From the UK Telegraph – source link
The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, NASA scientists have warned.
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 9:23AM BST 19 Oct 2008
New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.
Scientists are baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink in this way and are to launch mission to study the heliosphere.
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, will be launched from an aircraft on Sunday on a Pegasus rocket into an orbit 150,000 miles above the Earth where it will “listen” for the shock wave that forms as our solar system meets the interstellar radiation.
Dr Nathan Schwadron, co-investigator on the IBEX mission at Boston University, said: “The interstellar medium, which is part of the galaxy as a whole, is actually quite a harsh environment. There is a very high energy galactic radiation that is dangerous to living things.
“Around 90 per cent of the galactic cosmic radiation is deflected by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment.”
The heliosphere is created by the solar wind, a combination of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields that emanate a more than a million miles an hour from the sun, meet the intergalactic gas that fills the gaps in space between solar systems.
At the boundary where they meet a shock wave is formed that deflects interstellar radiation around the solar system as it travels through the galaxy.
The scientists hope the IBEX mission will allow them to gain a better understanding of what happens at this boundary and help them predict what protection it will offer in the future.
Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable.
Measurements made by the Ulysses deep space probe, which was launched in 1990 to orbit the sun, have shown that the pressure created inside the heliosphere by the solar wind has been decreasing.
Dr David McComas, principal investigator on the IBEX mission, said: “It is a fascinating interaction that our sun has with the galaxy surrounding us. This million mile an hour wind inflates this protective bubble that keeps us safe from intergalactic cosmic rays.
“With less pressure on the inside, the interaction at the boundaries becomes weaker and the heliosphere as a whole gets smaller.”
If the heliosphere continues to weaken, scientists fear that the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including Earth, will increase.
This could result in growing levels of disruption to electrical equipment, damage satellites and potentially even harm life on Earth.
But Dr McComas added that it was still unclear exactly what would happen if the heliosphere continued to weaken or what even what the timescale for changes in the heliosphere are.
He said: “There is no imminent danger, but it is hard to know what the future holds. Certainly if the solar wind pressure was to continue to go down and the heliosphere were to almost evaporate then we would be in this sea of galactic cosmic rays. That could have some large effects.
“It is likely that there are natural variations in solar wind pressure and over time it will either stabilise or start going back up.”
(hat tip to Dvid Gladstone)
Bruce Cobb (07:05:28) :
“….Since we’re asking questions, how much longer would we need to have: increasing ice in the Arctic as well as the Antarctic, cooling oceans, and global temperatures dropping before you people stop believing in the myth of manmade C02-induced climate change?”
You have defined the difference between a denier and and a sceptic. Why don’t you make some attempt at answering the question posed before going of and clutching the little straws left to gain some credence for your ‘cooling religion’?
The Arctic ice is very much on a decreasing trend, oceans are getting warmer (the short dip due to the large La Nina last winter) and temperatures are recovering and gaining after the aforementioned La Nina.
Most of the posters on this blog are true sceptics, they have a point of view and argue their case. A small minority such as yourself just want to keep picking away, answer questions with another question, the points of which are usually either plain false or misleading. I’ve responed to your points, become a sceptic and answer John’s.
man made co2 is the only reason that counts…
This is just an observation by the folks at NASA, they aren’t predicting anything. It would indicate that we are at a low point in the solar cycle, but we already knew that. I imagine people like Leif don’t make any predictions because we will only know if the solar cycle is in some sort of protracted minimum after 5-10 more years. The only thing to do is to collect data and wait for something interesting to happen.
Re: F Rasmin “While I am here, perhaps the shrinking protective bubble occurs every 100,000 years, thereby allowing such an increase in cosmic rays that we rapidly enter a full ice age due to an increase in cloud cover.”
This wouldn’t explain why the timing of ice ages went from acting on a 41,000 year cycle in the Pliocene and Early-Pleistocene to a 100,000 year cycle during the Mid- and Late-Pleistocene.
A bit OT:
What happened over on the Arctic Sea Ice Chart? October heat wave?
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
I wrote (07:23): “If the temperature (…) goes up and the sun activity stays very low I think that is a blast on the sun-climate connection hypothesis”
1998 shows us this must not be a problem. A more than 100 years record strong(?) El NIno raised the temperature 1998.
Also I should have used the word “theory”, not hypothesis. The sun-climate connection is at least a strong theory (if not even proven science).
Bruce Cobb (07:05:28) :
Since we’re asking questions, how much longer would we need to have: increasing ice in the Arctic as well as the Antarctic,
The trend in the Arctic over the last 30 years is down.
cooling oceans
they might have stopped warming for a couple of years but I’m not sure I’d say they were cooling.
and global temperatures dropping
Are they? I might go with ‘flattening’ but ‘cooling’ – definitely not. Also remember that there is supposedly around a ~0.1 deg difference between solar max and solar min which means we can expect an increase of 0.1 deg over the next 5 years from the development of SC24 alone .
before you people stop believing in the myth of manmade C02-induced climate change?
You’re the second person recently who has accused me of being an “AGW believer”. Bruce, Just because someone doesn’t accept every crackpot solar theory as fact it doesn’t automatically mean they are AGW supporters. I can point to a number of blogs where I’ve argued with AGWers. Funnily enough, though, whichever line of argument is put forward, “anti-AGW” or “anti-Solar”, the drift of the debate is quite similar. As I wrote recently.
Many sceptics are not sceptics at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. They’re quite prepared to believe anything as long as it undermines the AGW cause.
I’m cool with it as long as there’s enough time for me to see all the episodes of Fawlty Towers : P
Word.
Peter Taylor (06:55:39) :
graphic data base of the neutron flux (as good as any measure of how galactic rays penetrate as far as Earth’s atmosphere ) – and this shows a recent influx consequent upon the current very quiet sun, as well as other peaks for the previous cycles back to 1964.
There are many such cosmic ray stations. The continuous record goes back to 1952. Here are the records for some representative stations: http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux.png
What is noteworthy is that at solar minimum the cosmic ray flux returns to the same value since 1952. There is one little subtlety: every second minimum is slightly lower that the others. There is a reason for this having to do with how cosmic rays diffuse through the heliospheric magnetic field, which reverses polarity at every solar maximum. But apart from this second order [and understood effect] the remarkable fact is that the un-modulated cosmic ray flux has been constant the last 50+ years.
Hey….NSIDC’s Arctic ice graph has recently gone BONKERS! WHOA.
NSIDC ice graph commits Hari-Kari
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
How does this sound?
It is 10 degrees colder today than at this time yesterday. If this trend continues, we will all freeze to death in two weeks.
I should have been a journalist. Making up stuff, and selling it to P.T.Barnum’s clientele.
Pamela Gray says:
Might we already be a quarter of the way to maximum?
Now that is a very interesting thought.
AGW has been outside the realm of science for quite some time…
PearlandAggie (06:48:00) :
well, with TSI so low…
and the solar flux so low…
is it really any wonder that the heliosphere is shrinking? seems pretty logical to me despite the fact that it has gone largely unreported.
It has gone unreported because it is unremarkable. TSI, solar flux, and sunspots go low every 11 years.
What’s so difficult about all this climate shift stuff?
We go into Minimum, we freeze our butts off.
We go into Maximum, the world starts melting.
Somewhere in between the two life is good, until the power fails.
Is Earth – pop. 9 billion enough, or should we go for 18 billion?
Now, there’s a problem.
John Finn: “How much longer would global temperatures need to remain at current relatively high levels for you to be convinced that the sun is not, in fact, a major factor in short-term climate shifts?”
You give a very subjective question. The answer depends on how long it goes without the expected condition and the level of belief. The same goes for AGW believers. Many of them have converted to the other side but some have such a deep seeded belief that AGW will have to be pried from their cold dead fingers. Me personally I see a great deal of scientific evidence that AGW is a sham and very little to contradict solar influence. I am not completely sold but have a time will tell stance. I believe this will be a very interesting decade either way.
We know that the earth is (over)due for a magnetic pole shift. Could an important reduction in solar winds be the triggering event that everyone is looking for? The reduction in solar winds will also reduce the strength of the Induced Magnetic Field around the earth. Would there we a correlation between the solar activity and the pole reversals?
Here is a possible explanation that was given in 2006. At the end there is a positive side to a reduced solar activity… the eventual closing of the ozone hole.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=934519BDABEC7B834F559D3EB3534109.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=534044
ABSTRACT:
It is suggested that we are already in the weak solar cycles series since the start of cycle 23. The interplanetary magnetic filed and the solar wind speed and density are expected to drop considerably during the approaching second weak cycle number 24 and the following ones leading to inflation of the magnetosphere. The corona is also expected to cool down relative to normal cycles corona. A daily background coronal index is proposed. The mechanism of production of weak cycles is tied to the rapid rotation of the photospheric layer which is deeply rooted in the bottom of the convection zone. This rapid surface and subsurface rotation implies slower rotation of the tachocline. Slower dynamo rotation leads to reduction of the strength of the magnetic cycle. One of the very important sequences of the weak cycles, is the expected cooling of the Earths air and sea surface temperatures which would have negative effects on agriculture with increased drought-flood hazards. The reduction of solar UV flux can lead to the closure of the ozone hole on the long run.
Funny coincidence how Leif’s first graph lines up with temp fluctuations over the recent decades… But that is just a coincidence, and if you can prove it by comparing with at temperature record that is full of unrelated effects, effects like the geographical distribution of economic activity, and how well it correlates to the geographical distributions of temperature rises.
All you have to do to accomplish this is endlessly repeat your mantra “Hansen is always right.” and to yourself silently “this paper never happened.”
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/jgr07/jgr07.html
How much longer would global temperatures need to remain at current relatively high levels for you to be convinced that the sun is not, in fact, a major factor in short-term climate shifts?
—————–
What “relatively high levels” would you be refering to. In the last decade, most of the temperature run-up of the last 100 years has been given back.
Leif,
True. I guess I never really considered that the heliosphere shrinks during EVERY solar minimum! Oops! 🙂
Since we’re asking questions, how much longer would we need to have: increasing ice in the Arctic as well as the Antarctic,
The trend in the Arctic over the last 30 years is down.
——————-
30 years ago, the PDO flipped from a cold phase to a warm phase. It has just flipped back to it’s cold phase.
If you examine the arctic record for a period longer than 30 years, you will find that there is no trend. Just a 60-70 year long oscillation.
As a part of my research into heliosperic current interaction with planetary magnetospheres I attempted to calculate relative value of solar dynamo at time of solar minima. Preliminary results are shown on the graph. http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/solar_dynamo.gif
Numbers are minima before SC No.
I am not certain that my method was correct but it does confirm today’s news about weakening of Heliosphere by 25% in last 50 years.
WARNING: THESE ARE ONLY PRELIMINARY RESULTS!
So the geomagnetic dipole has been in decline for a century and a half, the solar poloidal field is down 20-30%, the solar wind, in which the IMF is carried, is down 25% over the last decade, the noctilucent clouds are perfectly anti-correlated with solar minimums and at an all time high, the toroidal fields are less evident than at any time in over a century, …
“All right, folks, nothing to see here. The sun get’s like this every eleven years. Move along now…”
The Arctic Sea Ice Chart had a seizure and now it’s back on track and WHAT a track (it may be warming globally, but the ice returneth up North:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png