The height of the ionosphere/space transition is controlled in part by the amount of extreme ultraviolet energy emitted by the Sun and a somewhat contracted ionosphere could have been expected because C/NOFS was launched during a minimum in the 11-year cycle of solar activity. However, the size of the actual contraction caught investigators by surprise. (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)
ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2008) — Observations made by NASA instruments onboard an Air Force satellite have shown that the boundary between the Earth’s upper atmosphere and space has moved to extraordinarily low altitudes. These observations were made by the Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) instrument suite, which was launched aboard the U.S. Air Force’s Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite on April 16, 2008.
The CINDI suite, which was built under the direction Principal Investigator Rod Heelis of the University of Texas at Dallas, includes both ion and neutral sensors and makes measurements of the variations in neutral and ion densities and drifts.
CINDI and C/NOFS were designed to study disturbances in Earth’s ionosphere that can result in a disruption of navigation and communication signals. The ionosphere is a gaseous envelope of electrically charged particles that surrounds our planet and it is important because Radar, radio waves, and global positioning system signals can be disrupted by ionospheric disturbances.
CINDI’s first discovery was, however, that the ionosphere was not where it had been expected to be. During the first months of CINDI operations the transition between the ionosphere and space was found to be at about 260 miles (420 km) altitude during the nighttime, barely rising above 500 miles (800 km) during the day. These altitudes were extraordinarily low compared with the more typical values of 400 miles (640 km) during the nighttime and 600 miles (960 km) during the day.
(h/t to Dan Lee)
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so is disrupted communications all that is to be expected of a shortened atmosphere or are there worse implications? not saying that disrupted comms is a good thing..
I am amazed at the range and quantity of interesting articles that are posted here! Wonderful site…always stimulating
Argh… The sky is falling!
Obviously “unprecedented.”
Climate Change!-quick call Algore! BTW this isn’t warming-is it 7F. today in La Grande Or. and we are the local bananna belt….
Let me guess, elevations of CO2 has caused this and we will be burned up soon if CO2 levels are not held under control.
The big melt: 2 trillion tons of ice gone since ’03
Scientists say NASA satellite data on global warming ‘should alarm people’
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28249708/
WASHINGTON – More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.
Between Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska, melting land ice has raised global sea levels about one-fifth of an inch in the past five years, Luthcke said. Sea levels also rise from water expanding as it warms.
The pace of change is starting to outstrip our ability to keep up with it, in terms of our understanding of it,” said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., a co-author of the Arctic amplification study.
Two other studies coming out at the conference assess how Arctic thawing is releasing methane — the second most potent greenhouse gas. One study shows that the loss of sea ice warms the water, which warms the permafrost on nearby land in Alaska, thus producing methane, Stroeve says.
The amounts of methane in the region could dramatically increase global warming if they get released, he said.
That, Semiletov said, “should alarm people.”
Any theories about the effect of this on climate?
Is this the reason why night-time radio reception of distant stations hasn’t been so good lately? Or is it my radio?
Oh boy, now the left will hit the panic button, and try to find mankind’s fingerprint on this somehow. I mean, it can’t be a natural phenomenon, right?
I assume they are mostly referring to the F1 and F2 layers of the ionosphere. Have ham radio operators noticed this lowering while using the HF Spectrum? (3-30 Megahertz)
Is this related to this article about the earth breathing?
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/earthbreathing.html
How do we even know that this data is correct? I mean, they might have tweaked it to get the perfered outcome.
The sea level isn’t rising as predicted: click
Go here and you’d think the world is about to end….
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20081216_climatestats.html
I am not an scientist but i bet this has something to do with the sun….or what else
Hmm, picture kinda looks like the moon’s surface to me.
Right on time with the latest GISS, which shows no change between October and November.
This is very curious. The two satellite metrics showed a warming in November. HadCRUT3 showed slight cooling, and GISS shows no change. How often does this happen (satellite showing warmer than surface stations)?
Disturbances happen with extreme UV events, like when the Sun is full of sunspots spewing plasma. If I am reading this correctly, anytime something thins up there, we should get colder. I would ask if the ionosphere is thinning or compacting. If it is thinning, like a worn out blanket, then heat escape from Earth’s surface is facilitated.
A note to Douglas, it is 9:34 AM and it is -5 F in Pendleton. Send pictures of palm trees.
With the sun spotless and the plasma ejection at an all time low, I’d suspect that’s the reason for the ionosphere to shrink. I’m still hoping Santa brings us a return of the Dalton Minimum…
would the ‘shrinking’ of the atmosphere reduce the insulation it provides and exacerbate the cooling?
i really have no idea, just asking
Almost noon in San Antonio: 35F going to high of 41F.
Solar XUV is down about 50%, Soft X-rays about by about 1/10,000 since solar max.
Could there possibly be a sun-earth atmosphere connection?
Say it isn’t so!
Basil,
Don’t worry about GISS showing no change in November. The November temperature will change in January and February etc.
Mike
Increases in solar radiation increases the ionosphere. The more sunspots, the more radiation. Injections of strong plasma streams can create disturbances, like shooting a hole in a blanket. But the hole recovers. There is a 24 hr and seasonal change in the depth of the ionosphere. There is also a sunspot number correlation (because of increased radiation). It has been assumed that a quiet Sun would cause thinning. What was surprising was the amount of thinning. For those of us following the Sun, we know just how quiet it has been, in all it’s indices. Once I combined that in my thinking, I am not surprised by this. Maybe the scientists involved in the article haven’t been studying the Sun?