An X-5 class solar flare just occurred from region 1429, the large active sunspot group seen below.
NOAA Bulletin from the Space Weather Prediction Center:
2012-03-07 01:03 Strong Solar Eruption; Earth-Directed CME Likely
An R3 (Strong) Radio Blackout is now in progress, beginning about 7:00 p.m. EST today. The site of the eruption, previously active Region 1429, is now near center disk, so there’s high-potential of an earth-directed CME (coronal mass ejection). In addition, expect the imminent beginning of a Solar Radiation Storm. Analysis now occurring on both fronts, watch here for updates.
2012-03-07 04:24 CMEs: One Arrives, Another Likely Tomorrow
The CME that erupted late on March 4 passed ACE around 0400 UTC March 7 (11:00 p.m. EST March 6). Look for G1 (minor) Geomagnetic Storm activity in the next few hours. Another CME, part of the recent R3 (strong) Radio Blackout event at 0024 UTC March 7 (7:24 p.m. EST March 6) is forecast to pass ACE about one day hence. Predictions are still being refined on this one. Finally a Solar Radiation Storm is now building as the higher energies are showing a response to the recent eruption. The S1 (minor) threshold should be surpassed in the next few hours. Updates here as conditions warrant.
Here’s the GOES x-ray flux plot capturing the event:
Here’s the event captured on SAM
Here’s the group 1429 close up from SDO HMI:
NASA’s Spaceweather.com reports that:
MAJOR SOLAR FLARE: Earth-orbiting satellites have just detected an X5-class solar flare from big sunspot AR1429. The blast peaked on March 7th at 00:28 UT. Radiation storms and radio blackouts are possible
High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on March 6th and 7th. Sunspot AR1429 has hurled two CMEs into space since it emerged over the weekend. Neither cloud is heading directly toward Earth, but both could deliver glancing blows to our planet’s magnetic field. NOAA forecasters say there is a 30% to 40% chance of polar geomagnetic storms during the next 24-48 hours.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme UV flash:
This eruption hurled a bright CME into space. First-look data from STEREO-B are not sufficient to determine if the cloud is heading for Earth. Our best guess is “probably, yes, but not directly toward Earth.” A glancing blow to our planet’s magnetosphere is possible on March 8th or 9th.
Looks like we dodged the bullet for the major bullseye from those, but some disruption is likely from this last X-5 event. We’ll monitor and report as needed.
WUWT’s Solar reference page has all the latest images and data here
h/t to Roger Sowell
UPDATE from spaceweather.com:
GEOMAGNETIC STORM UPDATE: A CME propelled toward Earth by this morning’s X5-class solar flare is expected to reach our planet on March 8th at 0625 UT/725EST/1025PST (+/- 7 hr). Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, who prepared the CME’s forecast track, say the impact could spark a strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm. Sky watchers at all latitudes should be alert for auroras.
Some of the cool stuff my cell phone and service provider can do has been shut down, as in service is temporarily unavailable. Sounds like they are putting satellites in protective mode.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 7, 2012 at 7:22 pm
=========
Thanks, it’s going to be a long and interesting night on my part.
Can you explain this aspect: “satellites controlling mobile phones”
My understanding from working in the mobile phone field as an ‘operator’ of such a system (as an engineer) tells me that the MTSO (Mobile Telephone Switching Office) housing the ‘switch’ and HLR (Home Location Register) and VLR (Visitor Location Register) are involved with ‘controlling’ the mobile phones; satellites have little to do with mobile phones, aside from use of GPS L1 as a frequency and time reference (and the cell sites have a ‘hold-over’ function in the event of a momentary to several minute loss of GPS signal; the chance of ALL birds in view being lost also being a very small probability)
Is this perhaps just so much ‘scare press’?
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Ok, since we’re into measuring things, what is the equivalent coulombs of a large turkey over the area of the earth disk facing the sun during the peak of the current flux, and since we have data on the turkey’s energy, a horsepower calculation would be interesting bit of data and a dandy pick up line.
Thanks Leif.
Um, er, to verify isn’t the solar wind actually a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun? (And moving charges ‘create’ the magnetic field, per Gauss, Ampere, Maxwell et al)
Things would work out differently if this were only a magnetic ‘field’ as opposed to a stream of charged particles … of course, you prefaced this with “In a few words” so maybe the above is part of the economy in verbiage.
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_Jim says:
March 7, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Um, er, to verify isn’t the solar wind actually a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun?
There is a common misconception here. The chair I’m sitting in as anything else around me and I included are collections of charged particle. So is also the solar wind. Both my chair and the solar wind are electrically neutral as they contain equal amount of charges of both signs. When I said that the solar wind is magnetic the precise meaning is that it has an embedded magnetic field, that is: if I took a magnetometer out in the solar wind wind [some spacecraft do that], the instrument will register a reading, just as it would in my living room. The magnetic field measured in interplanetary space is that of the Sun dragged out into space by the outflowing plasma. This works because the plasma has almost infinite conductivity so that the plasma [the particles] and the magnetic field move together. Any change of the magnetic field pervading a parcel of plasma is opposed by electric currents that restores the field: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlasov_equation
_Jim says:
March 7, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Volker Doormann says on March 7, 2012 at 11:46 am
“… reduce its destructive power against the humans in space and satellites controlling mobile phones and global positioning satellite (GPS) systems.”
Can you explain this aspect: “satellites controlling mobile phones”
My point here is the solar tide geometry from planets and solar flare events. The quote is from:
Dr. Ching-cheh Hung, 216-433-2302, Ching-Cheh.Hung at grc.nasa.gov
Please contact him.
V.
Are we perhaps conflating perhaps ions/plasma (the fourth state of matter) with material which is a solid mass (one of the remaining three states of matter, comprised of the categories: gas, liquid and solid)?
Charged Particle, definition – In physics, a charged particle is a particle with an electric charge. It may be either a subatomic particle or an ion. A collection of charged particles, or even a gas containing a proportion of charged particles, is called a plasma, which is called the fourth state of matter because its properties are quite different from solids, liquids and gases (plasma is the most common state of matter in the universe). Particles either have a positive, negative or no charge (being neutral).
I would offer one good example of a ‘charged particle’ in contrast to your chair: the very PC CRT monitor which used to sit upon your desk makes use of thermionicly emitted, charged particles called electrons coming from a heated, oxide-coated cathode element, accelerated by a static 15KV (or so) source towards the Phosphor coated screen, and which said charged particle is able to be deflected by a dynamic magnetic field emanating from a yoke coil around the neck of the CRT.
I don’t believe your chair (or any part thereof, in solid state) could be accelerated by the electric field in the CRT let alone deflected by the current flowing in the yoke coil …
Does the movement of a neutral particle create any accompanying magnetic or electric field?
.
Forbush decrease (about 10%, still falling) in progress
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/TheThPlot.gif
is a rapid decrease in the observed galactic cosmic ray intensity following a coronal mass ejection (CME). It occurs due to the magnetic field of the plasma solar wind sweeping some of the galactic cosmic rays away from Earth (ref. wiki)
Good test for the Svensmark hypothesis, if decrease lasts day or two. Take note of the current cloudiness forecast for next two days, then compare with the actual events.
_Jim says:
March 8, 2012 at 7:33 am
Are we perhaps conflating perhaps ions/plasma (the fourth state of matter) with material which is a solid mass (one of the remaining three states of matter, comprised of the categories: gas, liquid and solid)?
No, no conflation. The solar wind plasma has an equal number of positive and negative charges per unit volume and is thus neutral. Like my chair. And it doesn’t matter that the chair is ‘solid’. Heat the chair to the temperature of the solar wind [100,000 degrees] and nothing changes.
Does the movement of a neutral particle create any accompanying magnetic or electric field?
The simultaneous movement of N positive and N negative particles [thus overall neutral] does not create any net magnetic field, or if you prefer: generates two opposite and equal magnetic fields, hence no net.
_Jim says:
March 8, 2012 at 7:33 am
Does the movement of a neutral particle create any accompanying magnetic or electric field?
The [false] notion that solar storms are a ‘beam of charged particles’ [like in the CRT] was dispelled as long ago as 1919 by Lindemann: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Lindemann-1919.pdf
“The hypothesis to be examined therefore is that an approximately equal number of positive and negative ions are projected from the sun in something of the form of a cloud and that these are the cause of magnetic storms and aurorae”
He then goes ahead and shows just that. So, we have known this for almost a century…
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 8, 2012 at 9:57 am
————
Leif, do you think you have observed 1/1000 of the states our sun has assumed in its lifetime.
Or even have proxy data, for same.
You seem rather sure of the steady state of our variable heat/gravity source, but I don’t understand why.
Lack of perturbation ?
u.k.(us) says:
March 8, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Leif, do you think you have observed 1/1000 of the states our sun has assumed in its lifetime.
Or even have proxy data, for same.
As far as current states are concerned, what the states were a billion years ago seem of little interest [although we have a pretty good idea what they were].
You seem rather sure of the steady state of our variable heat/gravity source, but I don’t understand why. Lack of perturbation ?
As far a gravity is concerned, the sun is VERY stable. The variations we observe are due to the sun’s magnetic field generated by a cyclic, self-sustaining dynamo. Those changes are in energy terms minute. To speculate about the Sun being unstable requires a viable, quantitative theory based on solid physics. Come back when you have one like that.
Volker Doormann says:
March 7, 2012 at 3:45 pm
“The solar tide dynamic of Mercury/Earth is phase locked to the sea level oscillations on Earth.”
There was a sea level high peak on September ~28th 2011 and an opposition of Mercury and Earth on the Sun.
There was a sea level high peak on December ~4th 2011 and a conjunction of Mercury and Earth on the Sun:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/sea_level_vs_solar_tide.gif
This proves nothing more than that a solar spring tide is in phase with global high sea level.”
Update.
V.
Volker Doormann says: March 7, 2012 at 3:45 pm
“This proves nothing more than that a solar spring tide is in phase with global high sea level.”
Leif Svalgaard says: March 7, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Mercury is as relevant as my flat tire. Has no effect whatsoever.
Both the Sun and the astronaut will feel ‘tidal’ forces, but these are very weak (falls off as the cube of the distance) and are generally not thought to have any effect on the sun. Much has been made in the past of the ‘closeness’ of Jupiter’s orbital period to the solar cycle, but the tidal forces from Venus are actually stronger than those from Jupiter. So, no serious astronomer [well, almost none] entertains any notions about ‘planetary’ influences back on the Sun.”
One problem with ‘No’ statements is that there is an owner of the statement; but science is free of personal ownership of claims. Lord Monckton has argued these days on the Argumentum ad verecundiam fallacy; things are not therefore true, because an authority say so. An other fallacy is called Argumentum ad numerum ‘It consists of asserting that the more people who support or believe a proposition, the more likely it is that that proposition is correct’.
If L.S. says that there much has been made on Jupiter’s orbital period to the solar cycle or from Venus in context of tidal forces, without any result, then this is not the end of that game.
First is to say, that the ‘solar cycle’ (of 1/11.196 years^-1) is caused by the inner geometry of the Sun. Second is to say that the observed frequency shift of the outer gas processes are correlated to terrestrial temperature proxies.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/sp_shift_vs_proxies.gif
This means that there is evidence for a connection between the solar process on the gas surface of the Sun and the global climate on Earth.
Not the clock frequency of the inner Sun is relevant for the interactions of planets and terrestrial climate, but the tide processes acting on the surface of the gas Sun. Tide functions are not coupled to orbital periods of the planets, but coupled to twice the synodic periods of two planets, because of a resonance of the two objects. This holds as well for far distant couples and faster running couples.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_6_lockwood_1.gif
Since satellites are used to measure global observables, for the global sea level this is documented since 1993, was it possible to the solar scientists to compare solar tide functions with the measured global sea level oscillations. Despite the synthetic linear increase, taken from the obvious increase of the whole last century, they would have found, the main solar tide function from Mercury/Earth is mirrored in the sea level oscillations with the same frequency and mostly phase coherent in time.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/Sea_level_vs_solar_tides1.htm
Whatever the mechanism is, that echoes solar tide functions on the global sea level and/or on the global temperature (UAH, incl. land), that there is evidence for a relation between solar tide functions and the terrestrial climate, is a fact.
Paul Weiss says: “It’s one thing not to see the forest for the trees, but then to go on
to deny the reality of the forest is a more serious matter.”
If the argumentation here is shifted to fallacies because of claiming authority in general to knock down the position of the other, I think there is something wrong.
V.
[snip . . repeat post . . kbmod]
[snip . . repeat post . . kbmod]
@ur momisugly kbmod
sorry, there was italic trouble in the first two posts
V.
[no problemo . . glad you found it . . kbmod]