From the Rice University Spaceweather listserver:
The listserver moderator writes in a separate email:
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WOW – a real honest substorm coming!
As those in our “spacalrt” email listserver have just heard, the ACE spacecraft is measuring a high speed southward IMF, so the the Boyle Index (BI) went above 200 for the first time in a number of years! If this level of solar wind continues (it is falling slowly), there will be geomagnetic activity with Kp of 5 or more in the next three hours, according to our neural net predictions. Depending on how sustained the solar wind is, the prediction may go above 6… stay tuned!! At the very least this may be the best event of the new solar cycle… whew!
Unfortunately for skywatchers in the western hemisphere, we will be in daylight, but European and Asian colleagues should be on the lookout for auroras in the next few hours.
To watch the BI and our real-time 3 and 1-hour ahead Kp predictions, go to
(it also shows the “realtime” Kp estimates in red, which arrive well after our predictions for that time interval).
The Boyle index (BI) gives the value of the “asymptotic polar cap potential” – i.e. the value that the electric potential across the ionospheric flow WOULD get to if the solar wind is steady for 4 hours. It does NOT include a saturation term, so it will overestimate the true potential for major storms. However, since certain measures of geomagnetic activity don’t saturated, a
BI of 300 does imply a stronger storm than a BI of 200, even though the actual polar cap potential may turn out to be about the same because of saturation.
For those not yet on our “spacalrt” email warning system, you can get free email warnings by sending an email to:
spacalrt-subscribe@mailman.rice.edu
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Unrelated to Rice U, but also of interest, is the recent plot of TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) by the SORCE spacecraft. – Anthony
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I take it that the ISS is alerted accordingly well before we are?
Large clouds over Sweden. Won’t be able to see it 🙁
Thanks for the update…
BTW, when looking at total solar irradiance, I find it most helpful to show a longer term chart, like here:
http://www.climate4you.com/Sun.htm#Recent solar irradiance
As the sun gets more active, with more spots, you’ll see these large spikes downward before rebounding back to higher levels. During the recent solar minimum the total solar irradiance didn’t have big spikes down or up, but stayed far more constant as the sunspots, as we all know, were few.
We are definitely in for a very interesting time with the sun over the next few years as Old Sol is waking up and I suspect will have a few surprises in store to complement the surprizing long and deep solar minimum we’ve just passed through…
The sun has suddenly become rather quiet again in terms of sunspots, I still don’t think we’ve escaped the ongoing minimum:
http://www.spaceweather.com/
Interesting stuff, thanks for posting, Anthony!
Over the weekend, I live 100 km north of Montreal and hoped to see aurorae due to the coronal holes of last week. Sadly, nothing occured and I won’t be back there (no urban light to spoil the show as the closest town is 10 km and it is only 1000 people or so)
It has been some 20 years since my last experience seeing an aurora so I am hoping the recent uptick in activity will provide some interesting phenomena. On the downside, with the ongoing fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field, this may not be the best time for incoming radiation…
R. Gates (11:01:03) :
Old Sol is waking up and I suspect will have a few surprises in store to complement the surprizing long and deep solar minimum we’ve just passed through
“we’ve just passed through?????????”. NO!, didn’t you know that there is a time lag of 6 to 8 years? Surprises will be a bit different of what you expect.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out, I shall be out tonight looking for electrical effects, although I think I’m too far south to see anything even if it turns out to be a big one.
The drop of 0.6w/m^2 in TSI from it’s March 18 high seems quite rapid – I wonder if this has had anything to do with the late start to the Arctic sea ice decline?
How can I change my lifestyle to solve this problem? If I buy an SUV will that increase or decrease the solar wind? And which way is bad?
Perhaps someone could translate some of this.
Meanwhile, the pictures are nice…
http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01apr10_page2.htm?PHPSESSID=62pf5aiq49fodhbiip5eapnvs4
Re: CRS, Dr.P.H. (Apr 5 11:01),
No, the sun is not quiet. There are three sets of spots at the moment. They are just of small area, so maybe it is the Livingston and Penn effect at work.
CRS, Dr.P.H. (11:01:19) :
Not to mention the 10.7 wavelength radio flux is at 79, still very low. It seemed like it was rising a few weeks back along with larger, more robust spot groups. But now here we are with little specs dotting the sun, with radio flux in the 70s.
Not that I’m qualified in any way to offer an opinion on the subject. I’m just very fascinated by the subject and hope that Dr. Svalgaard and other studied contributors will be along shortly to feed my craving for info.
Can anyone tell me where I can get an log of the UV signal separated from the TSI?
Too much dust reflecting and scattering the surrounding lights to see anything — it’s 22:15 local, and I can read a newspaper outside.
Nuts. Last time I saw any decent aurora activity was in ’78.
I see a tiny little sunspot today, but the number on spaceweather says there are 40 spots? Watts up wid dat? Are they erring on the side of “more crazy sun make me happy”, or are they keeping the same standard?
Also, the speed of the wind is indeed high, but it is very cool. How does that compute?
The governing force is solar magnet field strength not the sunspots number.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
Could this be why cellphone reception was extra cruddy today? Just got done calling Verizon on my Verizon Wireless cellphone (three times total), had a really static-filled connection the one time.
Side note, Bureaucratic Insanity: They have a main cable strung across our property serving customers down the lane, supported by a power company pole in our back yard (public road was moved over a few decades ago), so they get the benefit of it. Over time trees have grown up and out, there are large branches that look likely to break off soon and knock it out. However, it is the property owner’s responsibility (they say) to take care of trees, so the property owners (us) have to maintain the space around the cable that they derive the benefit from having there (that one doesn’t serve our house) basically for the phone company’s benefit. Well, we can’t afford a tree surgeon to carefully trim those branches, the phone company technicians don’t do trimming… So we wait until the branches fall and take the cable out, inconveniencing lots of customers, then the technicians can come and put up a new one!
Does anyone here either know or is a sane phone company employee?
The old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. We certainly do, and in the solar aspect, it must be great being a solar scientist!
Now what I want to know is whether this spike in solar activity is accompanied by a commensurate warming of the upper atmosphere and cooling of the stratosphere but I’m not sure whether our satellite sensors are capable of such a fine resolution given that in terms of late 20th century solar activity levels this is a puny event.
I don’t know if it means anything, but I just walked past a Toyota and it was making a sound like Darth Vader breathing.
“Vigo?” I called out, but the word was lost in the wind.
I wonder how many satellites will be negatively affected (damaged) by this IMF
substorm or sunstorm?
First thing this morning I looked at the solar wind being 700+ and almost peed in my pants. I don’t know how the magnetosphere is going to keep it together with this kind of pressure:
http://www2.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/realtime/images/test_6.20100405193806.jpg
Check out the intensity here:
http://i42.tinypic.com/kbdu1u.jpg
I swear we are seeing the effects of that interstellar cloud.
I wish I could see how the heliosphere is doing about now.
hmmm, space substorm – isn’t this when time loops in on itself and evil Spock comes through a wormhole?
Peter Pan (12:19:59) :
The governing force is solar magnet field strength not the sunspots number.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
And if the following extrapolation is considered, we are done!.☺
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PolarFields.gif
Dr Svalgaard, where are you? Yooohooo! We need you again please!