Solar expert Dr. Leif Svalgaard says the last X class flare was Dec 13th, 2006. The flare today is the first Solar Cycle 24 flare reaching X class level.
See the Xray plot below:
Now THAT’S a flare:
Lookout for auroras in the next couple of days.
Flare classifications: Each category for x-ray flares has nine subdivisions ranging from, e.g., C1 to C9, M1 to M9, and X1 to X9.
| Class |
Peak (W/m2)between 1 and 8 Angstroms |
| B | I < 10-6 |
| C | 10-6 < = I < 10-5 |
| M | 10-5 < = I < 10-4 |
| X | I > = 10-4 |
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h/t to Leif Svalgaard
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The first SC24 X-class flare. As far as I know, the last X-flare was on Dec. 13, 2006.
Lookout for auroras tonight.
Will not happen until the CME hits us in a couple of days.
REPLY: haste makes waste, trying to edit during dinner, fixed. – A
What does “X” class mean, the largest flare possible?
Anthony, that’s a fine graphic of the Sun and its spots. And kudos to Lief for predicting it would be an X-class flare before anyone else.
A little OT, sort of, but, Anthony, I am surprised that you haven’t posted anything about this (The Cloud Mystery – Documentary by Henrik Svensmark
I watched all 5 parts last night and was blown away. In my humble opinion, this is HUGE! .. It would really be swell to read comments on this blog about this documentary. I would love to read opinions about it from people that comment here, people that I respect.
Flares are huge explosions on the sun that emit a broad band of electromagnetic energy from RF through visible light up to x-rays.
They are classified by the amount of x-ray energy detected on the GOES X-RAY sensors.
But you can see the flare here in the microwave spectrum (17GHz), from the Japanese radioheliograph at Nobeyama. (The only one of its kind in the world).
http://solar.nro.nao.ac.jp/norh/html/10mins/2011/02/15/movie.html
The frames are 10 minutes apart. The flare starts around 0150 UTC.
The “X” pattern that shows up on the flare is overmodulation caused by the large radiation pulse received at the Nobeyama antenna farm (84 dishes, each 80cm in diameter).
It’s the first one in months?
Surely years.
In an April 2, 2009 article, retired U.S. Navy physicist and engineer Jame A. Marusek writes: “The sun has gone very quiet as it transitions to Solar Cycle 24.
“Since the current transition now exceeds 568 spotless days, it is becoming clear that sun has undergone a state change. It is now evident that the Grand Maxima state that has persisted during most of the 20th century has come to an abrupt end.
“(The sun) might (1) revert to the old solar cycles or (2) the sun might go even quieter into a “Dalton Minimum” or a Grand Minima such as the “Maunder Minimum”. It is still a little early to predict which way it will swing. Each of these two possibilities holds a great threat to our nation.
“We are now at a crossroad. Two paths lie before us. Both are marked with a signpost that reads “Danger”! Down one path lies monstrous solar storms. Down the other path lies several decades of crushing cold temperatures and global famine.”
“If the sun becomes quieter than the old solar cycles, producing more than 1028 spotless days, then we might slip into a Dalton Minimum or maybe even a Grand Minima such as the Maunder Minimum. This solar state will last for decades. Several solar scientist have predicted this will begin in Solar Cycle 25, about a decade from now. But a few have predicted this will occur now in Solar Cycle 24.
“A quiet sun will cause temperatures globally to take a nose-dive. We will experience temperatures that we have not seen in over 200 years, during the time of the early pioneers.
The other possibility Marusek sees is a quiet sun marked with explosive flares capable of returning our electronic society off for years.
Scary stuff.
Not on spaceweather.com yet. Also, I like that site a lot, but they really blew it. They reported on an M-6 flare popping, but their risk for an X-class was only at 0.05 or 5% when this X class flare went off, which is their default low-risk rating. They need to do a better job at assigning risk if they want to benefit space businesses. I think when you have a growing sunspot and an M-6 flare, the X-flare risk should be a lot higher.
Tom Rowan says:
February 14, 2011 at 7:21 pm
The other possibility Marusek sees is a quiet sun marked with explosive flares
In our sunspot prediction paper
http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf
we wrote:
“Average space weather might be ‘‘milder’’ with decreased solar activity, but the extreme events that dominate technological effects are not expected to disappear. In fact, they may become more common. Two of the eight strongest storms in the last 150 years occurred during solar cycle 14 (Rmax = 64) [Cliver and Svalgaard, 2004], while three of the five largest 30 MeV solar energetic proton events since 1859 [McCracken et al., 2001] occurred during cycle 13 (Rmax = 88).”
Certainly, the current fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetosphere are also problematic. The ongoing “reversal” of the magnetic field makes for an interesting mosaic of potential sites for aurorae as well as other field effects. The coupling effect of incoming particles with a S orientation is what makes the difference normally. As field strengths fluctuate locally and new poles form and dissipate (with concurrent variations in field strength and orientation) highly variable effects will occur.
We live in interesting times.
PJB says:
February 14, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Certainly, the current fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetosphere are also problematic. The ongoing “reversal” of the magnetic field
Not to worry. The reversal of the Earth’s field takes thousands of years to play out, so are not interesting for the current situation.
I for one, will await the Auroras. I spent too many years south of 40N and missing
a chance for Auroras. Finally north of 45, an X-class…
“38 months”
50.
Would Leif kindly compare this flare’s magnitude to the magnitude of the flares which cause a Forebush decrease (in cosmic rays?)
Max
Paul Vaughan says:
February 14, 2011 at 8:30 pm
“38 months” 50
50 it is
Max Hugoson says:
February 14, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Would Leif kindly compare this flare’s magnitude to the magnitude of the flares which cause a Forebush decrease (in cosmic rays?)
This flare is capable of a Forbush decrease.
Happy Valentine’s Day from our Sun! Looks like we just got our picture taken! Maybe some 6M/10M activity?
Does anyone know if the sun produced a gigantic sunspot group when Tambora erupted in April, 1815? Just something I’ve seen tossed around, don’t know if it actually happened and not suggesting any correlations.
A slightly off-topic question for Dr. Svalgaard:
We know that when the sun is active, both its magnetosphere and the relative proportion of UV in its total irradience are higher. While the magnetosphere effect — particularly with respect to Dr. Svensmark’s theory — is under investigation, is anyone looking at actual UV effects reaching the planet’s surface?
We know that UV penetrates somewhat deeper into the oceans than visible, so if both increased UV and Svensmark-style reduction in cloud formation were results of increased solar activity, there would be two (physically unrelated) phenomena with mutually reinforcing climatic effects.
A couple of points, Andrew. First there’s no limit to X flare magnitude, for instance the largest flare during cycle 23 reached a revised magnitude of X45. Secondly region 1158 is really region 11158. Historically region 1158 was observed over 30 years ago (if my memory serves me right). The reason NOAA/SWPC is using only a 4 digit number is that it was too much trouble changing their data formats to accept 5 digit numbers. So 1158 is basically an internal SWPC number, others should use 11158.
Smokey says:
February 14, 2011 at 6:56 pm:
“Anthony, that’s a fine graphic of the Sun and its spots. And kudos to Lief for predicting it would be an X-class flare before anyone else.”
I don’t know who predicted a flare of this magnitude first. My prediction of a major flare was publicized 6 hours before the M6 flare on Feb.13. I would assume several other predictions were available as well.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 14, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Would that mean that the Sun emits so much flare energy per cycle, but since it’s been rather quiet it has to pop off that energy in larger bursts?
So what is the relevance of all this?
Are you disputing basic CO2 physics?
What does any of the this have to do with the observed changes within our atmosphere and biosphere these past decades and the clear explanation that the consensus climatology community has set forward, along with the cornucopia of incoming evidence?
Short summary movies of this flare as observed by SDO can be found here.
Scrolling down this page, one finds auto-generated movies from many of the SDO/AIA channels.
At the top of the page is a “running difference” movie, where each frame in the movie is the difference between two successive images from (in this case) the SDO/AIA 211Å channel. In general, such movies are used to highlight changes from one image to the next. Here, the apparent outward-directed “blast wave” initiated by the flare, as well as the resulting oscillations of the coronal loops surrounding the flare, become more evident when viewed as running differences than when viewing the regular movie from the 211Å channel.
Looks like Earth is in for a real EM deluge…
February 13: A small partial halo CME was observed after the M6 flare in region 11158. The CME could reach Earth on February 15 or 16.
February 14: A CME was observed in association with an M2 event in region 11158 and could reach Earth on February 16 or 17.
February 15: Another and larger CME was observed following an X2 event in region 11158. The CME could reach Earth on February 17.
Interesting that solar flux has shot up to ~113, which is ~ 30 up on previous rotation.
Thanks go to Solen for the above information, more details available here…
http://www.solen.info/solar/index.html
How long does aurora last after a event this big? Will it last long enough for most of the northern hemisphere to be able to see it? ~24 hours?
What parameters decide how far south we can see aurora if not the size of the flare?
I remember seeing fantastic aurora around 60 degrees in the early 90’s. Hoping to show my kids this one.
-joachim