This gives a whole new meaning to “Total Solar Irradiance”. Instead of TSI, perhaps we should call the energy transfer that comes from the sun to the earth TSE for “Total Solar Energy” so that it includes the solar wind, the geomagnetics, and other yet undiscovered linkages. Jack Eddy is smiling and holding up the patch cord he’s been given at last, wondering how long it will be before we find all the connectors.
Scientists discover surprise in Earth’s upper atmosphere
From the UCLA Newsroom: By Stuart Wolpert
UCLA atmospheric scientists have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetosphere. The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, could improve the safety and reliability of spacecraft that operate in the upper atmosphere.
“It’s like something else is heating the atmosphere besides the sun. This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down,” said Larry Lyons, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and a co-author of the research, which is in press in two companion papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
The sun, in addition to emitting radiation, emits a stream of ionized particles called the solar wind that affects the Earth and other planets in the solar system. The solar wind, which carries the particles from the sun’s magnetic field, known as the interplanetary magnetic field, takes about three or four days to reach the Earth. When the charged electrical particles approach the Earth, they carve out a highly magnetized region — the magnetosphere — which surrounds and protects the Earth.
Charged particles carry currents, which cause significant modifications in the Earth’s magnetosphere. This region is where communications spacecraft operate and where the energy releases in space known as substorms wreak havoc on satellites, power grids and communications systems.
The rate at which the solar wind transfers energy to the magnetosphere can vary widely, but what determines the rate of energy transfer is unclear.
“We thought it was known, but we came up with a major surprise,” said Lyons, who conducted the research with Heejeong Kim, an assistant researcher in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and other colleagues.
“This is where everything gets started,” Lyons said. “Any important variations in the magnetosphere occur because there is a transfer of energy from the solar wind to the particles in the magnetosphere. The first critical step is to understand how the energy gets transferred from the solar wind to the magnetosphere.”
The interplanetary magnetic field fluctuates greatly in magnitude and direction.
“We all have thought for our entire careers — I learned it as a graduate student — that this energy transfer rate is primarily controlled by the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field,” Lyons said. “The closer to southward-pointing the magnetic field is, the stronger the energy transfer rate is, and the stronger the magnetic field is in that direction. If it is both southward and big, the energy transfer rate is even bigger.”
However, Lyons, Kim and their colleagues analyzed radar data that measure the strength of the interaction by measuring flows in the ionosphere, the part of Earth’s upper atmosphere ionized by solar radiation. The results surprised them.
“Any space physicist, including me, would have said a year ago there could not be substorms when the interplanetary magnetic field was staying northward, but that’s wrong,” Lyons said. “Generally, it’s correct, but when you have a fluctuating interplanetary magnetic field, you can have substorms going off once per hour.
“Heejeong used detailed statistical analysis to prove this phenomenon is real. Convection in the magnetosphere and ionosphere can be strongly driven by these fluctuations, independent of the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field.”
Convection describes the transfer of heat, or thermal energy, from one location to another through the movement of fluids such as liquids, gases or slow-flowing solids.
“The energy of the particles and the fields in the magnetosphere can vary by large amounts. It can be 10 times higher or 10 times lower from day to day, even from half-hour to half-hour. These are huge variations in particle intensities, magnetic field strength and electric field strength,” Lyons said.
The magnetosphere was discovered in 1957. By the late 1960s, it had become accepted among scientists that the energy transfer rate was controlled predominantly by the interplanetary magnetic field.
Lyons and Kim were planning to study something unrelated when they made the discovery.
“We were looking to do something else, when we saw life is not the way we expected it to be,” Lyons said. “The most exciting discoveries in science sometimes just drop in your lap. In our field, this finding is pretty earth-shaking. It’s an entire new mode of energy transfer, which is step one. The next step is to understand how it works. It must be a completely different process.”
The National Science Foundation has funded ground-based radars which send off radio waves that reflect off the ionosphere, allowing scientists to measure the speed at which the ions in the ionosphere are moving.
The radar stations are based in Greenland and Alaska. The NSF recently built the Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks.
“The National Science Foundation’s radars have enabled us to make this discovery,” Lyons said. “We could not have done this without them.”
The direction of the interplanetary magnetic field is important, Lyons said. Is it going in the same direction as the magnetic field going through the Earth? Does the interplanetary magnetic field connect with the Earth’s magnetic field?
“We thought there could not be strong convection and that the energy necessary for a substorm could not develop unless the interplanetary magnetic field is southward,” Lyons said. “I’ve said it and taught it. Now I have to say, ‘But when you have these fluctuations, which is not a rare occurrence, you can have substorms going off once an hour.'”
Lyons and Kim used the radar measurements to study the strength of the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetosphere.
One of their papers addresses convection and its affect on substorms to show it is a global phenomenon.
“When the interplanetary magnetic field is pointing northward, there is not much happening, but when the interplanetary magnetic field is southward, the flow speeds in the polar regions of the ionosphere are strong. You see much stronger convection. That is what we expect,” Lyons said. “We looked carefully at the data, and said, ‘Wait a minute! There are times when the field is northward and there are strong flows in the dayside polar ionosphere.'”
The dayside has the most direct contact with the solar wind.
“It’s not supposed to happen that way,” Lyons said. “We want to understand why that is.”
“Heejeong separated the data into when the solar wind was fluctuating a lot and when it was fluctuating a little,” he added. “When the interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations are low, she saw the pattern everyone knows, but when she analyzed the pattern when the interplanetary magnetic field was fluctuating strongly, that pattern completely disappeared. Instead, the strength of the flows depended on the strength of the fluctuations.
“So rather than the picture of the connection between the magnetic field of the sun and the Earth controlling the transfer of energy by the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetosphere, something else is happening that is equally interesting. The next question is discovering what that is. We have some ideas of what that may be, which we will test.”
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Nogw (12:47:07) :
Plain rejection of a theory or worse of experimental facts it is not science but a fanatical creed, and their defenders equal those Holy Inquisition dominican priests.
In physics they are requirements that any idea must meet to be called a ‘theory’ and the Electric/Plasma/Thunderbolt ruminations do not qualify.
Nogw (12:47:07) :
Plain rejection of a theory or worse of experimental facts it is not science
OK, there is a ‘theory’: the climate is controlled by little green men that are changing the Earth to fit their requirements. The is lots of experimental facts for this: People have been aboard their spaceships several times. There are serious websites that can provide more support: e.g. http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2009/01/23/03050.html
Self similarity of plasma networking in a broad range of length scales: From laboratory to cosmic plasmas.
http://plasmascience.net/tpu/downloadsCosmo/KukushkinKartinovCos.pdf
Anchoring magnetic field in turbulent molecular clouds.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.1549v1
There is also the research finding ultra-cold plasmas mimic the behavior of ultra-hot plasmas.
In this article we’re discussing, an electromagnetic induction “trigger” appears to have been detected.
Everywhere we look in the cosmos we detect charged particles in motion (a.k.a. electric current), magnetic fields, fractal filamentary structure, and saturated in EM radiation of all wavelengths.
More and more, the data seems to suggest we live in the midst of a cosmic electric storm. 😉
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny…” ~Isaac Asimov
Leif Svalgaard (13:34:22) :
Nogw (12:47:07) :
Plain rejection of a theory or worse of experimental facts it is not science
OK, there is a ‘theory’: the climate is controlled by little green men that are changing the Earth to fit their requirements. The is lots of experimental facts for this: People have been aboard their spaceships several times. There are serious websites that can provide more support: e.g. http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2009/01/23/03050.html
I haven’t yet seen you give your reasons for dismissing Ching Cheh Hung’s successful predictions of solar flares coinciding with planetary positions, or his correlations between planetary motions and sunspot numbers.
I have seen plenty of this sort of ridicule from you though.
tallbloke (23:41:43) :
I haven’t yet seen you give your reasons for dismissing Ching Cheh Hung’s successful predictions of solar flares coinciding with planetary positions
Because those were not predictions at all. A prediction is about future events. The main problem with his report [not a ‘paper’] is the lack of sensitivity analysis: what happens when the angular width [10 degrees] is changed? If there is effect for large flares, there should be an even larger effect for small flares [as the external force is the same]. Yet small flares were not considered. [except a note about “However, such relation could not be confirmed in many other reports. For example, for the group of more than 1000 solar flares during 1955 and 1961, the correlation between the solar flare and the heliocentric longitude of Venus and Jupiter could not be found (ref. 8).”
Apparently, the solar physics community did not take the report seriously.
Now, do you plainly reject my theory about aliens? in violation of Nogw’s admonition: Plain rejection of a theory or worse of experimental facts it is not science.
Distinguishing between predictable causation and conditional association might be helpful in this discussion. The work schedules of 2 people on opposite sides of a city may be associated (without being causative of each other). Furthermore, they may be conditionally associated – for example depending on vacation-schedules of the 2 people. For the hopelessly-inattentive investigator, the time-of-day & day-of-week might collectively constitute a lurking variable. Failure to condition on vacation-schedule could lead to erroneous conclusions, as could failure to recognize the lurking (& confounded) variable. Investigating conditional dependencies of the past should not be misinterpreted as predicting the future. One switch-flip due to an unknown lurking variable and predictions are toast. Speculation: My impression is that different participants in the discussion are making different assumptions about what other people are thinking and that this is leading to misunderstanding, as often happens. If/where conditioning is sufficiently complex, delays in recognizing paradox are not surprising. Even if complex paradoxes can be recognized qualitatively, realistic model-assumptions may result in intractable or nearly-intractable mathematics.
Paul Vaughan (14:23:32) :
My impression is that different participants in the discussion are making different assumptions about what other people are thinking and that this is leading to misunderstanding, as often happens.
Especially when some people refuse to make the effort to clear up the misunderstanding, as you well know.
Mike Lorrey (18:33:06) :
“Instead, the strength of the flows depended on the strength of the fluctuations.”
For those of us with electrical/electronics experience or training, this sets off bells and whistles. In an electromagnet inductor (such as the Earth is), “This implies that the component alternately absorbs energy from the circuit and then returns energy to the circuit. A pure reactance will not dissipate any power.”
Since the conductivity and permeability of the materials that make up the Earth electromagnetic inductor do not have zero impedance, this means there is not pure reactance, and thus the impure reactance will dissipate power transferred to it from the Sun as heat, and *CONCENTRATED AT THE POLES*, particularly the pole which absorbs most of the current.
Since ice in the Antarctic ice cap is mostly pure water ice, its impedance is high and conductivity is low. Arctic sea ice has a much higher conductivity, and thus should absorb more of the current there, and generate more heat as a result. This can explain arctic warming.
———-
Michael Gmirkin responds:
“Can you repeat that into the mic., please?” Or at least mention it to NASA RE: Enceladus’ temperature profile? *Wink*
(An Enceladus-Saturn Electrical Connection?)
http://thunderbolts.info/thunderblogs/archives/mgmirkin08/081108_enceladus_saturn_elec_connection.htm
Anyway, you make a worthwhile point. 🙂 Might have to quote you on it sometime. Heh.
Best,
~Michael
Leif Svalgaard (08:12:11) :
Now, do you plainly reject my theory about aliens? in violation of Nogw’s admonition: Plain rejection of a theory or worse of experimental facts it is not science.
———-
Leif, please stop beating up the “straw men.” They don’t put up much of a fight.
If you take issue with a specific claim, refute the claim. Your “little green men” argument says nothing of value. No offense. Ridicule is not science. Enough said.
One of the typical arguments against currents in space is that of the so-called “frozen-in” magnetic field lines (whereby magnetic fields in space are said not to be generated by local electric currents [according to Maxwell] but to be “carried along” with plasma [basically treating a region of plasma as though it is a permanent magnet traveling through space]). EU scientists, such as Don Scott and Wal Thornhill take issue with the “frozen-in” nonsense. Alfvén himself recanted the notion of the “frozen-in” conditoin, realizing it was in error. Too bad astrophysicists had already seized on it to ignore electric fields and currents…
See:
(Double Layers in Astrophysics)
ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19870013880_1987013880.pdf
(Real Properties of Electromagnetic Fields and Plasma in the Cosmos)
members.cox.net/dascott3/IEEE-TransPlasmaSci-Scott-Aug2007.pdf
It’s pretty easy to demonstrate that the “frozen-in” condition is false. The easiest way is to debunk the notion that plasma is an “ideal conductor.” (It’s not. Sure, it’s a VERY GOOD conductor, but not an ideal one [a lossless superconductor].) At the very least not in the low-density plasma of space (and most likely not anywhere else).
The only true superconductors (or close to them) that have been created in the lab have been achieved using cryogenic temperatures (approaching ‘absolute zero’). The more we can reduce random (thermal, collisional) motion, the better the conductivity will be. However, plasmas contain high ‘temperature’ electrons and ions. Unfortunately, the thermal motions of charge carriers in a current will still cause them to occasionally crash into one another. This dissipates a bit of the energy of the current into ‘heat.’ (Basically, that’s what resistance is for the most part, no?)
In a superconductor resistance is effectively 0. In a low-density plasma through which a DC current flows, its resistance is non-zero. This can be rather simply demonstrated by viewing the graph of voltage vs. current.
(Resistance = Voltage / Current)
R = V / I
See the voltage-current graph here:
(Low res)
glow-discharge.com/Index.html?/Discharges_1.html
glow-discharge.com/Images/GD_Regime.jpg
(High res)
picasaweb.google.com/mgmirkin/Physics#5342156626574238450
Ref: Industrial Plasma Engineering: Volume I – Principles. Institute of Physics Press, Bristol, UK ISBN 0-7503-0318-2, Section 12.5.2, Section 9.6.3.
Draw a line from the origin through any point on the graph (other than the origin). The slope (V/I) will ALWAYS be positive. That is to say, the voltage never drops to zero, ergo the resistance never drops to zero, ergo plasma is not a superconductor (an ideal conductor with 0 resistance). Any current flowing through it will encounter non-zero resistance. Any charge imbalances will NOT be instantly neutralized. Electric fields (due to charge imbalances between different regions within a quasi-neutral plasma) can and DO exist within a plasma. With such electric fields come currents. From the electric currents spring the magnetic fields observed so ubiquitously in local, interplanetary, interstellar and intergalactic space. Maxwell is NOT violated by generation of magnetic fields in plasma without source currents or by currents generated without voltage drops.
It is not sufficient to say plasma is an “ideal conductor” and thus electric fields and currents can be effectively ignored. Simply not so. If magnetic fields so arise from electric currents, per Maxwell, then it becomes readily apparent that the magnetic fields observed so ubiquitously in space are pretty darned direct evidence that currents do in fact exist in space, and on extremely large scales (given the large scales of the magnetic fields involved). Your arguments to “incredulity” and “ridicule” aside. It would be rather foolhardy to simply dismiss out of hand the potential to open a somewhat new vista of inquiry simply because one’s mind has been wired closed by the existing paradigm. In any event, once such faulty premises as the “frozen-in” condition and “plasma-as-superconductor” are exposed and real-world data is examined, a new understanding must naturally replace them and any theories based upon the faulty premises must be revisited, regardless how painfully the process for those who have enmeshed themselves with theories that may be undermined by disconfirming data.
Best,
~Michael Gmirkin
I don’t mean to hijack the thread, so I’ll generally leave it at that, other than to say that wherever we’ve looked lately, we’ve found electrodynamic processes that have confounded existing models.
From the 650,000+ Amp “flux ropes” powering the Earthly auroras and hooking contiguously all the way back to the Sun, to the “electrical tornadoes in space” involved with substorms & the auroras, to the “magnetic tornadoes” @ur momisugly Mercury (just guessing they’re not all that different from our Earthly auroral “electrical tornadoes,” just a quaint difference in terminology), to the electron beam and million+ Amp “flux tube” between Io and Jupiter to the electrical nature of solar sigmoids. Electrodynamics seems to be playing a pretty big role here locally. If that be so, is it really THAT big a jump to think that the magnetic fields in space wrapped around linear / helical filaments in space are indicative of large-scale currents within those structures?
Incredulity only gets you so far. Beyond that, you might just want to set incredulity aside and look at the EVIDENCE that’s all around (the ubiquitous magnetic fields observed throughou the known universe and said to be critical in star formation, the motions of galaxy clusters, nebular collapse, etc.). If magnetic fields are NOT “frozen-in” to plasma (and 99.999% of the universe’s visible constituent matter is in the plasma state), Maxwell says the only other option is that currents exist to generate the magnetic fields we’ve definitively observed, or vice versa (the magnetic fields generate currents in the plasma; either way, currents are involved).
Just something to chew on.
Best,
~Michael Gmirkin
” Maxwell says the only other option is that currents exist to generate the magnetic fields we’ve definitively observed”
Maxwell didn’t know about the London Moment, a magnetic field that appears above a spinning super-conductor, even though there is no current.
Note that the definition includes electrons in motion being “dragged” along by (lagging implies being dragged behind), the superconductive material. Therefore, that magnetic field is also the result of electric current (generated by those electrons moving to catch up with the rotation of the superconductive sphere.)
Here is some basic superconductor physics, which is why plasma in the cosmos can not be superconductive with “frozen-in” magnetic fields.
Therefore it is impossible for magnetic fields to be “frozen-in” to a “superconductive” plasma (doesn’t exist), even if plasma was a superconductor, which it is not.
True @ur momisugly Solrey-
Astrophysicists who believe in the superconductivity of plasmas need to look at the *conditions required to create superconductivity* – rather than the superconduction itself! Nowhere in the universe do we have visible (not theoretical!) conditions as are required for superconductivity to arise… either thermally or with bizarre compounds of matter and high RPM’s.
More to the point – how many superconductivity experiments have attempted to create superconductivity in an atomic gas?? Not too much, eh?
No one believed in electric space, yet we discovered the Van Allen Belts, solar wind, now Birkland currents between the Earth and Sun (to wit- how much do you want to bet that there are Birkland currents between the Sun and all the other planets too then? Or are we going to do the “Earth is the center of the Universe” thing all over again?)
Scoff at ME all you want- I’m a layman and I can stand here and blather in this forum all day and not feel the slightest embarassment. At least I’m trying to LEARN.
The ones who should feel the most embarassment should be the ones whom title themselves ‘Scientists’ or even moreso ‘leading experts’ for closing their minds to new ideas because they stem from outside their particular fields. Astronomy textbooks saying “electromagnetism in plasma behaves *this* way..” when plasma experiments are just now scratching the surface of the dynamics of plasma behaviors… that’s an attitude worthy of getting shot out of the sky with AAA fire if I’ve ever seen one.
So before I start getting fired at myself about my ‘uneducated opinions’ here, I’m going to toss one thing out for target practice:
The hallmark of a good theory is it’s ability to make successful predictions.
More and more articles like the one at the top of this thread are showing me that I was right when I took a chance on reading up on this Plasma Cosmology stuff (they predicted the above correlation DECADES ago)… and by contrast, the Mainstreamers STILL haven’t managed to take a picture of a Black Hole yet, nor seen one single little piece of Dark Matter or any gravity waves with their multi-million dollar toys!!
I’m betting on the Plasma Guys. I can see the effects of electricity, and they’re interpretations make sense to me.
Strings, extra dimensions, dark matter, dark energy, neutron stars, black holes, strange matter, self-sustaining nuclear fusion, and all this other hypothetical TRASH that has been wasting my hard-earned tax money need to get dumped into a trashbag and buried for future archaeologists to dig up years from now and LAUGH at!
Mike H.