I loved the way James Russell described CO2 molecules as “natural thermostats”
Solar Storm Dumps Gigawatts into Earth’s Upper Atmosphere
A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. NASA-funded researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years.
“This was the biggest dose of heat we’ve received from a solar storm since 2005,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center. “It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet.”
Mlynczak is the associate principal investigator for the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air hundreds of km above our planet’s surface.
“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
That’s what happened on March 8th when a coronal mass ejection (CME) propelled in our direction by an X5-class solar flare hit Earth’s magnetic field. (On the “Richter Scale of Solar Flares,” X-class flares are the most powerful kind.) Energetic particles rained down on the upper atmosphere, depositing their energy where they hit. The action produced spectacular auroras around the poles and significant1 upper atmospheric heating all around the globe.
“The thermosphere lit up like a Christmas tree,” says Russell. “It began to glow intensely at infrared wavelengths as the thermostat effect kicked in.”
For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.
In human terms, this is a lot of energy. According to the New York City mayor’s office, an average NY household consumes just under 4700 kWh annually. This means the geomagnetic storm dumped enough energy into the atmosphere to power every home in the Big Apple for two years.
“Unfortunately, there’s no practical way to harness this kind of energy,” says Mlynczak. “It’s so diffuse and out of reach high above Earth’s surface. Plus, the majority of it has been sent back into space by the action of CO2 and NO.”
During the heating impulse, the thermosphere puffed up like a marshmallow held over a campfire, temporarily increasing the drag on low-orbiting satellites. This is both good and bad. On the one hand, extra drag helps clear space junk out of Earth orbit. On the other hand, it decreases the lifetime of useful satellites by bringing them closer to the day of re-entry.
The storm is over now, but Russell and Mlynczak expect more to come.
“We’re just emerging from a deep solar minimum,” says Russell. “The solar cycle is gaining strength with a maximum expected in 2013.”
More sunspots flinging more CMEs toward Earth adds up to more opportunities for SABER to study the heating effect of solar storms.
“This is a new frontier in the sun-Earth connection,” says Mlynczak, and the data we’re collecting are unprecedented.”
Stay tuned to Science@NASA for updates from the top of the atmosphere. Author:Dr. Tony Phillips|
h/t to WUWT reader AJB
Vukcevic says @ur momisugly 10:41
I believe the explanation is more simple than the Brinkly -Kirkwood theory. The Brinkly -Kirkwood was more about explosive shock waves from bombs and such I thought. It may be the result of a proton circuit that is present and when the extra plasma excites the magnetic fields the electrons latch on to the protons and either jump along them or something else similar. I know that the protons are there and they are sometimes called a black aurora. I am not one that is highly educated in this field. I really respect your work and enjoy trying to figure out all your information and graphs.
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Ric Werme says:
March 23, 2012 at 5:17 am
NO is a diatomic molecule, hence must have a very different absorption spectrum than the GHG gases we normally deal with.
***
Methinks they meant NO2. UV really high up can disassociate both N2 & O2, so there’d be a few NOX molecules.
““Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,”
If CO2 can trap heat in the air, can’t it also block heat from entering the atmosphere?
And does anybody know what units this CO2 equation is in:
Delta T = 5.2(LN(C/Co))
F, K, or C?
_Jim says:
March 23, 2012 at 7:04 am
vukcevic says on March 23, 2012 at 2:50 am
CMEs that emanate out of the sun, are linked to it by combination of electric current and magnetic field …
Could you elucidate when it was that moving electric particles (e.g. protons and electrons) in ‘free space’ (outside of a conductor) become classified as ‘electric current’?
Where is the ‘return current’ that must exist if this is truly an electric current, as according to Kirchhoff’s current law?
This law is also called Kirchhoff’s first law, Kirchhoff’s point rule, Kirchhoff’s junction rule (or nodal rule), and Kirchhoff’s first rule.
The principle of conservation of electric charge implies that:
– At any node (junction) in an electrical circuit, the sum of currents flowing into that node is equal to the sum of currents flowing out of that node, or:
– The algebraic sum of currents in a network of conductors meeting at a point is zero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff's_circuit_laws
.
Glad you asked no one seems to have a problem with current flow reversing from peak to neg peak in 50/60 cycle AC power.
The return flow is in the other half of the 22 year hale cycle, as the sun and the planets speed through the galaxy the acceleration (on long time scales from passing close to other stars, or through concentrations of galactic magnet field variations) causes the speed up of slowing of the sun more(?) than the planets so there is a pulsing or ringing of the past perturbations of the Z axis (as we see it from earth) as the planets gain and recede from the forward momentum of the sun.
Visualize this as the brim of a sombrero on the head of a bronc rider on a crow hopping horse.
The induction strength and period as well as the polarity of the induced magnet fields shifting balance between the polarity shifts of the solar wind and magnetic sun spot activity, as the long 22 year cycle length modulates the relation ship of the forward momentum and magnetic induction phases through a full cycle.
So the short answer as to where the return flow is; in the other half of the Hale cycles, looking at the solar wind on short instantaneous time periods you see the out flow of the solar wind, as a non returning dc pulse coming out along its equatorial to upper latitudes where the sun spot long term “butterfly patterns” show the areas of weakest containment of the the suns internal fields as they burst out and carry ions to become the current that is the solar wind.
Basic homopolar generator process, (rotating ferrous conductor in a magnet field) will induce a voltage based on the mass, speed, and strength of magnetic field that peaks when the magnetic flux peaks, and looses angular momentum and sheds magnetic fields from its internal containment out through sun spots and CMEs, produces the pulses in the solar wind. The return magnetic flux enters the sun through the poles just like the energy enters the earths atmosphere, (producing the effects this thread is about) at the poles. The Ulysses satellite made polar passes over the sun and recorded much stronger and more active magnetic activity there.
Because the whole solar system in gravitationally, magnetically, and tidally settled into a fairly stable harmonic set of orbital dynamics over the past 4.8+ billion years we only notice the variations in the normal patterns, of the back ground level of magnetic field strength and see the effects of the very small fluctuation as the small instability of the sun.
When I look at the three elemental particles the electron, proton, and neutron, and realize only two are ions with charge and both will respond to the electromagnetic flux changes in that instability, the neutrons in the ball of plasma that is the sun, on the other hand MAY only respond to the gravitational and tidal forces, there by are able to slosh around in the center of the sun, contained by the total mass of the suns self gravitation. This process could affect the fusion rate some giving the feedback seen in the short (sonic tidal waves seen on the surface of the sun – to the long term churning of the convection currents ebb and flow of the Hale cycle periods).
I think the question is not whether the movement of the sun about the SSBC is doing anything, but should we not also consider the interactions of the Z-axis modulation, enough to see that the J/S conjunctions every almost 20 years progress around in three cycles to be in the same place relative to the center of the Galaxy, does the z-axis component of the solar system flux surges accountable to extra electromagnet drive from the outer planets helping to conduct more total flux thru the system? So the angular momentum component of the system acceleration (as well as the forward motion momentum distribution shifting) increased mostly for the outer planets currently between the sun and the center of the Galaxy?
^Is the same mechanism that makes induction type electric motors run and you use them all the time, so it must be workable?
This I think gives rise to the ~60 year cycles seen in the climate records
Ric Werme says:
March 23, 2012 at 11:17 am
” says the surface area is 510,072,000 km₂, so dividing by that yields 18/510 W/m₂ or 0.0353 W/m₂.”
Divide by another 1000
jack morrow says: March 23, 2012 at 1:52 pm
………
As far as I understood it, Brinkly –Kirkwood theory ,which as you correctly point out is best known for atmospheric explosions aplications, is valid for plasma too (ideal gas) and I believe for any fluid.
Here is a direct reference to the plasma shock waves: Cluster (of satellites) senses many different physical processes, including the shockwave generated when the solar wind slams into the Earth.
http://www.sunearthplan.net/4/21/Plasma-shock-waves
Or more expert: When the plasma temperature is so high, as the plasma becomes collision-free (this would be valid for CMEs rem. vukcevic), another type of shock wave appears. In a collision-free shock wave, gyromotions of electrons around the magnetic field lines cause the shock formation instead of collisions in a collision-dominant plasma or neutral gas. etc, etc..
From my daughter’s project I am aware that ‘apparently’ nano-diamonds are formed in space from free carbon atoms compressed under impact of galactic shock waves created by supernova explosions. (I’m rambling too much, time to stop)
Hi Jim
If you understood the Richard Holle’s post, here is a graphic illustration I made few years back, which in essence if not in precise details agree what he wrote, this is how I see the events, with magnetic reversals etc.etc..
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Synthesis.htm
The idea is based and totally compatible what is in practice happening and actually measured by engineers near a radio or TV-transmitter’s antenna.
In here I assume gravity has a role as much as it moves Jupiter and Saturn around the orbits and no more.
Final product:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
extrapolation of calculations made in 2003 shows that there is something to it, even I didn’t think it would come off, but surprisingly it did (see enlarged section for 2000-2020)
vukcevic says:
March 23, 2012 at 3:19 pm
…. From my daughter’s project I am aware that ‘apparently’ nano-diamonds are formed in space from free carbon atoms compressed under impact of galactic shock waves created by supernova explosions. (I’m rambling too much, time to stop)
___________________
Darn it Vukcevic, now you will have to get her to write up an article for WUWT and post it if she is allowed to.
tallbloke says:
March 23, 2012 at 2:49 am
How come the CO2 and NO didn’t re-radiate half of the energy downwards?
At the surface of a sphere there is slightly more up than down (if up means away from the center).
CO2 and NO re-radiation would be 50% if the earth was flat.
This small difference might be important in terms of the net effect of CO2 and NO.
Gary Pearse says:
March 23, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Ric Werme says:
March 23, 2012 at 11:17 am
> ” says the surface area is 510,072,000 km₂, so dividing by that yields 18/510 W/m₂ or 0.0353 W/m₂.”
> Divide by another 1000
Using more complete context:
And rewriting the way I should have:
Note that the kilos cancel, leaving units of W/m².
vukcevic says:
March 23, 2012 at 12:19 am
It affects the Eart’s outer core 3000km below the surface, where the magnetic field is generated.
Vuk, this is total nonsense [as you have been told too many times to remember].
Ric Werme says:
March 23, 2012 at 4:51 pm
It is hard to deal with too many zeroes. The energy input quoted by NASA is only a 500,000th of the regular TSI input we get. So, is not anything to speak of.
AJB says:
March 23, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Wait there’s more: For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights.
This is an effect discovered 250 years ago [for aurorae], and its cause is still debated [somewhat]. There are several different mechanisms in play. The most important one [accounting for 70% of the variation] is actually sort of the opposite: instead of more at the equinoxes, there are fewer at the solstices. This effect depends on the angle between the solar wind direction and the Earth’s magnetic axis: activity is smallest when that angle is smallest [at the solstices] and largest when that angle is 90 degrees [at equinoxes]. There are a few other [smaller] effects that actually to maximize at the equinoxes. A feeling for the controversies that to this day still swirl around the old problem can be gotten from: http://www.leif.org/research/Semiannual-Comment.pdf [mostly from scientists not up to snuff about the historical data].
See also http://www.leif.org/research/geoact.htm
Not as much as you think. The vertical scale is powers of 10. One digit down means 1/10 the level. 2 digits means 1/100 the level. Each little tick down cuts the level by about 3/8.
Gail Combs says:
March 23, 2012 at 5:05 am
“….nitric oxide are [is] natural thermostats,”…
Looks like that is another “Boogeyman” chemical (Ozone depletion and Acid Rain) caused by burning fossil fuels OR biomass. We emit far too much of these nitrogen oxides during combustion proceses, particularly from vehicles….Nitrogen oxides can also be formed when biomass is burnt and during lightning.
And then we come right back to plants.
Not in the thermosphere where NO is produced by the reaction of N atoms and O2.
As a clarification, is the 26 TWh over and above the normal day TSI ?
Also Robert Brown, when talking about delivered electricity costs, it is instructive to remember that the fuel cost of 10 cent/kwh electricity derived from coal is in the .9 cent range, therefore even if the coal was FREE, the bill would still be 9.1 cents/ kwh. While the “fuel” for a PV plant may be free, the capital costs, maintenance and distribution costs all tend to be higher per MW than coal fired plants, and then there’s that pesky drop in efficiency after 10 or 20 years.
From jack morrow on March 23, 2012 at 6:24 am:
Actually a light bulb lights up so fast because the resistance of cold tungsten is near zero. This results in a high inrush current of around 10 to 20x normal. Once the filament heats up to glowing, the resistance increases greatly. Switches can have a separate incandescent rating, aka tungsten or lighting load rating, generally a switch at 120V AC is good for only 1/4 of a 100% resistive load (current draw stays the same). It’s discussed here and here.
So the bulb lights up so fast because for a brief bit there’s enough watts flowing that the filament would quickly vaporize if it kept going.
—-
Alec Rawls says
March 22 ,2012, 11:43pm
“Is NASA hiding the 10.7 cm decline?”
—-
No need to wait for NASA. You can get daily 10.7cm flux reading
courtesy of the Canadians at
http://www.spaceweather.ca/sx-4-eng.php
Bob
“For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.”
Is that more or less energy then put out by the contrails of the jets that stopped for one day after 9-11?
Sherri wants to know.
Rujholla says:
March 23, 2012 at 12:05 am
Did I just hear NASA saying that the more CO2 in the atmosphere the more it acts as a negative feedback to the greenhouse effect?
Ha Ha! Yes, it happens quite a lot and goes unnoticed, contradictions of the AGW (SCAM!!) are willfully ignored.
Robert Brown says:
March 23, 2012 at 9:19 am
<….until you consider the volume being heated. Suddenly the effect is utterly ignorable.
You are absolutely correct; however I am surprised by the limited knowledge in the field of geomagnetic science. I have stumbled on number of effects that are not referenced in available literature. Despite being ridiculed by those in the know, I am inclined to think that there is causal relationships rather than coincidence.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP-SSN.htm
The North Atlantic Precursor, I stumbled upon nearly two years ago, it has a sporadic correlation with solar activity, but relatively good since 1870s. In order to have a credible hypothesis, a clear instrumental record would be helpful to show possible linkage to the solar activity. It appears there is one, not as much to the sunspot count, but to the frequency and intensity of solar flares.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Tromso.htm
While the casual look may dismiss the whole thing as irrelevant, and it may look a bit innocuous and in the global terms insignificant, it may be of fundamental importance, if these tiny changes are reflected in what is found in the historical records, as assembled in the above mentioned precursor.
Love the mathematical-mechanistic discussion and crowd-sourced rolling critique of commentors’ attempts at quantification. Then came the Leificing on the cake: we are talking about a measurement that is 500,000th of TSI.
That temperatures change so much on Earth should be sending all scientists on the path to discover what is it about the Earth’s highly variable and powerful intrinsic properties that drives such temperature fluctuations. Instead, scientists seem to be standing on their heads and waving their feet in a room filled with elephants, studying teeny, tiny anthropogenic and galactic variations, thinking that there must be a source for the smell in the room OTHER than the elephant poop right next to their noses.
kk total of 26,000,000,000kw = 26,000,000,000,000w, which 5% of it is 1,300,000,000,000w, which = 0.01W/m^2. That makes much more sense.
joules, order of a billion billion joules per second. That is, the TOA power incident from the sun is 
watts. Roughly 30% of this is directly reflected — currently a bit over that, maybe 32%. The extra 2% is roughly equivalent to 2 K of global cooling at the Earth’s current mean temperature. It is enough to, over time, completely cancel all of the warming observed since the end of the Dalton minimum if not the Maunder minimum before that, regardless of the causes of that warming. Climate sensitivity and feedback is all very controversial; this is not — increasing (or decreasing) the Earth’s albedo by a few percent is all that is needed to explain most of the long term climate variability observed over the Holocene.
Yes indeed, although you are still off by the actual amount of time the energy was delivered in. A watt is a joule per second. If you deliver any given amount of energy in joules in one second you get a much higher power in watts than if you deliver the same energy over one day. This energy was delivered over some unspecified time, but probably at least hours, more likely days. Indeed, it was probably delivered over a time that is long enough that the “95%” figure is rather suspect — much of that 5% of the energy that had been radiated downward probably had time to be absorbed and re-radiated out (through the usual radiative cooling mechanisms) over the time involved.
The point is that this article, while interesting, is irrelevant to global climate. It is PROBABLY irrelevant to LOCAL climate near the poles, although there it may have had some observable effect. I’m not asserting that CMEs are in general negligible factors — the one back in the 1880s or thereabouts, if replicated today, would very likely have highly non-negligible effects on human civilization in general and possibly (briefly) on climate, or weather, or whatever. However they are not neglected culprits responsible for directly heating or cooling the Earth, at least through any mechanism I’m familiar with. Even trillions of joules vanish without a trace (in the thermal record) for a planet as large as the Earth (a fairly small planet, as planets go).
To give you a point of reference, the total energy incident per second on the TOA in the cylinder subtended by the Earth in outgoing sunlight is roughly
If albedo is indeed tied directly the magnetic state of the sun by e.g. GCR modulation of cloud nucleation (or anything else) then all — and I do mean all — of the results of the GCMs and curve fitting and so on will have to be redone with the omitted variable “fraud” eliminated. Whether or not the fraud is intentional, or merely the result of omitting a variable because there was no good reason (then) to think it was important other than the obvious correlation between solar state and temperature in the record, NASA’s observations of increasing albedo in coincidence with reduced solar activity is starting to look like a smoking gun to me.
To the CAGW enthusiasts of the world I would say (looking into my eight-ball) “Future cloudy; try again later…”
rgb
As a clarification, is the 26 TWh over and above the normal day TSI ?
watts. Of this, roughly 30% is directly reflected. Roughly, because in coincidence with the end of the grand solar maximum of the 20th century, the Earth’s bond albedo has increased by about 6% from 0.30 to roughly 0.32, apparently due to increased cloud formation. This is consistent with the hypothesis that solar magnetic modulation of GCRs affects the nucleation rates of saturated water vapor into clouds.
Also Robert Brown, when talking about delivered electricity costs, it is instructive to remember that the fuel cost of 10 cent/kwh electricity derived from coal is in the .9 cent range, therefore even if the coal was FREE, the bill would still be 9.1 cents/ kwh. While the “fuel” for a PV plant may be free, the capital costs, maintenance and distribution costs all tend to be higher per MW than coal fired plants, and then there’s that pesky drop in efficiency after 10 or 20 years.
Arrgh, yet another reply wasted because my login to WUWT no longer “sticks”. I tried to login again, and I’ll see how it goes.
OK, here’s the essence of my lost post. $1360 \times \pi \times (6.4\times 10^6)^2 \approx 1.75 \times 10^{17}$ is the total power delivered at TOA in the cylinder the Earth subtends in the outward-streaming sunlight. $2.6 \times 10^{13} \times 3600 \approx 10^{17}$ joules. The energy content of the entire event or series of events contained about as much energy content as the sun delivers to the earth in one-half of a second, delivered over a much, much longer time frame. There isn’t even any point in comparing it to the energy delivered in a day (which contains 86,400 seconds!). It is utterly irrelevant to the climate or temperature of the planet.
As for PV plants, I’m not certain where you’re getting your figures from. PV plants can be and are manned by very, very small crews — basically caretakers for the hardware, as everything is automated. Higher capital costs are an important variable, but one that is subject to Moore’s Law and is steadily dropping (per watt). There is no reason that maintenance and distribution costs of new PV construction should be any higher than for new coal or other plant construction. A grid connection is a grid connection and everything else is wrapped into the capital costs.
As I’ve pointed out, simple rooftop collectors installed retail on households cost no more than a factor of two too much to be a really attractive investment for a homeowner in large parts of the US. These are things you can go online and have quoted and installed right now. They are break-even with paying for grid power straight up amortized over 16-20 years, although the government subsidy knocks that down a bit. Power companies can already build and install for costs per watt that are roughly half that — enough to make it attractive (so lots of municipalities are installing solar collectors because they will pay off in a short period of time) but not an overwhelming win compared to alternatives. The subsidy there does get some folks to jump in now instead of later, which isn’t actually crazy as they help debug the whole thing.
Installed, plants large enough to supply small cities can be run by five people, and they don’t really have a lot to do most of the time. Where, exactly is the high maintenance and operations cost? Human costs are a major part of any fuel-burning plant’s operations.
As I and many other people have pointed out on list, when the cost per consumer retail watt drops below $1, so a 5000 watt rooftop collector (installed, unsubsidized) is $6000 to $7000, new home construction will start featuring this sort of thing as a standard item. It will drop the cost of most homes by at least a mortgage payment a year in reduced energy costs, a clear win. At that point it will also be an absolute no brainer for electrical utility companies — if it makes economic sense for retail consumers, economy of scale means that it makes lots of sense for large scale producers that can purchase, install, and maintain for easily half the cost to a retail consumer.
Prices will reach this level, almost certainly, by 2020. By 2020, no matter what happens with “Carbon”, CO_2, CAGW, alarmism, skepticism, and the like, everyday people will be choosing to go PV electric where they can because the sun is not subject to the evident volatility of the fuel-based energy marketplace. By 2030, assuming that Moore’s Law has worked as expected, PV costs per watt will be on the order of $0.25, with more or less fixed costs for installation and likely reduced costs for converter/regulators and/or battery storage (depending on unpredictable but probable advances in the latter). There is really no reason that most PV systems will not work well out beyond 20 years — they just work at reduced efficiency. However, they are long since paid for and as long as the power delivered continues to exceed the cost of maintenance they will continue to be run, just like personal computers are often used long after the “optimal” replacement cycle of 3 years.
We will need the energy. As noted above, power incident on the Earth at TOA is roughly
The 6% increase in albedo corresponds to an expected decrease, over decadal time scales, in global mean temperature of roughly 2K, given the mean temperature we have now. This expectation is not subject to the arguments and controversy over climate sensitivity and feedback — it is taken “off of the top” as it were and is a direct, significant reduction in the Earth’s energy budget.
To put this in perspective, if the albedo change persists, we can expect a drop in temperature over the next twenty or thirty years that will completely erase the temperature increases from the Dalton minimum, if not the Maunder minimum that corresponded to the coldest temperatures over the entire Holocene.
My message to the CAGW crowd (looking into my crystal-gazing eight-ball) might well be “Future cloudy; try again later”…
rgb
Hm, how interesting. It kept the previous message in spite of my not being logged in and kicking me back to a rejected screen. Sorry for the double post of a lot of the content. Hopefully I’ll get the logging in thing all straight (again) very soon…
rgb
Pamela Gray says:
Then came the Leificing ….
Leif Svalgaard says:
Vuk, this is total nonsense [as you have been told too many times to remember].
Svalgaard turns vukcevic’s reason into ridicule, as he made it worse, better appear the reason.