From NOAA news: NOAA Scientist Finds Clue to Predicting Solar Flares
Forecasters at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
For decades, experts have searched for signs in the sun that could lead to more accurate forecasts of solar flares — powerful blasts of energy that can supercharge Earth’s upper atmosphere and disrupt satellites and the land-based technologies on which modern societies depend. Now a scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center and her colleagues have found a technique for predicting solar flares two to three days in advance with unprecedented accuracy.
The long-sought clue to prediction lies in changes in twisting magnetic fields beneath the surface of the sun in the days leading up to a flare, according to the authors. The findings will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters next month.
“For the first time, we can tell two to three days in advance when and where a solar flare will occur and how large it will be,” said lead author Alysha Reinard, a solar physicist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, a partnership between NOAA and the University of Colorado.
Twisting magnetic fields beneath the surface of the sun erupt into a large solar flare, as shown above.
High resolution (Credit: NSF)
The new technique is already twice as accurate as current methods, according to the authors, and that number is expected to improve as they refine their work over the next few years. With this technique, reliable watches and warnings should be possible before the next solar sunspot maximum, predicted to occur in 2013. Currently, forecasters see complex sunspot regions and issue alerts that a large flare may erupt, but the when-and-where eludes them.
Solar flares are sudden bursts of energy and light from sunspots’ magnetic fields. During a flare, photons travel at the speed of light in all directions through space, arriving at Earth’s upper atmosphere—93 million miles from the sun—in just eight minutes.
Almost instantly the photons can affect the high-orbiting satellites of the Global Positioning System, or GPS, creating timing delays and skewing positioning signals by as much as half a football field, risking high-precision agriculture, oil drilling, military and airline operations, financial transactions, navigation, disaster warnings, and other critical functions relying on GPS accuracy.
“Two or three days lead time can make the difference between safeguarding the advanced technologies we depend on every day for our livelihood and security, and the catastrophic loss of these capabilities and trillions of dollars in disrupted commerce,” said Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
Reinard and NOAA intern Justin Henthorn of Ohio University pored over detailed maps of more than 1,000 sunspot groups, called active regions. The maps were constructed from solar sound-wave data from the National Science Foundation’s Global Oscillation Network Group.
Reinard and Henthorn found the same pattern in region after region: magnetic twisting that tightened to the breaking point, burst into a large flare, and vanished. They established that the pattern could be used as a reliable tool for predicting a solar flare.
“These recurring motions of the magnetic field, playing out unseen beneath the solar surface, are the clue we’ve needed to know that a large flare is coming—and when,” said Reinard.
Rudi Komm and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory contributed to the research.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources. Visit us on Facebook.
Note to Editors: The paper has been accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters in February: “Evidence that temporal changes in solar subsurface helicity precede active region flaring,” by Alysha Reinard, Justin Henthorn, Rudi Komm, and Frank Hill.
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NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
Yeah, but can they balance an energy budget? 😉
Dave F (00:13:20) : Yeah, but can they balance an energy budget? 😉
What is a budget?
Gregg E. (00:12:02) :
Is the extra g for greatness? Had to ask. 🙂
So do the peaks of flare eruption have any correlation, to the timing of the heliocentric conjunctions of the major planets, with each other, or to the other local stars, center of the Galaxy?
Or do they think that is all solely an internal mechanism untouched by the interactions with the other parties in the solar system’s neighborhood. Just like the weather on the Earth is modeled?
Any pattern of connection to the sun’s orbit of the barycenter of the solar system? There are those who propose this interaction is the driving mechanism, for the control and production of sun spot cycles. Do they see any correlation or connection to this school of thought?
Are they just going to focus on one probable option, and not consider any others, like they do CO2 on Earth? Or like they used to with weather, and see it as a stand alone system, free of outside influence?
There are also alternative views, which imo are more realistic.
From: American Institute of Physics publication:
WHY CURRENT-CARRYING MAGNETIC FLUX TUBES GOBBLE UP PLASMA AND BECOME THIN AS A RESULT
quote: “This paper argues that axial uniformity is the result of a rather complex sequence of events which occur whenever an electric current I is made to flow along an initially axially nonuniform, current-free, axisymmetric magnetic flux tube ~a process corresponding to injection of magnetic helicity into the flux tube!.
The sequence of events occurs even when current I is modest, i.e., even when
the flux tube is only slightly twisted………
Thus when current I is constant, poloidal current flows along poloidal flux surfaces and there is no toroidal motion. ”
P. M. Bellan
MC 128-95, Caltech, Pasadena, California 91125
http://authors.library.caltech.edu/1892/1/BELpop03.pdf
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0301/0301037v1.pdf
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/cgi-bin/eprint/index.pl?entry=515
Also presented at: Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, October 29-30, 2007 .
The Astrophysical Journal, 490:L107–L110, 1997 November 20,1997. The American Astronomical Society.
THE EMERGENCE OF CURRENT-CARRYING MAGNETIC LOOPS
INTO THE SOLAR CORONA
we demonstrate that this process can qualitatively reproduce observations that show the emergence of a helically twisted magnetic structure with a suitable field-current combination.
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1538-4357/….72-d405fa67f3bb
Observatolre de Parls-Meudon and University de Paris
PLASMA AND SOLAR PHYSICS. THE SOLAR FLARE PHENOMENON
.I. Heyvaerts
“This directed flow of electrons constitute a beam passing through a plasma, between the acceleration region and photosphere. It will not only become unstable to plasma waves but create an enormous magnetic field.
In fact the electric current represented by the downwards flowing fast particles will be compensated by a return current driven in the background plasma. This return current, if the beam is too strong, will itself turn microunstable and the beam will stop, because it loses all its energy driving this excessively damped current.”
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/21/94/29/PDF/ajp-jphyscol197940C7427.pdf
From the post: “The long-sought clue to prediction lies in changes in twisting magnetic fields beneath the surface of the sun in the days leading up to a flare, according to the authors. The findings will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters next month.”
Could this scientific paper have relevance?
Generation of large scale electric fields in coronal flare circuits
Submitted on 6 Aug 2009
Abstract: “A large number of energetic electrons are generated during solar flares. They carry a substantial part of the flare released energy but how these electrons are created is not fully understood yet. This paper suggests that plasma motion in an active region in the photosphere is the source of large electric currents. These currents can be described by macroscopic circuits. Under special circumstances currents can establish in the corona along magnetic field lines. The energy released by these currents when moderate assumptions for the local conditions are made, is found be comparable to the flare energy.”
http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.0813
To highlight:
“This paper suggests that plasma motion in an active region in the photosphere is the source of large electric currents.”
And another scientific paper might have bearing on the subject:
Driving Currents for Flux Rope Coronal Mass Ejections
Submitted on 23 Oct 2008
Abstract: “We present a method for measuring electrical currents enclosed by flux rope structures that are ejected within solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Such currents are responsible for providing the Lorentz self-force that propels CMEs. Our estimates for the driving current are based on measurements of the propelling force obtained using data from the LASCO coronagraphs aboard the SOHO satellite. We find that upper limits on the currents enclosed by CMEs are typically around $10^{10}$ Amperes. We estimate that the magnetic flux enclosed by the CMEs in the LASCO field of view is a few $\times 10^{21}$ Mx”
http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.4210
To highlight:
“We present a method for measuring electrical currents enclosed by flux rope structures that are ejected within solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs).”
From the posted article: “…twisting magnetic fields beneath the surface of the sun…”
And twisting magnetic fields in the coronal mass ejections (CME).
Well, also, it has been observed & measured that once CME’s have been ejected out into the heliosphere as part of the solar wind (a charged particle plasma flow) have the shape of a “croissant”. Obviously, the French pastry has a twist and this twisted shape owes to the CME’s magnetic field.
As reported by NASA: The Surprising Shape of Solar Storms (see link below):
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/14apr_3dcme.htm
“April 14, 2009: This just in: The Sun is blasting the solar system with croissants.
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.”
“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. Almost all of the 40-plus CMEs we have studied so far with STEREO have a common shape–akin to a croissant.”
“That’s how CMEs get started—as twisted ropes of solar magnetism. When the energy in the twist reaches some threshold, there is an explosion which expels the CME away from the sun. It looks like a croissant because the twisted ropes are fat in the middle and thin on the ends.”
“The shape alone, however, does not tell the full story of a CME. The contents of the CME must be considered, too. How much plasma does it contain? What is the orientation and strength of its internal magnetic field?”
It seems new observations & measurements raise new questions.
So, from below the surface of the Sun and continuing far from the Sun’s surface “twisted magnetic fields” are observed & measured.
Interesting…
Can you twist magnetic fields in this way in the laboratory?… or is it something only “observed” on the sun?
I asked that because I have been reading this….
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm
…. I won’t make me blind will it? 😉
Twisting magnetic fields?
They are Birkeland currents which twist and hence the magnetic fields associated with those currents then become twisted as well, as observed.
However you cannot twist a magnetic field in the lab, but you can twist the current that produces that magnetic field.
In the best traditions of bureaucrats the world over, Pachauri blames others for his mistakes, infers he is being persecuted by skeptics, and denies all knowledge of the WWF’s glacier-melting fantasies until 10 days ago.
***************************************************************************
From the Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6999051.ece
January 23, 2010
UN climate change expert: there could be more errors in report
Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent
The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel’s assessment of Himalayan glaciers.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. But he admitted that there may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible. “I know a lot of climate skeptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,” he told The Times in an interview. “It was a collective failure by a number of people,” he said. “I need to consider what action to take, but that will take several weeks. It’s best to think with a cool head, rather than shoot from the hip.”
The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”. But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was “poorly substantiated” in the latest of a series of blows to the panel’s credibility.
Dr Pachauri said that the IPCC’s report was the responsibility of the panel’s Co-Chairs at the time, both of whom have since moved on. They were Dr Martin Parry, a British scientist now at Imperial College London, and Dr Osvaldo Canziani , an Argentine meteorologist. Neither was immediately available for comment. “I don’t want to blame them, but typically the working group reports are managed by the Co-Chairs,” Dr Pachauri said. “Of course the Chair is there to facilitate things, but we have substantial amounts of delegation.”
He declined to blame the 25 authors and editors of the erroneous part of the report , who included a Filipino, a Mongolian, a Malaysian, an Indonesian, an Iranian, an Australian and two Vietnamese. The “co-ordinating lead authors” were Rex Victor Cruz of the Philippines, Hideo Harasawa of Japan, Murari Lal of India and Wu Shaohong of China.
But Syed Hasnain, the Indian glaciologist erroneously quoted as making the 2035 prediction, said that responsibility had to lie with them. “It is the lead authors — blame goes to them,” he told The Times. “There are many mistakes in it. It is a very poorly made report.” He and other leading glaciologists pointed out at least five glaring errors in the relevant section.
It says the total area of Himalayan glaciers “will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035”. There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas. Between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840m — a rate of 135.2m a year. The actual rate is only 23.5m a year. The section says Himalayan glaciers are “receding faster than in any other part of the world” when many glaciologists say they are melting at about the same rate. An entire paragraph is also attributed to the World Wildlife Fund, when only one sentence came from it, and the IPCC is not supposed to use such advocacy groups as sources.
Professor Hasnain, who was not involved in drafting the IPCC report, said that he noticed some of the mistakes when he first read the relevant section in 2008. That was also the year he joined The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Dr Pachauri. He said he realised that the 2035 prediction was based on an interview he gave to the New Scientist magazine in 1999, although he blamed the journalist for assigning the actual date. He said that he did not tell Dr Pachauri because he was not working for the IPCC and was busy with his own programmes at the time. “I was keeping quiet as I was working here,” he said. “My job is not to point out mistakes. And you know the might of the IPCC. What about all the other glaciologists around the world who did not speak out?”
Dr Pachauri also said he did not learn about the mistakes until they were reported in the media about 10 days ago, at which time he contacted other IPCC members. He denied keeping quiet about the errors to avoid disrupting the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen, or discouraging funding for TERI’s own glacier programme.
But he too admitted that it was “really odd” that none of the world’s leading glaciologists had pointed out the mistakes to him earlier. “Frankly, it was a stupid error,” he said. “But no one brought it to my attention.”
Just a quick note about something curious:
The maps were constructed from solar sound-wave data from the National Science Foundation’s Global Oscillation Network Group.
Sound wave data, from the NSF’s GONG.
New NSF grant proposal, researching the selecting of organizational names based on how good the acronyms sound. Highlighting why the GONG sounds silly.
J.Hansford (01:10:24) : Can you twist magnetic fields in this way in the laboratory?… or is it something only “observed” on the sun?
– one thing that is seen right after huge CMEs is a full bagel looking plasma. The weaker ones are the croissant looking ones. The bagel shaped ones are what seem to be described as a spheromak plasma. If there is enough energy, the open ends of the croissant could rejoin, which would allow the forming a toroidal current, which creates a poloidal field, yadda yadda, nice bagel shaped plasma.
On earth, it seems like “blue jets” are similar. The most extremely powerful ones (not the extremely large Pasko event, but the Sentmann & Wescott blue jet events imaged over the Texarkana area in the mid-90s) seem to have a toroid at the leading edge of their trumpet shape. Blue Starters seem to just be lower power versions.
So, yes, I would personally say there are visually similar events in the some CMEs on the SOHO C3 appear to look very much like the Sentman Wescott footage; I also have observed these events visually, with the unaided eye and yes, blue jets look “identical” to many CMEs as seen in the C3 instrument. “Absolutely identical” I say! 🙂
This similarity is ‘only’ with the ejected results and not the solar flare or the earth based lightning that create each event. But with similar results, I’d bet they are similar beasts.
Cheers!
Yup, there’ve been warning signs of impending CMEs (not necessarily flares) for years…
One way to do your own little visual experiment is to take a nice flexible mouse cord and simply twist it with your two hands. It twists up Just like the pictures in the post. When you twist it up, this is helicity caused by the rotational torque your hands apply.
In a flux bundle, when you force plasma into or across it, that causes the twisting and it is also adding energy that is stored in the bundle. More plasma pressure, more helicity. Bulk flows and motions all contribute to squish more and more plasma into and across the system.
Then, I think that the big clue is that before a huge sunspot blows, portions of the complex migrate; for instance the east side heads west and the west side heads east forming a nice ‘sigmoid’ shape or “S” or backwards “S”. The flux bundles connecting these migrating regions seem to be shaped like an ‘omega’ and the base of the omega simply shorts out. Blamo! Blamo!
Omega Sigmoid! OS Oscar Sierra!!!
Cheers!
We are NOT trying to make this look like the Starship Enterprise. Not at all. Are we Mr Sulu?
I knew the electric universe mugs would come schlepping out of the muck.
Funny thing… about what I say about spheromaks, I had a paper rejected by the AGU back in 1997 or 8. (sometimes, stupid people try to be smart)
“2085 G Varros 3324 0654
Title: Spheromak-Like Objects Observed in Blue Jets ”
http://www.agu.org/meetings/smarchive/sm98char
It was rejected because I am an un-Phd’d amateur astronomer and the reviewers wanted the observation only but the lead publisher (or whatever) wanted more about what I thought it was! And, I was way out of my league and needed a real knowledgeable person to help me 🙂
At the time, sprites and blue jets were just being imaged and documented for the first few times. My observations were only anecdotal since I had no video footage it was pointless to resubmit.
…and I say no more, the experts can now figure it.
I think that using “CME propulsion” or “blue jet propulsion” would help with some of the issues of long distance space travel. I’m deriving the necessary technology in my garage with a modified VASIMR engine but am still waiting on some badly needed stimulus.
OT: being an amateur astronomer, I have noticed that over the past few years and especially this past entire year, that the number of clear sky nights has dropped off to nearly zero. I picked up on the Cosmic Ray problem a few years back reading something in one of my physics mags. I also saw an increase of CR events on my detector while making video runs for lunar impacts events (CRs look like single video field meteoroid impacts), over the 2007-2009 time frame. Basically, the skies have clouded up so much, I have not done a lunar run since last April and normally, this time of year is the best for my crappy central Maryland location.
J.Hansford (01:16:48) :
I asked that because I have been reading this….
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm
…. I won’t make me blind will it? 😉
It could make you blind. The sun is not “Electric” like a train wreck of misunderstood concepts.
I have always looked at science as the art of defining separate pieces, of a grand jig saw puzzle, that when fitted all together will show how the universe really works.
Each new paper in every field that reviles a new piece, becomes subject to critical thought processes, on how it is really shaped and colored, until it can be fitted into the already partially completed puzzle.
Some people work on the flower beds, some the tree sky interface, yes and some study tiny bubbles as well. I like to start with the border, and follow the stone walls, into the grassy areas myself.
Some times new pieces are found that do not connect any where yet, if they get discarded, as unusable before properly classified, it gets hard to complete even simple puzzles. If you never turn over all of the pieces first, then the works is slow and arduous.
Discussions like these, in this blog room, just gets my curiosity and adrenaline up. I have been trying to find all of the relevant pieces to the weather prediction puzzle, and think even this entry, carries some good info that needs incorporating.
The nature of the plasma, solar wind surges and flows, and their response / interactions with their resultant magnetic coupling through the inductive components, need to be considered, as to their effects on the planetary bodies as they flow toward, around, past and form magnetospheres, resplendent with their tails and interactions with the moon(s), and other planets, down stream.
Consideration for these forces acting on the planetary atmospheres, as well on/in the sun will result in better understandings of the total picture. IMHO
Damn I love a good mystery!
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/instruments.php
“SDO takes 1 image every .10 of a second. At best STEREO takes 1 image every 3 minutes and SOHO takes 1 image every 12 minutes.”
Imagine what this observational tool will reveal. Hopefully, the sun will come back out and put on a show.
I’m an amateur astronomer also (see name link), and my experience is very much the same here in Norway (at 60N). We have always had marginal conditions, but the last couple of years have been even worse. We had some clear skies recently this month, but at the same time the night temperatures were below -20C.
I secretly call the additional clouds “Svensmark clouds”, although I can’t prove the connection. I am hoping that the CLOUD experiment at Cern will provide some answers.
“risking … financial transactions” and “trillions of dollars in disrupted commerce”! Is this a pitch for more funding? Financial transactions are terrestrial and take their timestamps over the wire not via satelites. Even intercontenental transactions are over cables. I guess the FUD worked so well for AGW, why not throw in a spoonfull to get someone to write a check for more toys?
Richard Holle (00:43:11) :
“So do the peaks of flare eruption have any correlation, to the timing of the heliocentric conjunctions of the major planets..”
The idea of planets exerting an effect on the sun – such as on sunspot cycle, is a fascinating one, which has been raised on some recent threads by yourself and others. It opens up the (hypothetical) possibility of a new source of feedback. Sunspot cycles are suspected of entraining global and oceanic cycles of heat exchange. Usually there is the assumption that any interaction sun-earth can only be one way.
However if planetary orbits and their interaction can influence the sunspot cycle, for instance, then orbital periodicities of planets have the possibility to influence climate by two routes, directly by the orbital effect on the planet’s climate, and indirectly via entrainment of the sunspot cycle – which in turn influences and entrains the planet’s climate.
Is it possible that these two routes of influence of orbital periodicity could interfere with eachother, resulting in either harmonics or nonlinear quasi-chaotic behaviour (e.g. nonlinear spontaneous pattern formation)?
Slightly OT but a question for Leif Svalgaard.
Looking at Leif’s TSI graph http://leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png we see a big dip in TSI during sunspot 1035 in December. Leif explains that was due to a natural backing off in TSI due the cooler regions of the sunspot dampening the overall output of TSI.
Sunspot 1040 which was from the same region and displayed similar characteristics did not show the same dip in TSI. Is there a difference between the two regions?
Thanks in advance.
Clive E Burkland
If this is correct, and the Cloud experiment at CERN confirms the cosmic ray to cloud formation relationship, would we actually be able to predict a sunny day a few days in advance?
Viewing in south texas has been hard too. Unfortunately, most of the good viewing nights occurred during full moons and on nights before early morning commitments. Compared to a couple of years ago where almost every night was clear for months at a time (and the drought lasted 60 weeks), our conditions shifted dramatically as the el nino kicked in. It’s around 27 deg N Lat. here.
As for the unprecedented improvement in accuracy for the flares – it’s an interesting articile but the use of the term ‘unprecedented accuracy’ and the word ‘unprecedented’ have been abused so manytimes – especially in the climate world – as to become a distraction and an annoyance. It’s time for other synonyms to be allowed out of their cage where they’ve languished far too long, ignored by writers. Besides, with the overuse by the AGW crowd, ‘unprecedented’ has started to lose its meaning.
G. Varros (03:29:46) : ….. I am of the opinion that as the tools that aid observation and examination become more advanced…. it pays to reexamine what has gone before….. Why?…. Because we MUST.
Richard Holle (03:32:57) : “Consideration for these forces acting on the planetary atmospheres, as well on/in the sun will result in better understandings of the total picture. IMHO
Damn I love a good mystery!”
———————————————————-
Aye, I too like a good mystery.