From a University College, London Press Release – Solar winds triggered by magnetic fields
Solar wind generated by the sun is probably driven by a process involving powerful magnetic fields, according to a new study led by UCL researchers based on the latest observations from the Hinode satellite.
Scientists have long speculated on the source of solar winds. The Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS), on board the Japanese-UK-US Hinode satellite, is now generating unprecedented observations enabling scientists to provide a new perspective on the 50-year old question of how solar wind is driven. The collaborative study, published in this month’s issue of Astrophysical Journal, suggests that a process called slipping reconnection may drive these winds.
Deb Baker, lead author from UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, says: “Solar wind is an outflow of million-degree gas and magnetic field that engulfs the Earth and other planets. It fills the entire solar system and links with the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets. Changes in the Sun’s million-mile-per-hour wind can induce disturbances within near-Earth space and our upper atmosphere and yet we still don’t know what drives these outflows.”
“However, our latest study suggests that it is the release of energy stored in solar magnetic fields which provides the additional driver for the solar wind. This magnetic energy release is most efficient in the brightest regions of activity on the Sun’s surface, called active regions or sunspot groups, which are strong concentrations of magnetic field. We believe that this fundamental process happens everywhere on the Sun on virtually all scales.”
Images taken in February 2007 from the EIS instrument showed that hot plasma outflows are due to a process called slipping reconnection. At the edges of active regions where this process can occur, a slow, continuous restructuring of the magnetic field leads to the release of energy and acceleration of particles in the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere, known as the corona. Slipping reconnection is the first theory to explain how observed outflows from the Sun can be located over areas of a single magnetic sign, something previously considered improbable.
Computer models of the Sun’s magnetic field were used to identify regions where slipping reconnection could occur. The locations proposed by the computer model were compared with measurements of the speed of the gas coming from the solar corona. The comparison showed the gas was moving outward at up to 100,000 mph, 1,000 times the wind speed in a hurricane, over the possible slipping reconnection regions.
The study was carried out by the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Observatoire de Paris, Konkoly Observatory in Hungary and Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio in Argentina. Deborah Baker is funded by a Science and Technology Funding Council (STFC) studentship.
Hinode is a Japanese mission developed and launched by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISIS) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) as domestic partner and NASA and STFC (UK) as international partners. It is operated by these agencies in co-operation with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Norwegian Space Centre (NSC).
Data that served as the basis for the magnetic modelling was provided by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
See the Research paper in The Astrophysical Journal
My closer to the truth definition of eshcatology: The study of poop
Leif Svalgaard,
Your earlier Birkeland link does not work for me.
Opening your /EOS/ directory it appears to have a problem.
kuhnkat (21:47:00) :
Your earlier Birkeland link does not work for me.
Try now.
Zeke:
-sadly… even in this day, -you can still lead a horse to water
..and watch it die of dehydration at it’s edge.
-at least you tried.
Today’s “science” is mathematically “faith based” and has been reduced
to a dogmatic religion. (oddly, it is religion itself, that caused this, if
you study the “real” history)
E.U. is just too simple a model for a society made to believe the
universe is some complex monstrosity that only government funded research scientists and trillions of dollars can explain.
(In modern science, ultimately, everything boils down to this:
-The Black Hole did it. -but i digress.)
-as was once said, to paraphrase, “specialization has turned
academia and the entire professionally community into a bunch of blithering ——.”
It conveniently makes sure one body of scientists (and their work)
has no clue what the other body is saying or doing.
And should you step outside your “field of expertise” and comment
outside your realm…
-in this case, kiss your telescope, instrument time, funding and career goodbye. -Heresy.
The other observation (with some help) i have made is that those with extrensive academic training, -the ones with walls of diplomas especially, have had their common sense surgically removed. -having only
been taught what to think, not how. (all of my “learned” clients
exhibit this fact)
-perhaps they need to be made to understand not only
that the “standard model” is flawed, if not just simply incomplete..
but that the model of the atom needs to be “updated” as well.
To that end, Maurice Cotterell has done some great work in
initiating the “atom” update…
Take a look at his updated model of the atom as he explains
how wonderfully simple (and electromagnetic) gravity is.
(to me at least)
http://www.mauricecotterell.com/gravity1a.html
The E.U. model WILL lead humanity out the 90+ some odd year
dark age that the theoretical mathematicians have stuck us in.
Those stuck in the [gravity] past will have almost no choice, given the myriad of electromagnetic anomalies the Earth is about to experience,
to embrace the resonant, electric/plasma centric view of the universe.
What powers the atom, powers life, the mind and the universe.
They are all connected and effect each other, intimately.
-and it seems, it’s all tied together by consciousness.
something i never in my wildest dreams would have
(or even ever) believed in. -(esp me being agnostic)
-A natural jack of all trades, I spent almost every waking hour
the last year+, studying all the “works” of science, mythology,
symbology and spirituality, -concurrently.
(all but science, i had previously “hated” or at least, could care
less about)
Therein lies the rub. -we are taught never to mix science
with anything but “science” -fact.
Only when you throw that rather silly notion to the wind and
combine them all as one body of “science” will you be able to
understand it all. –and most resoundingly, how “everything”
works..together. -ironically, the overall simplicity is mind-boggling.
Only one important tip to heed: Turn off your TV.
It is the primary “inhibitor” to all knowledge.
Only then, will not even the sky be the limit in what
you learn is actually the “true reality” in which your live.
-s
Leif Svalgaard,
“No, but it seems that the EU leadership would want you to believe that I did.”
could you please provide me with a link to statements supporting your allegation??
My limited reading led me to believe SOME EU types were claiming that ancient humans OBSERVED plasma types NOT of intelligent origin and recorded the SHAPES or their INTERPRETATIONS of them. In some cases making up myths to explain them.
kuhnkat (21:38:09) :
“As I said, electric currents are generated by plasma moving across magnetic field lines.”
And what maintains the state of the plasma long enough for it to generate electric current?
In interplanetary space the magnetic field is frozen into the plasma, so the plasma does not cross any field lines, hence no currents flow [the drift currents along the HCS is a special case – currents without electric field]. When the plasma meets the magnetic field of the Earth, the current is duly generated. The current flows as long as the plasma is moving with respect to the Earth’s magnetic field, and the plasma is moving all the time, because the solar wind continues to expand, years after year after year.
From Wikipedia entry on solar wind:
“The solar wind is a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun. It consists mostly of electrons and protons with energies of about 1 keV. The stream of particles varies in temperature and speed with the passage of time. These particles are able to escape the sun’s gravity, in part because of the high temperature of the corona, but also because of high kinetic energy that particles gain through a process that is not well understood.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind
And more specific:
Wikipedia entry for heliospheric current sheet:
“A small electrical current flows within the sheet, about 10−10 A/m². The thickness of the current sheet is about 10,000 km.
The underlying magnetic field is called the interplanetary magnetic field, and the resulting electric current forms part of the heliospheric current circuit.[4] The heliospheric current sheet is also sometimes called the interplanetary current sheet.”
And continuing:
“The electric current in the heliospheric current sheet is directed radially inward, the circuit being closed by outward currents aligned with the Sun’s magnetic field in the solar polar regions. The total current in the circuit is on the order of 3×109 amperes.[4] As a comparison with other astrophysical electric currents, the Birkeland currents that supply the Earth’s aurora are about a thousand times weaker at a million amperes. The maximum current density in the sheet is on the order of 10-10 A/m² (10-4 A/km²).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliospheric_current_sheet
# 4 footnote: MHD simulation of the three-dimensional structure of the heliospheric current sheet
(We’ve discussed simulations before and you were approving in general.)
“Abstract
The existence of the radial component of the electric current flowing toward the Sun is revealed in numerical simulation. The total strength of the radial current is A. The only way to fulfil the electric current continuity is to close the radial electric current by means of field- aligned currents at the polar region of the Sun. Thus, the surface density of the closure current flowing along the solar surface can be estimated as 4 A/m, and the magnetic field produced by this current is T, i.e. several percent of the intrinsic magnetic field of the Sun. This seems to mean that any treatment of the solar magnetic field generation should take into account the heliospheric current circuit as well as the currents flowing inside the Sun.”
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=article&url=/articles/aa/full/2001/34/aah2814/aah2814.html&access=standard
Dr. Svalgaard, your initial attempt to characterize the solar wind as “just a hot gas” is not persuasive.
It took me all of an hour to discern the fundamentals of the electric universe society. It is a religion. A cult. Not a science. I thought that a debate was was being conducted based on science.
Here, let me give you a taste of EU rethoric,” What once were clusters of galaxies and quasars sprinkled into the distance have become the interacting parts of a couple of cosmic swirls in our backyard. The Expanding Universe is cancelled. The Hubble Constant is trashed. The redshift-
distance relationship is divorced. The Big Bang is blown away.
And clusters of galaxies are illusions spawned by a failure of
imagination.” I found this quote in an online newsletter called, ‘THOTH – A Catastrophics Newsletter.’ Its ran by the ‘Kronia Group’.
What got me to investigate was a video I found on youtube called, ‘How the Sun Works’. In it Don Scott and Wal Thornhill discuss how EU works. The first thing that grabbed my attention was how Don Scott, a ‘reputable’ engineer, focused away from ever saying anything about magnetism, but tried to explain that energy from outside the solar system was responsible for heating the corona. That raised both my eyebrow and got me to start looking around. Scientists hanging out with mythologists, like David Talbot and many more like him, ridiculing scientific fact, just about blew me away. Hey if religion is your thing, have at it. But to be mislead into thinking that science was being discussed, to find out otherwise, I’m feeling a bit peeved atm.
From Leif’s link:
“SOLAR CORPUSCULAR RAYS.’
. BIRKELAND.
[Reprinted from Science Abstracts, Sect. A, May 25, 1916. $531.
From the discussion of an exstensive series of auroral
observations Stormer has decided to regard the aurora as
due to positive corpuscles eniitted from the sun coming
into action in the upper atmosphere of the earth. Birkeland
considers that corpuscles are negnative and brings forward
the evidence given by his extensive experiments
on the discharges from a magnetized kathode in a
special vacuum chamber. -C.P. B[utler].”
(not included was a narrative of an aurora from Chesterbrook Va.)
The absence of the predicted apocalypse never stops these nutjobs from just making up new crap.
Leif Svalgaard (21:14:26) :
Zeke (21:00:34) :
No one in EU leadership gives any credence…
‘Leadership” ? Sounds like organized religion to me, or ideology.
I am taking that as a “no” to my question to you, about whether you have any predicitions concerning the ENA “ribbon” across the heliosphere.
James F. Evans (22:27:26) :
These particles are able to escape the sun’s gravity, in part because of the high temperature of the corona, but also because of high kinetic energy that particles gain through a process that is not well understood.”
This is what one would call a ‘hot gas’. The ‘process’ is now understood to be magnetic reconnection.
The underlying magnetic field is called the interplanetary magnetic field, and the resulting electric current forms part of the heliospheric current circuit.
As I said, the current results from the magnetic field.
“The electric current in the heliospheric current sheet is directed radially inward, the circuit being closed by outward currents aligned with the Sun’s magnetic field in the solar polar regions.
Is not correct as the current reverses direction every eleven years, when the polar fields reverse.
<astrophysical electric currents
Looks like the page has been corrupted by EU.
This seems to mean that any treatment of the solar magnetic field generation should take into account the heliospheric current circuit as well as the currents flowing inside the Sun.
In the inner heliosphere the deformation of the magnetic field generates weak currents [all currents generated by the magnetic field – remember]. This current is not the one in the HCS.
In fact, in an early [1979] paper by myself and colleagues http://www.leif.org/research/Sun's%20Poloidal%20and%20Toroidal%20Magnetic%20Field.pdf we actually measure this current [no simulation – real data]. We calculated it to be of the same size and percentage as the simulation you mention [but 23 years earlier]. This radial current near the Sun flows perpendicular to the HCS current which near the Sun flows around the Sun. You see, I am actually a real expert on all these things. The essential part is not that there are no currents, but that there are no electric fields. The currents are generated from the magnetic field as we have discussed so many times now.
kuhnkat (22:43:08) :
Birkeland considers that corpuscles are negative
And this was his great mistake [Stoermer was equally wrong in maintaining that they were positive]. The solar wind plasma is neither positive nor negative, but electrically neutral with the same number of negative and positive corpuscles mixed together. Birkeland did not [and neither did anybody else at the time] know what a plasma was and his ideas about a current from the Sun hitting the Earth [as a current in his lab hit the terrella] were wrong.
Zeke (22:57:27) :
whether you have any predicitions concerning the ENA “ribbon” across the heliosphere.
No, I have not jumped to any conclusions on this.
David Alan (22:28:44) :
to be mislead into thinking that science was being discussed, to find out otherwise, I’m feeling a bit peeved atm.
And that is the problem I have with this [and poor Lucy being misled too]. They try to trot it out as science, and as Jeff said: “it never stops these nutjobs from just making up new crap”.
It diminishes WUWT [although there occasionally can be some comical entertainment in their wiggling]. And it really is a shame, but, hey, it is Anthony’s blog, so I guess we’ll just have to ignore the nonsense. Which one probably should have done from the start [“don’t feed the troll” – you know]. Other blogs are less forgiving [e.g. CA] as their readership often are a bit more erudite.
In fact, in an early [1979] paper by myself and colleagues link not mangled by WordPress
David Alan wrote: “It took me all of an hour to discern the fundamentals of the electric universe society. It is a religion. A cult. Not a science.”
Of course, you are entitled to your opinion.
But what do you think of NASA?
(Hat tip to Kuhnkat)
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/solar_wind_speed.html
“The Sun occasionally launches billion-ton blasts of electrified gas, called coronal mass ejections (CMEs), into space at millions of miles (kilometers) per hour. If a fast CME is plowing through slow solar wind, a shock [an electric double layer?] builds up in front of the CME that accelerates the electrically charged solar wind particles.”
NASA continues:
“Since the solar wind is made up of electrically-charged particles, it responds to magnetic fields that permeate the solar atmosphere. Solar wind particles flow along invisible lines of magnetic force like cars on a highway.”
Compare the NASA description (link to NASA webpage and read it) of the solar wind to Dr. Svalgaard’s:
“No, the solar wind is not electromagnetic in nature. It is just a hot gas that happens to have an embedded weak magnetic field in it.”
(And remember NASA’s statements are the considered collective judgment of a large number of astrophysicists, not just one person.)
So who are you down with David?
Dr. Svalgaard or NASA?
Leif Svalgaard (23:42:59) : Your comment is awaiting moderation
In fact, in an early [1979] paper by myself and colleagues link not mangled by WordPress
I was wrong wordpress did again.
try again here
James F. Evans (23:44:40) :
“Since the solar wind is made up of electrically-charged particles, it responds to magnetic fields that permeate the solar atmosphere.
NASA says, as I and every other scientist in this field, that the electric currents are generated in the plasma as it moves through or into a magnetic field.
Leif Svalgaard (23:30:48) :
Zeke (22:57:27) :
whether you have any predicitions concerning the ENA “ribbon” across the heliosphere.
No, I have not jumped to any conclusions on this.
Thank you. Good night.
I support scientific fact James F. Evans. NASA should have been shut down the day James Hansen walked into congress. I’ve already mentioned that NASA seems to talk double-speak in regards to magnetism. They even have a section devoted to it. Called Magnetism is The Key. While I’m sure there are hard working scientists, busting their ass to be rigorous and forthright, there are some among them that must be using funding in the guise of science to further their own agenda.
There is nothing anyone can do about it. Corruption, deceit, and malfeasance is pervasive throughout the scientific community.
All I can do is focus on the truth, put my faith in the ‘scientific method, and hope for a modicum of rational men and women to direct my path. Men like Lief
Leif Svalgaard (23:39:56) :
It diminishes WUWT [although there occasionally can be some comical entertainment in their wiggling]. And it really is a shame, but, hey, it is Anthony’s blog, so I guess we’ll just have to ignore the nonsense.
Actually, what diminishes the thread is the snide and snarky comments, which display nothing but a self-satisfied attitude; the conversations about plasma and electric currents in space are quite interesting on their own. Everyone can see that but the ones making the nasty remarks.
Ack. My cat sent comment before I was done. No, his name isn’t Bill. Sorry, Leif. I butchered your name once again.
Ill take getting cutoff in mid rant as a sign to cool my jets.
Speaking of coronal mass ejections (CME):
NASA has made observations & measurements of CME’s and determined the shape or morphology of CME’s:
“April 14, 2009: This just in: The Sun is blasting the solar system with croissants.”
Slightly tongue-n-cheek, but an accurate statement, no less.
NASA goes on:
“Researchers studying data from NASA’s twin STEREO probes have found that ferocious solar storms called CMEs (coronal mass ejections) are shaped like a French pastry. The elegance and simplicity of the new ‘croissant model’ is expected to dramatically improve forecasts of severe space weather.”
Dr. Svalgaard’s “just a hot gas”???
More NASA:
“This is an important advance,” says Lika Guhathakurta, STEREO program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington DC. “From a distance, CMEs appear to be a complicated and varied population. What we have discovered is that they are not so varied after all. Almost all of the 40-plus CMEs we have studied so far with STEREO have a common shape–akin to a croissant.”
“Almost all…have a common shape–akin to a croissant.”
Why is this shape remarkable?
Because it suggests not just shape, but structure and dynamics.
What does a croissant look like?
Well, a twisted pastry.
This is consistent with a twisted set of electric current filaments, Birkeland currents, where the “electrically-charged particles” (NASA’s description not mine) take the structure of two filaments twisted around each other.
See plasma filamentation:
“Filamentation (or filamentary structure) is often seen in plasmas. It is created because plasma contains free electrons, making it highly electrically conductive — even more than metals, and even in tenuous cosmic plasmas. As charged particles readily move in a plasma, a ring of magnetic field forms around the current that can pinch it into filamentary current strands (ie. pinched filaments).[2]”
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Filamentation
For reasonable sceptics with an open-mind scroll down the link and check out the footnotes with academic books cited and also the peer-reviewed papers that are cited as well.
And look at the schematic on the right of the linked webpage and check out the twisted electric current filaments and how the magnetic field constricts the filaments together.
Ya, there’s not a lick of science supporting these ideas…that’s at least what Dr. Svalgaard and his mechanical model cohorts want you to believe — but the peer-reviewed documentation and NASA observations & measurements speak for themselves.
Croissants anyone?
NASA wrote: “Since the solar wind is made up of electrically-charged particles, it responds to magnetic fields that permeate the solar atmosphere.”
Dr. Svalgaard responds: “NASA says, as I and every other scientist in this field, that the electric currents are generated in the plasma as it moves through or into a magnetic field.”
Ah, weasel words: “…the electric currents are generated in the plasma as it moves through or into a magnetic field.”
Since moving plasma, electrically charged particles, as we now know, emanate magnetic fields, of course, plasma in motion constantly moves through a magnetic field, and, thus, as Dr. Svalgaard now acknowledges, “electric currents are generated”.
Which means the instant charged particles are in motion, thus, a magnetic field and electric currents are generated.
As I’ve stated before electric currents and magnetic fields are two sides of the same coin.
James F. Evans (23:38:40) :
Because it suggests not just shape, but structure and dynamics.
What does a croissant look like?
Well, a twisted pastry.
Of course, all CMEs continue to have ‘both feet on the ground’ as they move out through the inner heliosphere. They are closed magnetic structures, so are still connected to the Sun at both ends. Since a twisted magnetic field has more energy than a straight ones, twisted fields are more likely to ‘blow up’ as a CME. The wonderful STEREO data fully confirms the twisted closed loops that we have surmised for so long. And shows the power of magnetic fields to sculpture and guide structures in the solar wind. A strong support for the supremacy of magnetic fields.