From Science @ NASA.gov Researchers using NASA’s fleet of five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a form of space weather that packs the punch of an earthquake and plays a key role in sparking bright Northern Lights. They call it “the spacequake.”
A spacequake is a temblor in Earth’s magnetic field. It is felt most strongly in Earth orbit, but is not exclusive to space. The effects can reach all the way down to the surface of Earth itself.
“Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake,” says THEMIS principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA.
It’s an apt analogy because “the total energy in a spacequake can rival that of a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake,” according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria. Panov is first author of a paper reporting the results in the April 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).
In 2007, THEMIS discovered the precursors of spacequakes. The action begins in Earth’s magnetic tail, which is stretched out like a windsock by the million mph solar wind. Sometimes the tail can become so stretched and tension-filled, it snaps back like an over-torqued rubber band. Solar wind plasma trapped in the tail hurtles toward Earth. On more than one occasion, the five THEMIS spacecraft were in the line of fire when these “plasma jets” swept by. Clearly, the jets were going to hit Earth. But what would happen then? The fleet moved closer to the planet to find out.
“Now we know,” says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “Plasma jets trigger spacequakes.”
According to THEMIS, the jets crash into the geomagnetic field some 30,000 km above Earth’s equator. The impact sets off a rebounding process, in which the incoming plasma actually bounces up and down on the reverberating magnetic field. Researchers call it “repetitive flow rebuffing.” It’s akin to a tennis ball bouncing up and down on a carpeted floor. The first bounce is a big one, followed by bounces of decreasing amplitude as energy is dissipated in the carpet.
“We’ve long suspected that something like this was happening,” says Sibeck. “By observing the process in situ, however, THEMIS has discovered something new and surprising.”
The surprise is plasma vortices, huge whirls of magnetized gas as wide as Earth itself, spinning on the verge of the quaking magnetic field.
“When plasma jets hit the inner magnetosphere, vortices with opposite sense of rotation appear and reappear on either side of the plasma jet,” explains Rumi Nakamura of the Space Research Institute in Austria, a co-author of the study. “We believe the vortices can generate substantial electrical currents in the near-Earth environment.”
Acting together, vortices and spacequakes could have a noticeable effect on Earth. The tails of vortices may funnel particles into Earth’s atmosphere, sparking auroras and making waves of ionization that disturb radio communications and GPS. By tugging on surface magnetic fields, spacequakes generate currents in the very ground we walk on. Ground current surges can have profound consequences, in extreme cases bringing down power grids over a wide area.
After THEMIS discovered the jets and quakes, Joachim Birn of the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico conducted a computer simulation of the rebounding process. Lo and behold, vortices appeared in good accord with THEMIS measurements. Moreover, the simulations suggest that the rebounding process can be seen from Earth’s surface in the form of ripples and whirls in auroral displays. Ground stations report just such a phenomenon.
“It’s a complicated process, but it all fits together,” says Sibeck.
The work isn’t finished. “We still have a lot to learn,” he adds. “How big can spacequakes become? How many vortices can swirl around Earth at once–and how do they interact with one another?”
Stay tuned for answers from THEMIS.
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tallbloke says:
July 28, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Changing electric currents generate magnetic firlds too [right hand rule]
How do you change an electric current? Or even make one?
tallbloke says:
July 28, 2010 at 1:21 pm
The rain falls on the just and unjust fella, but the unjust stole the just’s umbrella.
You just failed the course. The Earth is heading into the 400 km/sec solar wind at 30 km/sec, so there is a phenomenon called aberration. A similar effect occurs for star light: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberration_of_light but is much smaller [depends on the ratio between the two speeds: Earth/Light = 30/300000 for an angle of 20.5 arc seconds]. For the solar wind the ratio is 30/400 which is an angle of 30/400*180/pi = 4.3 degrees.
Leif Svalgaard says: July 28, 2010 at 1:11 pm
This is not even a possibility.
Of course, I was not expecting you to agree, but instead you can give us your erudite opinion why in the Denmark strait the GMF follows the envelope of the solar output as shown in here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC1.htm
No ‘fluff’, just plain explanation why?
Hi Leif,
Hi Leif, always nice to see you active here.
Can you point me to the calculations of the magnitude of the energy that is available to the earth’s atmosphere from a relatively large “sunquakes” (to use the newfangled NASA term)?
Thanks.
John
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2010 at 1:47 pm (Edit)
How do you change an electric current? Or even make one?
You take a bleddy great universe and spin it round.
The Earth is heading into the 400 km/sec solar wind at 30 km/sec, so there is a phenomenon called aberration. A similar effect occurs for star light: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberration_of_light but is much smaller [depends on the ratio between the two speeds: Earth/Light = 30/300000 for an angle of 20.5 arc seconds]. For the solar wind the ratio is 30/400 which is an angle of 30/400*180/pi = 4.3 degrees.
Thankyou. Doesn’t the solar wind contain lots of much heavier particles than light though?
vukcevic says:
July 28, 2010 at 2:07 pm
why in the Denmark strait the GMF follows the envelope of the solar output
the correlation is fluff: just cherry picked coincidence.
John Whitman says:
July 28, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Can you point me to the calculations of the magnitude of the energy that is available to the earth’s atmosphere from a relatively large “sunquakes” (to use the newfangled NASA term)?
I did already: see appendix in http://www.leif.org/research/Geomagnetic-Response-to-Solar-Wind.pdf
We can also measure it directly with satellites: http://www.bcdxc.org/noaa_poes_essay.htm
or here:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/
tallbloke says:
July 28, 2010 at 2:44 pm
You take a bleddy great universe and spin it round.
How do you spin a universe around? How is the electric current powering your computer this moment generated? Try to give your best description you can [according to your ability, of course] of the process.
Thankyou. Doesn’t the solar wind contain lots of much heavier particles than light though?
Read the wiki on this. The aberration does not depend on the particles at all, only one the speed with which you are heading into the wind.
Leif Svalgaard says: July 28, 2010 at 2:48 pm
the correlation is fluff: just cherry picked coincidence.
Cherry picked, because Denmark Strait is the ‘sluice gate’ of the Arctic’s icebergs flows into the North Atlantic.
Coincidence?!
That answer shows total ignorance of the history of the Earth’s magnetic field in the Arctic. I was under impression that you spent some time studding the above in the Arctic itself. How can one professionally judge the quality of historical data from stations like Oulu and Thule if one is not familiar with the GMF at such locations.
Just to jog your memory here is what the past GMF was along length and breath of the Arctic:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC16.htm
the Denmark Strait’s is No.6.
As you can see all of the Arctic shows more or less same pattern, just the strength varies.
Still coincidence?
What a nonsense!
vukcevic says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:16 pm
As you can see all of the Arctic shows more or less same pattern, just the strength varies. Still coincidence? What a nonsense!
Of course, they show the same pattern. And if you were to operate a million observatories in the Arctic spaced a few meters apart, they would also all show the same pattern, because the variation comes from variations on the circulation is the Earth’s core far away.
The coincidence speaks for itself. And breaks down when we go even further back in time. One wonders why you keep pushing this. Work out the numbers [as any competent engineer would do] and see for yourself why your physical ‘mechanism’ won’t work.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2010 at 6:20 am
” As for the energy involved, it is still many orders of magnitude less than what we get from TSI ”
Using the same logic, CO2 has bugger all effect compare to H2O!
That not stopping the IPCC claiming ” magic-feedback” to amplify the CO2 “polution”.
Is it plausible some unknown mechanism amplify the local IMF ?
Mick says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Is it plausible some unknown mechanism amplify the local IMF ?
Not that I know of. And I don’t place much reliance on unknown mechanisms anyway.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2010 at 2:53 pm (Edit)
tallbloke says:
July 28, 2010 at 2:44 pm
You take a bleddy great universe and spin it round.
How do you spin a universe around?
Like this: (waves arm vigorously) Ask any cosmologist, they are all great at armwaving.
tallbloke says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Like this: (waves arm vigorously) Ask any cosmologist, they are all great at armwaving.
How about spinning your head around, just as effective, I reckon. Now, how about the rest of my question?
Leif Svalgaard says: July 28, 2010 at 3:27 pm
………….
Are you now actually saying that using whole of the Arctic is cherry picking?
Or may be you are withdrawing your original statement.
I am sure you can do better than that.
Prior 1590 we have no records, just paleomagnetic estimates. B10 and C14 records for the solar output are also estimates, based on paleomagnetic estimates, and both are inherently suspected as you are well aware.
Are you saying that suspect proxies from before recorded history are more accurate then actual recorded history?
Why I am pushing this?
Simply data shows that the Arctic temperature and magnetic field show highest correlation of any ‘peer review’ so called climate studies. See it for yourself:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
Why I am pushing this?
Because the Arctic controls the AMO, one of the key climate elements of North-West quartersphere (see above link)
Why I am pushing this?
Because similar situation is in the Pacific Ocean where GMFz has been oscillating around an upward slope for the last 400 years.
Section 1920-1990 GMFz values are plotted on an inversed scale (with a rising trend removed as is case with AO, AMO and PDO indices ) and compared to the PDO index for the same period, then correlation factor of 0.84 (R2 = 0.7042) is obtained.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PDO.htm
Considering that ‘the causes of the AO, the NAO or the PDO are still unknown’, no ‘serious’ climatologist dare comment on such unrelated events.
Pacific Ocean is more difficult to pin down since its currents change paths widely, unlike the Arctic where currents are restricted by Bering, Fram, Denmark, Davis straits etc.
Why I am pushing this?
Because it is a hypothesis which has good correlation and it makes good sense.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC1.htm
It’s getting late. Good night.
vukcevic says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:58 pm
it makes good sense.
That is the problem: it does not make sense. But, hey, many people are pushing things that don’t make sense…
BTW, there are no measurements [anywhere] of the intensity before ~1800. Gauss figured out to do this in the 1830s.
A few guys are risking going to the stake. No one can dare to doubt the existence of a “flintstones universe”. The Inquisition friars won´t be convinced with arguments: That´s pure witchcraft that deserves holy punishment!
Leif,
Yes, based on your 1973 article, I can see now the kinetic energy from a substorm (your terminology in your 1973 Solar Wind report and is equivalent, I think, to NASA’s sunquake) impinging on the ionosphere is many orders of magnitude less than TSI or even delta TSI over a ~11 year solar cycle.
Question: With this relatively very small energy source (compared to TSI or delta TSI/cycle) on the ionosphere wouldn’t it take a supersensitive mechanism to have even a small affect the lower atmosphere temps and surface temps?
NOTE: I haven’t looked at the two NOAA docs your referred with the satellite results for power on the ionosphere. Enough for tonight here on the east coast of US.
John
For truth there is no need neither of consensus nor acceptance by anybody. Time will tell….unless the new inquisition decides to manipulate the genetics of the new generations in order to produce more “docile” humans.
John Whitman says:
July 28, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Question: With this relatively very small energy source (compared to TSI or delta TSI/cycle) on the ionosphere wouldn’t it take a supersensitive mechanism to have even a small affect the lower atmosphere temps and surface temps?
One would think so. But no such mechanism has been identified. Supersensitivity also runs the risk of run-away.
The thermosphere is but a trillionth of the total atmosphere, so it does not take much to agitate that thin layer.
Did something happen to the AIA4500, Leif?
rbateman says:
July 28, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Did something happen to the AIA4500, Leif?
Don’t know. I’m at the SHINE 2010 meeting, so am a bit out of the loop this week:
http://shinecon.org/Current%20Meeting.htm
Lief:
Rachel Hock has an abstract at SHINE discussing EVE on SDO.
You might hear something about why the SDO AIA-4500 is stuck on the same July 27th image.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:57 pm
How do you spin a universe around?
tallbloke says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Like this: (waves arm vigorously) Ask any cosmologist, they are all great at armwaving.
Leif:
How about spinning your head around, just as effective, I reckon. Now, how about the rest of my question?
I’m not going there, because your adherence to outdated plasma physics with its ‘frozen in’ magnetic fields means we will end up in a fruitless argument.
Treat yourself to an hour with Donald E Scott on this NASA video sometime.
vukcevic says:July 28, 2010 at 12:52 pm
One possibility is that every magnetic ‘hit’ nudges the Earth’s magnetic field in downward direction.
Leif Svalgaard says: July 28, 2010 at 1:11 pm
This is not even a possibility.
Large magnetic disturbances are observed of up to 1000 nT (nanoTesla) which is about 2% of the total field in the auroral zone.
2% may not sound large, but if the Earth’s magnetic field is frequently hit by such impulse than it is going to loose in intensity a small amount for each impulse (degaussing effect) but it does recover slowly.
Since 1800 (Dalton min), the Arctic has lost 4% of its intensity ( ~2000nT ) or an amount of just two very strong geomagnetic pulses.
Increased solar activity means more hits, less time for recovery.
tallbloke says:
July 28, 2010 at 11:19 pm
I’m not going there, because your adherence to outdated plasma physics with its ‘frozen in’ magnetic fields means we will end up in a fruitless argument.
You mentioned the spiral IMF. Its is a spiral because of the frozen in magnetic field.
And you still evaded my question about how the electricity powering your computer is generated. Perhaps you truly do not know, in which case even Wikipedia might help you out: “Electricity generation , From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”
Electricity generation is the process of creating electricity from other forms of energy.
The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday. His basic method is still used today: electricity is generated by the movement of a loop of wire, or disc of copper between the poles of a magnet.”
vukcevic says:
July 29, 2010 at 12:30 am
but if the Earth’s magnetic field is frequently hit by such impulse then it is going to lose in intensity a small amount for each impulse (degaussing effect) but it does recover slowly.
That is not how things work. Substorms do not penetrate into the core where the Earth’s field is generated. Now, to gain some credibility, try to outline the physics of what you think is going on.
Also, take note of the fact that there are NO measurements of the intensity of the Earth’s field before ~1800. From http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9148-ships-logs-give-clues-to-earths-magnetic-decline.html we get:
“The data was combined with 315 estimates of the field’s overall strength during that period, based on indirect clues, such as mineral evidence in bricks from old human settlements or volcanic rock. [so the estimates are just paleomagnetic estimates]
Gubbins showed that the overall strength of the planet’s magnetic field was virtually unchanged between 1590 and 1840. Since then, the field has declined at a rate of roughly 5% per 100 years.”
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 29, 2010 at 3:36 am
The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday. His basic method is still used today: electricity is generated by the movement of a loop of wire, or disc of copper between the poles of a magnet.”
Yes, the Faraday’s disc is a reasonable model.
Of course, you could replace the permanent magnets with an active field coil, whereby the dynamo generating the elctric current supplies some of that current to the field coils, generating the magnetic fields…
How would you refresh a field coil which had lost the ability to get a current going Leif? By stroking it with a permanent magnet or by jolting it with current from the battery?