019

  Amid what was effectively the longest planned power shut-off on record, the toll of the blackout was both immediate and existential…

  Despite attempts to prepare after a shorter outage earlier this month, the duration of the blackout frayed both tempers and order. Gas tanks were siphoned, and generators “are like diamonds,” said one resident. News remains mostly word of mouth.

  When deep darkness took over by 7 p.m. in the scattered towns around the state, there was a “tension in the air,” said one resident, a feeling that although a threat may not be imminent, sunset held a primal menace. The sheriff declared a state of emergency, citing “conditions of extreme peril.”

  SEATTLE SEES ITS DARKEST DAY IN RECORDED HISTORY

  ~ FOX NEWS, December 22, 2019

  Seattle, the city known for its rainy weather and overcast, saw its darkest day in recorded history Friday due to several factors, including dense cloud coverage.

  On Friday, pyranometers, devices which measure the amount of solar radiation that reaches the ground in a twenty-four hour period over a square meter surface, reportedly came in nearly 73 times that July readings.

  The city saw record-setting rainfall and denser-than-normal cloud coverage during the timeframe.

  SHOCKING NEW MAPS SHOW HOW SEA LEVEL RISE WILL DESTROY COASTAL CITIES BY 2050

  ~ Forbes, October 30, 2019

  A new Climate Central research report released this week finds hundreds of millions more people than previously known live on land at risk from coastal flooding linked to climate change.

  By 2050, sea-level rise will push average annual coastal floods higher than land now home to 300 million people, according to a study published in Nature Communications. High tides could permanently rise above land occupied by another 150 million people.

  SAHARA DESERT COVERED IN FIFTEEN INCHES OF SNOW AS FREAK WEATHER BLANKETS SAND DUNES

  ~ UK Express News, Helen Barnett

  More than 15 inches of snow has blanketed sand dunes across the nation of Algeria. It is the second time snow has hit in nearly 40 years. But this snowfall which hit on Sunday, is much deeper than the fleeting shower of decades ago.

  The cold snap comes as Europe and the United States froze in bitter temperatures. Winter storms battered the US east coast, the sea froze in Cape Cod, along with Niagara Falls in stunning scenes.

  Epigraph

  “Water is the driving force of all nature.”

  ~ Leonardo da Vinci

  *****

  It’s raining. It’s pouring. The old man is snoring.

  ~ The Little Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, c. 1912

  *****

  Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.

  ~ Isaiah 30:26

  *****

  “The Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a flood.

  ~ Congressman John Shimkus

  *****

  Humanity learns true lessons only in cataclysm.

  ~ Daniel H. Wilson, Author and Robotics Engineer

  Prologue

  Atacama Large Millimeter Array, ALMA

  Atacama, Chile

  Sol. The sun. It’s been said that all life depends on its power, but that same power can end life on this planet as we know it. Once an old soothsayer casually said, “Ya lives by da sun and ya dies by da sun.” Truer words have never been spoken, especially in the hours leading up to the most consequential geomagnetic storm ever experienced by modern man.

  Soul. Translated into Spanish, the word became alma. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array, or ALMA, was located in a quiet, peaceful region of Chile where flamingos swarm in salt fields while the sun rises over volcanoes in the distance. In the Atacama Desert, the soil was so dry, it’s comparable to the geology of Mars but was referred to as the Valley of the Moon.

  It’s simply the perfect place on Earth to observe space. With no clouds or moisture to get in the way, Atacama was known to have the planet’s clearest skies. At an altitude of over sixteen thousand feet, the observatory at ALMA was one of the highest technology projects ever undertaken. Finally, due to its remote, almost uninhabitable landscape, there is minimal light pollution and interference.

  This combination of unique characteristics makes the sixty-six antennae so powerful that the images of space generated at ALMA are ten times more detailed than the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting our planet.

  At this hour, the observatory was abuzz with activity as the focus of the scientists’ work shifted away from observing the coldest matter in space—the galaxies at the farthest reaches of the universe. At the moment, space observers around the globe were compiling information on the geomagnetic storm that was approaching Earth.

  Dr. Allie McKeon, a Brit who was the first woman to head up operations at ALMA, stood in the center of the high-tech control room, surrounded by the members of her JAO team at Joint Alma Observatory. Like a quarterback in the huddle during that final drive of a big game, members of her team focused intently on her directions and observations. At six feet two, she certainly had the stature to play the QB1 position.

  “People, our sun is as unpredictable as it is predictable. Everything we think we know about the impact of this series of solar flares can be discarded. As weak as the magnetic field is at this point, the mundane could now become an extraordinary daily occurrence.”

  One of her assistants interrupted her. “Dr. McKeon, we have the first wave available to view.”

  “Bring up the GOES feed on the center screen,” she instructed.

  GOES was an acronym for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system. The National Weather Service used the GOES system for its weather monitoring and forecasting operations. Scientific researchers, like the team at ALMA, used the data to study space weather, especially the sun’s activity.

  The monitor’s view switched to display data related to the magnetosphere, the regions surrounding the planet created by the north and south poles. Only, the poles were no longer in the north and the south, mostly. Around the globe, as many as eight poles were shown on the monitor. Some revealed stronger levels than others, but overall, the image resembled a chaotic series of lines shooting away from Earth in all directions.

  Chaotic. Disorderly. Helter-skelter.

  It depicted our planet’s magnetic field in a way only imagined by computer models and storytellers, yet it was very real.

  “What a mess,” commented one of the younger members of the JAO team.

  Dr. McKeon lau
ghed. “Well, I must say, it’s not a very scientific description, but it’s certainly appropriate.”

  Her aide changed the monitors to the left and right of the main screen. “On the left, you’re seeing the actual solar wind data, including density, speed, magnitude, and direction. On the right, we’ve applied that data to a geostorm impact model based upon the current status of the poles. We’ve already transmitted our findings to the SWPC in Boulder.” The Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, was a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

  “Dr. McKeon, if I may?” asked another one of the scientists, who focused on data received from SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. He studied solar snapshots, which revealed activity on the sun’s surface such as coronal holes, low-density regions of the sun’s atmosphere. These areas of low-density plasma were the source of high-speed winds of solar particles that streamed off the sun into space. As a coronal hole released matter from the sun’s magnetic fields, soaring up and away from the surface, they created the conditions necessary for a solar flare.

  She gestured with her arm and replied, “Go ahead.”

  “This is just the beginning,” he said with trepidation in his voice. “We’ve now confirmed using GOES data that multiple active regions have rotated into view, and several X-class solar flares are Earth-directed.”

  Solar flares were rated as class B, C, N, or X, with X-class being the most powerful. The first of these active regions had released an X1.2-class solar flare as its final hurrah yesterday. The bright flash of light observed on the SOHO monitors was the largest of the year so far. However, it didn’t approach the more massive X20 flares of April 2001 and August 1989. Twenty times the size of yesterday’s eruption, those flares had caused massive power outages in the northern United States and Canada.

  Times were different now. At the turn of the century, unbeknownst to the scientific community, the rapid pole shift was in its early stages. The power outages of ’89 and ’01 were nothing in comparison to what would befall Earth in the coming days. All of the efforts at power grid manipulation would be for naught, as more than half of Earth’s inhabitants would experience life as it was in the early 1800s.

  “Let’s get to it,” said Dr. McKeon as she settled into a chair slightly elevated above the rest of the workstations. To the casual observer, the command center console resembled the interior of the famed starship Enterprise, once a figment of a very creative imagination.

  The members of the JAO team reported their findings. Their projections spared ALMA and countries closer to the equator from the grid-destroying effects of the coming geomagnetic storms. Dr. McKeon agreed that if the resulting electromagnetic pulse took out the power grid this close to the center of the planet geographically, the world would be facing an unimaginable culling of the planet’s human population.

  “Dr. McKeon, you wanna talk about bad luck,” began one of her aides. “Look at these magnetogram readings along the sun’s surface.”

  “Another one?” she asked.

  “Yes’m,” he replied. “It could loop, but it’ll still send a significant electromagnetic pulse our way. Under these conditions…” His voice trailed off. The sun had a habit of bending much of its escaped magnetic energy back into its coronal opening. However, a significant EMP could be generated that, under the conditions of Earth’s weakened magnetic field, could wreak havoc.

  The JAO team was mesmerized by the magnetogram images. The bulging loop of the solar flare held onto the solar disk like a drop of water from a leaky kitchen faucet. The loop, filled with helium and hydrogen particles, did not close and return to the sun under its intense gravitational pull, as oftentimes happens. It kept rising from the surface, swelling like a balloon about to pop. As the solar flare’s footprint expanded, both across the solar disk and into space, it became apparent it would not be contained.

  The solar plume grew, and then it released highly energized particles toward Earth at three million miles an hour. Like an ordinarily benign solar flare headed toward Earth, this X-flare would gain steam with the solar wind, and its charged particles would follow in the wake of the existing geomagnetic storm schedule for full impact on Earth’s atmosphere in just hours.

  When it hit, the consequences would be devastating for mankind.

  Chapter 1

  Lutheran Downtown Hospital

  Fort Wayne, Indiana

  You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today—a profound statement made by President Abraham Lincoln referring to procrastination, the most counterproductive habit known to man.

  Squire Boone, loving husband, proud father, devoted farmer, and chronic procrastinator, lay prone on the operating table, eyes closed and deep in the throes of an anesthesia-induced sleep. He’d only regained consciousness for a few moments before he’d been injected with several pre-op drugs designed to ease him into sleep. He was aware he was going into surgery, but he wasn’t completely sure why his stomach pain was so serious that the emergency procedure was necessary.

  Nonetheless, he was the center of attention in the operating theater on the second floor at Lutheran Downtown Hospital in Fort Wayne. Prior to descending into the deep sleep, he’d noticed the operating room was a very busy place. The lights were bright, the instruments were shiny, and the entire area felt sterile, as it should be.

  All of his vitals had been checked by the surgical nurses and rechecked by the anesthesiologist. The nurse anesthetist attached a blood pressure cuff, ECG leads to monitor his heart, and a plastic clip attached to his fingertip, known as a pulse oximeter, used to measure the amount of oxygen in his blood during the surgery.

  The wonders of modern science, complete with the latest in medical technology, were all available to the surgical team to ensure this relatively uncomplicated surgery went smoothly.

  During the time-out, a brief period when the entire surgical team confirms to one another they have the correct patient and the surgery to be performed was appropriate, a final conversation took place between the two surgeons, who confirmed that Squire’s bowel resection required opening up his abdomen rather than performing a laparoscopy.

  A bowel resection via laparoscopy was the preferred method to deal with Crohn’s disease complications because it only required three to six small incisions instead of one large one. Plus, the recovery time was much faster, a benefit considering the long waiting list of needy patients that had formed at the emergency room admitting desk.

  Based upon their initial diagnosis, Squire’s bowels might be obstructed, and there was the possibility of invasive colorectal cancer. An open resection was deemed the most effective way of treating him especially since a follow-up surgery might not be possible due to the threat of geomagnetic storms shutting down the hospital permanently.

  The two surgeons in the adult surgery ward at Lutheran had never worked together. Ordinarily, a board-certified surgeon headed up the team, coupled with a surgical resident, a doctor who’d completed medical school but who was furthering his training in a surgery specialty.

  Today, with every operating suite full, the top surgeons were handling the most complex, life-threatening cases while the rest of the doctors, including surgical residents, were left on their own.

  With temperature and humidity carefully controlled throughout the surgery floors, staff surgeons, interns, and nurses could perform their duties in comfortable scrub suits and in a relatively stress-free environment. Today was different.

  The operating theater was typically relaxed due to the team’s confidence in the lead surgeon. When the anesthesiologist and the lead surgical nurse learned that two residents would be handling this open resection, they huddled in a corner to debate whether they wanted to be a part of Squire’s surgical team.

  The anesthesiologist even left at one point to raise the issue with the hospital’s chief surgeon, who was the presiding administrative leader over all surgery-related matters. He’d been workin
g around the clock, sleeping on a cot brought into his office for a few hours at a time. He assured the anesthesiologist that he’d be roaming the halls of the surgery floors, prepared to step in if called upon.

  The tense atmosphere coupled with the air-handling units at the hospital being overloaded raised the operating room temperature to four degrees above normal. This became evident as the two young residents began the most difficult part of Squire’s surgery, the resection and removal of his diseased intestines.

  “Okay, here we go,” said the older of the two residents. Beads of sweat appeared just below his surgical cap, and he waited for a nurse to pat it dry with a cloth.

  He carefully created an incision in part of Squire’s small intestine. His partner, also a graduate of the Indiana University School of Medicine, took Squire’s bowels in his hands and assisted his fellow surgical resident. Thus far, their surgery was considered routine.

  “How many hours have you been on?” asked the younger resident.

  The lead surgeon on Squire’s case, who’d graduated from medical school in May of the year before, chuckled as he responded, “Eighteen hours, almost entirely in surgery except for a few consults. I haven’t put in these kinds of hours since I was an intern. How about you?”

  “Fifteen hours. I got to sleep for six prior to coming back in.”

  “Six hours, that’s amazing.”

  The lead surgical nurse and the anesthesiologist exchanged glances. They’d worked together for years and were comfortable with one another.

  The surgery continued until the older resident paused. “Okay, I’m comfortable that we’ve resected enough to make a call, how about you?” He glanced over his mask at his surgical partner.