I loved the way James Russell described CO2 molecules as “natural thermostats”
Solar Storm Dumps Gigawatts into Earth’s Upper Atmosphere
A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. NASA-funded researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years.
“This was the biggest dose of heat we’ve received from a solar storm since 2005,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center. “It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet.”
Mlynczak is the associate principal investigator for the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air hundreds of km above our planet’s surface.
“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
That’s what happened on March 8th when a coronal mass ejection (CME) propelled in our direction by an X5-class solar flare hit Earth’s magnetic field. (On the “Richter Scale of Solar Flares,” X-class flares are the most powerful kind.) Energetic particles rained down on the upper atmosphere, depositing their energy where they hit. The action produced spectacular auroras around the poles and significant1 upper atmospheric heating all around the globe.
“The thermosphere lit up like a Christmas tree,” says Russell. “It began to glow intensely at infrared wavelengths as the thermostat effect kicked in.”
For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.
In human terms, this is a lot of energy. According to the New York City mayor’s office, an average NY household consumes just under 4700 kWh annually. This means the geomagnetic storm dumped enough energy into the atmosphere to power every home in the Big Apple for two years.
“Unfortunately, there’s no practical way to harness this kind of energy,” says Mlynczak. “It’s so diffuse and out of reach high above Earth’s surface. Plus, the majority of it has been sent back into space by the action of CO2 and NO.”
During the heating impulse, the thermosphere puffed up like a marshmallow held over a campfire, temporarily increasing the drag on low-orbiting satellites. This is both good and bad. On the one hand, extra drag helps clear space junk out of Earth orbit. On the other hand, it decreases the lifetime of useful satellites by bringing them closer to the day of re-entry.
The storm is over now, but Russell and Mlynczak expect more to come.
“We’re just emerging from a deep solar minimum,” says Russell. “The solar cycle is gaining strength with a maximum expected in 2013.”
More sunspots flinging more CMEs toward Earth adds up to more opportunities for SABER to study the heating effect of solar storms.
“This is a new frontier in the sun-Earth connection,” says Mlynczak, and the data we’re collecting are unprecedented.”
Stay tuned to Science@NASA for updates from the top of the atmosphere. Author:Dr. Tony Phillips|
h/t to WUWT reader AJB
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You mean the sun heats up the earth? Hard to believe. All this time I thought it was the farting cows.
So it seems like solar events influence terrestrial weather. I wonder if Mars is also experiencing a dose of warm weather this week too?
Oh my goodness, actual observation of an event … and an admission that an active sun does indeed effect the heat in our atmosphere. What? Co2 did something beneficial?? Oh the scandal!!! .. /sarc off.
I sense the return of credible science in our future.
I’m glad to hear from NASA that CO2 is a coolant in the thermosphere. One day I also hope to hear that CO2 is a coolant in the lower atmosphere, which it almost certainly is.
I’m also glad to hear that the thermosphere expands when heated, as does the lower atmosphere when it is heated by solar insolation.
“Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space”
What, no 50% radiated down to heat the lower atmosphere?
Is NASA hiding the 10.7 cm decline? At the 3.34 mark of the video they show the a graph of the 10.7 cm radio flux data updated to January 9th, when the radio flux was spiking upwards:
But the CME occurred on March 8th and NASA had updated its 10.7cm graph on March 6th, as can be seen in this WUWT post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/06/november-solar-activity-report-sunspots-and-10-7cm-radio-flux-up-but-the-solar-magnetic-ap-index-crashes/
(That’s a Dec. 6th 2011 post, so I guess the graphics are based on a script that automatically brings up the latest update. )
The question is why, if NASA updated its graphic on the 6th, does this NASA vid, made sometime after the 8th, not use the update? Is it because the update shows the collapse of the 10.7cm numbers?
I wander if he looked at the sun lately.
The sunspots have all but disappeared.
And apparently the CO2 is actually COOLING the atmosphere rather than heating it.
Maybe Mann needs to have a chat with this guy…
Mars was close to in line with the Earth, as the just had a Synod (heliocentric) conjunction back on the 3rd of march. So Mars should have gotten as good as dose as the Earth did view here.
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=399&vbody=10&month=3&day=9&year=2012&hour=00&minute=00&fovmul=1&rfov=45&bfov=30&porbs=1&brite=1&showsc=1&showac=1
Did I just hear NASA saying that the more CO2 in the atmosphere the more it acts as a negative feedback to the greenhouse effect?
“When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
Quick, somebody from the team shut him up, he’s hurting the cause… /sarc
Glad to hear this simple and clear statement.
It affects the Eart’s outer core 3000km below the surface, where the magnetic field is generated.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Tromso.htm
slowly shifting the Earth’s magnetic pole from Hudson Bay to the Central Siberia.
“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
He’ll never be hired by the IPCC. The nerve of him, telling the truth!
“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
He’ll never be hired by the IPCC. The nerve of him, telling the truth!
(possible 2nd posting of this, sorry, first one vanished)
My god, don’t let the alarmists get ahold of the idea that CO2 can cause cooling, or in the decades to come they will be telling us we need to reduce to prevent global cooling.
So Hans Shreuder , I love my co2, is right !!
Solarwind affecting earth. What A Suprise. But theese earlier impacts did not have any effect?
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/SPE.txt
One of the great unanswered questions is whether the nett effect of increased CO2 is warming or cooling? I know the “jury is out” but we still have a chance to appeal!
The warming effect of CO2 is due to the fact that the layer radiating into space increases in altitude as the concentration of CO2 increases. The public message is that, since the temperature drops with increasing altitude, less energy is radiated within the CO2 energy band and therefore the surface temperature has to rise in order to radiate more energy at all other wavelengths to compensate.
However the altitude that CO2 radiates into space straddles the tropopause (where temperatures do not increase with altitude). So (all things being equal) an increase in concentration will incease the energy radiated to space in the centre of the band whilst reducing the energy only in the exteme upper and lower frequencies within the 14-18 micron band.
Of course in the realms of earth climate all things are never equal. The possibility is that the tropopause has actually inceased in altitude as CO2 concentrations have increased. Given a constant lapse rate that means that the temperature of the tropopause would have decreased and the standard description of CO2 warming would be justified.
But has it?
I know that climate scientists are not keen on measuring anything in case it undermines their models but this would be a very good thing to know given that, in the absence of a cooling tropopause, an increase in CO2 would lead to increased radiation loss and a cooling surface.
If one looks carefully at the paleo data this is what the temperature/CO2 relationship seems to suggest. If the effect of CO2 was warming one would expect to see temperature increases when the CO2 concentrations were high and cooling trends when concentrations were low. In fact the opposite is the case. In every one of the last six cycles (that is 12 increases/decreases) the warming has been during periods of low CO2 and the cooling has been during periods of high CO2.
My personal view (and it can only be a guess in the same way that the climate scientists are guessing) is that the various CO2 effects pretty much cancell each other out, but I would not be surprised if the theoretical 0.7C increase per doubling was found to be true.
But I have this nagging concern: maybe the cooling effect wins out. If this is the case then my my big worry would be that we would need to reduce CO2 to avoid global cooling. But, given the way science has been misused and abused by the climate science fraternity, the credibility of such a new revelation would be nil. How would one convince the public that the new scare was real this time?
“For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.”
How come the CO2 and NO didn’t re-radiate half of the energy downwards?
Enquiring minds would like to know…
CMEs that emanate out of the sun, are linked to it by combination of electric current and magnetic field
http://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/pictures/Sept09/Fig8_7.MagCloud.gif
moving through heliosphere as shown by this NASA animation
If the swirling concentration of electro & magnetic energy (often referred to as magnetic cloud or magnetic rope) doesn’t hit a magnetosphere it progresses to the far reaches of the heliosphere and disperses along the heliopause.
If it does hit a magnetosphere, a reconnection ensues, part of it is short-circuited and some of the energy is discharged.
http://www.igpp.ucla.edu/public/THEMIS/SCI/Pubs/Nuggets/reconnection/262351main_reconnect.mpg
Since the ‘magnetic rope’ is connected to the source, i.e. the sun, the short circuit effect is fed back to the solar surface (CME solar feedback) as an electro-magnetic energy shock-wave of great intensity (analogous to a short circuiting effect on any source of electric current).
Two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn)have huge magnetospheres many hundreds times of the Earth’s (Jupiter’s magnetosphere extends to ~ 5AU), so the reconnection events are that more powerful and far more frequent.
Certain configurations of Jupiter and Saturn’s orbital locations will envelop larger or smaller extant of the heliosphere, thus changes in the volume of the electro-magnetic interaction space will result in modulating intensity of ‘CME solar feedback’ in the time domain. The feedback effect can be sufficiently strong to regulate behaviour of the weak-ish sun’s magnetic polar field, which is widely accepted to be a precursor of the following sunspot cycle.
Proposed result of the above spatio-temporal modulation can be expressed in numerical form as an equation where planetary orbital parameters modulate strength and polarity of the solar dipole:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
The above equation shows that there is high correlation between observed data and numerical interpretation of above postulated hypothesis.
Sunspots (as the solar activity in general) in the origin and the consequence are essentially of the electro and magnetic nature, where the gravitational effects are negligible. Thus the role of gravitation force is limited and only important as far as it moves two major magnetospheres along the planetary orbits.
Content of this post is available on my website as:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CMEfeedback.htm
so for future reference you can record the link or just google “CMEfeedback”.
Thank you for your attention. m. a. vukcevic
Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
I suspect he’ll never be hired by the IPCC, they don’t need people who tell the truth.
A surge of infrared radiation from nitric oxide molecules on March 8-10, 2012, signals the biggest upper-atmospheric heating event in seven years.
Waiting for Lief’s comment that the increase in IR radiation is nothing significant.
Electro – magnetic shock wave lights up aurora and shifts the Earth’s magnetic pole.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Aurora.htm
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,”
Moving the magnetic field creates heat in the core through hysteresis. Other than that, there’s no point in even tabulating this energy, because it’s not a useful input.
It’s like offering a uranium drink to a person and then saying “What’s wrong with you? This is a great High-Energy Shot! Drink it and work out!”
“….nitric oxide are [is] natural thermostats,”…
Looks like that is another “Boogeyman” chemical (Ozone depletion and Acid Rain) caused by burning fossil fuels OR biomass. We emit far too much of these nitrogen oxides during combustion proceses, particularly from vehicles….Nitrogen oxides can also be formed when biomass is burnt and during lightning.
And then we come right back to plants.
The warmist/eco-nuts must really hate plants, they keep trying to rob them of the essentials.
If the solar storm dumps energy into the thermosphere or even stratosphere, there’s no way that can get “down” to the surface.