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MORE TO SOLAR CYCLE THAN SUNSPOTS; SUN ALSO BOMBARDS EARTH WITH HIGH-SPEED STREAMS OF WIND

September 17, 2009

BOULDER—Challenging conventional wisdom, new research finds that the number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun's impact on Earth over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. The study, led by scientists at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Michigan, finds that Earth was bombarded last year with high levels of solar energy at a time when the Sun was in an unusually quiet phase and sunspots had virtually disappeared.

"The Sun continues to surprise us," says NCAR scientist Sarah Gibson, the lead author. "The solar wind can hit Earth like a fire hose even when there are virtually no sunspots."

The study, also written by scientists at NOAA and NASA, is being published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics. It was funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor.

Scientists for centuries have used sunspots, which are areas of concentrated magnetic fields that appear as dark patches on the solar surface, to determine the approximately 11-year solar cycle. At solar maximum, the number of sunspots peaks. During this time, intense solar flares occur daily and geomagnetic storms frequently buffet Earth, knocking out satellites and disrupting communications networks.

Illustration of the sun and yellow streams spiraling out and earth with blue and red lines around it



When the solar cycle was at a minimum level in 1996, the Sun sprayed Earth with relatively few, weak high-speed streams containing turbulent magnetic fields (left). In contrast, the Sun bombarded Earth with stronger and longer-lasting streams last year (right) even though the solar cycle was again at a minimum level. The streams affected Earth's outer radiation belt, posing a threat to earth-orbiting satellites, and triggered space weather disturbances, lighting up auroras in the sky at higher latitudes. [ENLARGE] (Illustration by Janet Kozyra with images from NASA, courtesy of Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics.)

Gibson and her colleagues focused instead on another process by which the Sun discharges energy. The team analyzed high-speed streams within the solar wind that carry turbulent magnetic fields out into the solar system.

When those streams blow by Earth, they intensify the energy of the planet's outer radiation belt. This can create serious hazards for weather, navigation, and communications satellites that travel at high altitudes within the outer radiation belts, while also threatening astronauts in the International Space Station. Auroral storms light up the night sky repeatedly at high latitudes as the streams move past, driving mega-ampere electrical currents about 75 miles above Earth's surface. All that energy heats and expands the upper atmosphere. This expansion pushes denser air higher, slowing down satellites and causing them to drop to lower altitudes.

Scientists previously thought that the streams largely disappeared as the solar cycle approached minimum. But when the study team compared measurements within the current solar minimum interval, taken in 2008, with measurements of the last solar minimum in 1996, they found that Earth in 2008 was continuing to resonate with the effects of the streams. Although the current solar minimum has fewer sunspots than any minimum in 75 years, the Sun's effect on Earth's outer radiation belt, as measured by electron fluxes, was more than three times greater last year than in 1996.

Gibson said that observations this year show that the winds have finally slowed, almost two years after sunspots reached the levels of last cycle's minimum.

The authors note that more research is needed to understand the impacts of these high-speed streams on the planet. The study raises questions about how the streams might have affected Earth in the past when the Sun went through extended periods of low sunspot activity, such as a period known as the Maunder minimum that lasted from about 1645 to 1715.

"The fact that Earth can continue to ring with solar energy has implications for satellites and sensitive technological systems," Gibson says. "This will keep scientists busy bringing all the pieces together."

BUFFETING EARTH WITH STREAMS OF ENERGY
Photograph of Sarah Gibson



Sarah Gibson [ENLARGE] (©UCAR, photo by Carlye Calvin.) News media terms of use*

For the new study, the scientists analyzed information gathered from an array of space- and ground-based instruments during two international scientific projects: the Whole Sun Month in the late summer of 1996 and the Whole Heliosphere Interval in the early spring of 2008. The solar cycle was at a minimal stage during both the study periods, with few sunspots in 1996 and even fewer in 2008.

The team found that strong, long, and recurring high-speed streams of charged particles buffeted Earth in 2008. In contrast, Earth encountered weaker and more sporadic streams in 1996. As a result, the planet was more affected by the Sun in 2008 than in 1996, as measured by such variables as the strength of electron fluxes in the outer radiation belt, the velocity of the solar wind in the vicinity of Earth, and the periodic behavior of auroras (the Northern and Southern Lights) as they responded to repeated high-speed streams.

The prevalence of high-speed streams during this solar minimum appears to be related to the current structure of the Sun. As sunspots became less common over the last few years, large coronal holes lingered in the surface of the Sun near its equator. The high-speed streams that blow out of those holes engulfed Earth during 55 percent of the study period in 2008, compared to 31 percent of the study period in 1996. A single stream of charged particles can last for as long as 7 to 10 days. At their peak, the accumulated impact of the streams during one year can inject as much energy into Earth's environment as massive eruptions from the Sun's surface can during a year at the peak of a solar cycle, says co-author Janet Kozyra of the University of Michigan.

The streams strike Earth periodically, spraying out in full force like water from a fire hose as the Sun revolves. When the magnetic fields in the solar winds point in a direction opposite to the magnetic lines in Earth's magnetosphere, they have their strongest effect. The strength and speed of the magnetic fields in the high-speed streams can also affect Earth's response.

The authors speculate that the high number of low-latitude coronal holes during this solar minimum may be related to a weakness in the Sun's overall magnetic field. The Sun in 2008 had smaller polar coronal holes than in 1996, but high-speed streams that escape from the Sun's poles do not travel in the direction of Earth.

"The Sun-Earth interaction is complex, and we haven't yet discovered all the consequences for the Earth's environment of the unusual solar winds this cycle," Kozyra says. "The intensity of magnetic activity at Earth in this extremely quiet solar minimum surprised us all. The new observations from last year are changing our understanding of how solar quiet intervals affect the Earth and how and why this might change from cycle to cycle."

Correction - September 18, 2009 | The headline for this release was changed from "Solar Cycle Driven by More than Sunspots" to clarify that sunspots are not the cause of the solar cycle but rather one measure of its strength.

About the article

Title: "If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals"

Authors: Sarah Gibson, Janet Kozyra, Giuliana de Toma, Barbara Emery, Terry Onsager, and Barbara Thompson

Publication: Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics


REF. https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/new...n-also-bombards-earth-high-speed-streams-wind


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How Sunlight Controls Climate

New computer models begin to suggest how changes in the sun's strength might change weather patterns
By David Biello

Small changes in the sun's brightness can have big impacts on our planet's weather and climate. And now scientists have detailed how that process might work, according to a new study published August 28 in Science.

For decades some scientists have noted that certain climate phenomena—warmer seas, increased tropical rainfall, fewer clouds in the subtropics, stronger trade winds—seem to be connected to the sun's roughly 11-year cycle, which causes ebbs and flows in sunspots that result in variations in solar output.

That variation is roughly equal to 0.2 watt per meter squared—far too little to explain, for instance, actual warming sea-surface temperatures. A variety of theories have been proposed to explain the discrepancy: ozone chemistry changes in the stratosphere, increased sunlight in cloudless areas, even cosmic rays. But none of these theories, on its own, explains the phenomenon.

Now, using a computer model that pairs ozone chemistry with the fact that there are fewer clouds in the subtropics when the sun is stronger, climate scientist Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and colleagues have reproduced all the observed cyclical climate phenomena as sunlight waxed and waned in intensity over the course of the last century. "Even though [sunlight variability] is a very small number on a global average, regionally or locally it can be much bigger," Meehl explains. Changes to stratospheric ozone chemistry and cloud cover in the subtropics "kind of add together and reinforce each other to produce a bigger amplitude of this small solar forcing signal," he says.

If the model is correct, the mechanism works like this when the sun is at maximum strength: Ozone in the tropical stratosphere traps slightly more heat under the increased ultraviolet sunlight, warming its surroundings and, in turn, allowing increased ozone production. (Warmer temperatures make it easier for ultraviolet light to break up O2 molecules, thereby allowing the resulting free oxygen ions to hook up with other molecules of their kind to create ozone.) That ozone also warms and the cycle continues, resulting in roughly 2 percent more ozone globally. But this change also begins to affect the circulation of the stratosphere itself, which then alters the circulation in the lowest layer of the atmosphere, known as the troposphere, by reinforcing certain wind patterns that then affect the weather we experience.

Meanwhile, the increased radiance during the solar max also adds slightly more heat to the ocean in areas that are already relatively cloudless because of sinking, cooler air. That produces a little more evaporation, which is carried by the trade winds back into the tropics where it comes down again as increased rainfall, but also helps strengthen the upward convection that causes the subtropical cloudless skies. That, in turn, further increases downward pressure back in the subtropics, resulting in even fewer clouds—again roughly 2 percent less clouds over these parts of the Pacific. "You basically spin up this whole system," Meehl says.

But the model did not exactly reproduce real-world conditions. Whereas sea-surface temperatures in the actual eastern Pacific typically decline by roughly 0.8 degree Celsius under a stronger sun, the model could only replicate about 0.6 degree C of cooling. Nor did the model predict changes where they actually occur on the planet. Other factors are likely at work, Meehl says, and even the best computer model can only begin to approximate the complexity of the actual climate.

Right now, the sun is stuck in a period of extremely low sunspot activity, not unlike the "Maunder Minimum" that may have been responsible for the Little Ice Age that cooled Europe in the late 17th century as well as the fall of imperial dynasties in China. And, for the latter half of the 20th century, the sun's output remained relatively constant as global temperatures rose—ruling out our star itself as the direct source of global warming.

Nevertheless, the research begins to explain the physical mechanisms by which changes in the sun's radiance can have outsized impacts on the planet. And that means that the next uptick in the solar cycle, and thereby the sun's brightness, might bring La Niña conditions—unusually cold surface waters—in the equatorial Pacific. "Whenever it happens," Meehl predicts, "chances are it would behave like a weak La Niña–like pattern."


REF. How Sunlight Controls Climate: Scientific American



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The Sun controls the Earth's climate

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The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing (The Danish National Space Center)

Over the past 20 years the solar cycle remains fully apparent in variations both of tropospheric air temperature and of ocean subsurface water temperature.

When the response of the climate system to the solar cycle is apparent in the troposphere and ocean, but not in the global surface temperature, one can only wonder about the quality of the surface temperature record. For whatever reason, it is a poor guide to Sun-driven physical processes that are still plainly persistent in the climate system.

One cannot distinguish between the effects of anthropogenic gases such as carbon dioxide and of natural greenhouse gases. For example, increased evaporation means that infrared radiation from water vapor, by far the most important greenhouse gas, will tend to provide positive feedback for any global warming, ... In any case, the most recent global temperature trend is close to zero.

The continuing rapid increase in carbon dioxide concentrations during the past 10-15 years has apparently been unable to overrule the °attening of the temperature trend as a result of the Sun settling at a high, but no longer increasing, level of magnetic activity. Contrary to the argument of Lockwood and FrÄohlich, the Sun still appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change.




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Headed for a cooler climate, say experts

by ROBERT on MAY 18, 2012 · 36 COMMENTS


Both global warming and global cooling “are the result of long-term climatic cycles, solar activity, sea-surface temperature patterns and more,” say climatologist Cliff Harris and meteorologist Randy Mann.

This graph shows those cycles.

Note the huge increase in volcanic activity during each of the cooler periods.



From the late 1940s through the early 1970s, a climate research organization called the Weather Science Foundation of Crystal Lake, Illinois, determined that the planet’s warm, cold, wet and dry periods were the result of alternating short-term and long-term climatic cycles,” say the two long-range forecasters.

“These researchers and scientists also concluded that the Earth’s ever-changing climate likewise has influenced global and regional economies, human and animal migrations, science, religion and the arts as well as shifting forms of government and strength of leadership.”

“By the end of this 21st Century, a big cool down may occur that could ultimately lead to expanding glaciers worldwide, even in the mid-latitudes. We could possibly see even a new Great Ice Age. Based on long-term climatic data, these major ice ages have recurred about every 11,500 years. Well, you guessed it. The last extensive ice age was approximately 11,500 years ago, so we may be due.”

“We at Harris-Mann Climatology, Long Range Weather Trends, Weather Records and Extremes, Weather and Climate History, Daily Forecast Services, believe that our prolonged cycle of wide weather ‘extremes,’ the worst in at least 1,000 years, will continue and perhaps become even more severe, especially by the mid 2010s. We’re already seen some of the worst winter weather conditions in early 2011. There should be more powerful storms, including major hurricanes and increasing deadly tornadoes. There will likewise be widespread flooding, crop-destroying droughts and freezes and violent weather of all types including ice storms, large-sized hail and torrential downpours. Severe droughts will also become more severe in areas prone to drier conditions.”

“We should remember, that the Earth’s coldest periods have usually followed excessive warmth. Such was the case when our planet moved from the Medieval Warm Period between 900 and 1300 A.D. to the sudden ‘Little Ice Age,’ which peaked in the 17th Century.”

Note: Harris and Mann also believe that “mankind’s activities of the burning of fossil fuels, massive deforestations, the replacing of grassy surfaces with asphalt and concrete, the ‘Urban Heat Island Effect,’ are making conditions ‘worse’ and this will ultimately enhance the Earth’s warming process…”

I disagree with them on this part.

On the graph, they show the cooling continuing until 2019, and then turning to warming.

I fear that increasing volcanic activity will spur that downward trend continually lower.

REF. Headed for a cooler climate, say experts


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If carbon didn’t warm us, what did?

JoNova ^ | February 26th, 2010 | Joanne
Posted on 26/2/2553, 8:19:01 by Ernest_at_the_Beach





People have known for 200 years that there’s some link between sunspots and our climate. In 1800, the astronomer William Herschel didn’t need a climate model, he didn’t even have a calculator — yet he could see that wheat prices rose and fell in time with the sunspot cycle. Since then, people have noticed that rainfall patterns are also linked to sunspots.

Sunspots themselves don’t make much difference to us, but they are a sign of how weak or strong the sun’s magnetic field is. This massive solar magnetic field reaches out around the Earth, and it shields us from cosmic rays. Dr Henrik Svensmark has suggested that if more cosmic rays reach further down into our atmosphere, they might ionize molecules and help “seed” more clouds.

As it happens, this year, the sun has almost no sunspots, but for much of the late 20th Century, the solar magnetic field was extremely active. If the theory is right, an active field means a warming earth with fewer clouds. A quiet sun though, means a cooler earth with more clouds.




Graph: Svensmark reply to Lockwood and Frolich, Cosmic Rays. NB: The Cosmic ray axis (right) measures the fall in rays.

AGW replies: Lochwood and Frohlich showed the theory doesn’t fit rising temperatures after 1980.

Skeptics say: They used surface temperatures, not atmospheric ones (see the graph above). Cosmic rays correlate well with temperatures from weather-balloons. But thermometers on the surface are affected by things like car-parks, and air conditioners which are close to the sensors. All that Lockwood and Frohlich prove is that there’s no link between cosmic rays and air conditioners.

AGW replies: There’s no link with clouds and cosmic rays either.

Skeptics say: That’s only true if you look at the wrong kind of rays and the wrong kind of clouds. There’s a good correlation between high energy rays and low clouds.

The correlation between cosmic rays and temperature is much better over all time spans than that with carbon and temperature.

Sources: Reply to Lockwood and Frohlich Svensmark 2007. Falls in cosmic rays affect low clouds Svensmark 2009, see also Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development, Alexander.

REF. If carbon didn’t warm us, what did? « JoNova

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เอามาแปะไว้เป็น REF.

ลองดูข่าวจากฝากรัสเซียบ้างนะครับ เราพบว่า...ผู้คนให้ความสนใจข่าวสาร ทั้งช่วง Solar Min-Max ครับ (จริง...ไม่จริง...ก็ว่ากันไป)

ข่าวบอก...กันยายน 2013 เรามาลองดูว่า...จะเกิดอะไรขึ้นบ้าง เพราะจากโพสข้างบนของผมเอง Sarah Gibson ให้ความเห็นไว้ในปี 2009 (ช่วง Slolar Min) ว่า

"The Sun continues to surprise us," says NCAR scientist Sarah Gibson, the lead author. "The solar wind can hit Earth like a fire hose even when there are virtually no sunspots."

ดังนั้น....ปัจจัยของ Solar-wind ไม่ขึ้นกับ sunspot แต่เพียงอย่างเดียว




11 August, 21:28 19

Best satire about Snowden: he leaks info on catastrophic and 'inevitable solar tsunami'




Screenshot: YouTube/toxoid

The Internet is ablaze by a ludicrous conspiracy theory that Edward Snowden, a former CIA agent, has predicted series of solar flares, set to occur in September of 2013, will kill hundreds of millions of people.

Read more:

Best satire about Snowden: he leaks info on catastrophic and 'inevitable solar tsunami' - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video

It has been joikingly argued that the documents collected by Snowden offer proof that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned about the existing threat 14 years ago. Ever since the world’s governments have been working secretly to be well prepared for what could be termed as "Solar Apocalypse".

It is believed that Snowden, speaking from his room at the Sheremetyevo Airport’s hotel, said that the government has been working hard to be well prepared for September’s catastrophic solar flares, which can be fraught with fatal consequences, as scientists claimed – they can lead to the death of mankind.

The Internet Chronicle ironically notes that the Central Intelligence Agency learned about the existing threat as long ago as 1999, but according to the government’s decision, this information was immediately made secret.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that has collected the documents warns about the terrible results of the solar flares: it persuades that in two months the mankind would extinct.

Ever since the late 20th century, hundreds of millions of people have begun to rely on technological automation to enable their very lives. And, as solar flares release electromagnetic pulses which are hazardous to electronic circuits, even the smallest electronic circuits, such as those in computers’ central processing units, would be be the most vulnerable.

The Internet Chronicle jocularly notes that Snowden said FEMA and the National Disaster Reduction Center of China have been taking steps for 14 years in light of the findings of Project Stargate.

FEMA’s own documents, allegedly provided by Snowden, quazi-lay out how the organization plans to round up tens of millions of the poorest Americans for housing at secure locations "to better facilitate feeding and provision of consumer goods."

"The massive electromagnetic pulse from the solar flares, or 'the killshot', will shutter most of the world’s electrical systems," is said to be the Snowden's opinion on the possible danger.

"The Americans whose lives are most at risk are the elderly and the infirmed, those who depend on technology to enable their receiving home care or life-sustaining medical treatment,” the issue quotes Snowden as saying.

Humanity is about to pay a most dire price for its technological dependence.
According to idea attributed to Snowden, that price proved a leading factor in his decision to come forward to the press – about both the global Holocaust to ensue, as well as NSA analysts’ power, on the slightest whim, to listen to the phone calls of any person on earth. Mankind has the right to know what it will expect in the future, no matter how dreadful it will be.

Voice of Russia, Internet Chronicle

US, CIA, natural disasters, magnetic storms, solar activity, info leak, whistleblower, Apocalypse, NSA, Edward Snowden, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), World

Read more: Best satire about Snowden: he leaks info on catastrophic and 'inevitable solar tsunami' - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video


REF. http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_...tastrophic-and-inevitable-solar-tsunami-8199/


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added 08/13/2013 @ 18:15 UTC
Aurora Watch
A gentle solar wind stream, possibly the early stages of an incoming stream flowing from a large northern latitude Coronal Hole is now sweeping past Earth. A rise in geomagnetic activity around the polar regions is being observed.

ALERT: Geomagnetic K-index of 4
Threshold Reached: 2013 Aug 13 1735 UTC
Synoptic Period: 1500-1800 UTC
Active Warning: Yes
Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 65 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude.
Induced Currents - Weak power grid fluctuations can occur.
Aurora - Aurora may be visible at high latitudes such as Canada and Alaska.

 

05:24 เกิดการปะทุของโพรมิแนนซ์ขนาดใหญ่ทางตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ของดวงอาทิตย์ ทิศทางของ CME ที่มองจากกล้อง Lasco C2 ไม่ตรงมาที่โลก

 

SOLAR WIND: Earth is entering a stream of moderately-fast solar wind, and this could spark auroras tonight at high latitudes. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of polar geomagnetic storms. Aurora alerts

 

sprites หรือ Pepsi ก็ไม่รู้ ผมว่าสวยดี แต่บางคนกลัวครับ

COLORFUL SPRITES OVER NEBRASKA:

"August 12th was another successful night in our sprites campaign," reports Jason Ahrns of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. With a team of researchers from NCAR, he has been flying over the midwestern USA onboard a Gulfstream V in search of exotic forms of lightning. As they were photographing a thunderstorm over Nebraska, these six sprites appeared

Why were these sprites red on top and purple on the bottom? "I really can't explain it," says Ahrns. "That's one of the things we hope to address with this campaign by capturing high speed spectra."

Discovered in 1989 by scientists from the University of Minnesota who saw strange flashes coming out of the tops of thunderstorms, sprites remain a mystery today. Neither their basic physics nor their effect on the surrounding atmosphere is well understood. "Do sprites have a large scale impact on the middle atmosphere?" asks Ahrns. "Sprites clearly represent some kind of transfer of energy, but is it on a scale that has a significant effect on the weather and climate? We can't answer that without studying them."

The ephemeral nature of sprites (they typically last no more than a few milliseconds) makes them tricky to study. Researchers on the NCAR Gulfstream capture sprites using Phantom cameras running at 10,000 frames per second. "One of the Phantoms has a diffraction grating in front of it to capture high speed spectra, which I don't think has ever been done before," notes Ahrns.

The prettiest pictures, though, come from Arhns' own personal camera, a dSLR that he mounts in the window of the airplane to capture "beauty shots." The image above is an example. More may be found in Ahrns' personal blog.

ที่มา | SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

 

แม้ว่าขั้วแม่เหล็กดวงอาทิตย์จะพลิกกลับในคาบ ๑๑ ปี เสมอมา ผมเห็นว่าที่ข่าวฝรั่งไม่ได้พูดถึงก็คือก็คือ ก่อนหน้านี้ ดวงอาทิตย์และระบบสุริยะทั้งระบบไม่เคยโคจรข้ามระนาบกาแล็กซี่มาก่อน ในรอบหลายล้านปี แต่ตอนนี้กำลังข้ามอยู่เพื่อไปอีกด้านหนึ่ง ซึ่งน่าจะหมายถึงว่า มันข้ามไปยังอีกขั้วหนึ่งของกาแล็กซี่

ก็คงต้องดูกันต่อไป

 

สรุปข่าว ภัยธรรมชาติทั่วโลกต้นเดือนสิงหาคม

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzNEBA9Cl7U]Signs Of Change The Past Week Or So August 2013 Part 1 - YouTube[/ame]