A paper recently published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics finds that “a solar proton event, if it took place in the near future with an intensity similar to that ascribed to the Carrington Event of 1859”. Based on the results of the study it would be expected to have a major impact on atmospheric composition throughout the middle atmosphere, resulting in significant and persistent decrease in total ozone, resulting in a “significant [global] cooling of more than 3C”.
From the paper: Solar energetic particle events, frequently referred to solar proton events (SPEs), occur when protons and other particles emitted by the active Sun are accelerated to very high energies (for protons up to 500 MeV) either close to the
Sun’s surface during a solar flare or in interplanetary space by magnetic shock waves associated with coronal mass ejections (Reames, 1999). They typically last for a few days. The high energy protons are deflected, when they enter the Earth’s magnetic field, and upon penetrating the atmosphere can cause massive ionization including significant production of HOx and NOx (Sepp¨al¨a et al., 2004; Jackman et al., 2009).
Based on the modeling done here, and while the Carrington Event of 1859 lasted only 2 days, the proton event caused persistent changes in atmospheric ozone lasting up to several months, the authors predict such an event could cause a “cooling of up to 5 K in eastern Europe and Russia to a somewhat smaller decrease of about 3 K for the Southern Hemisphere in Argentina.” as shown in figure 9 below:
Influence of a Carrington-like event on the atmospheric chemistry, temperature and dynamics
M. Calisto, P. T. Verronen, E. Rozanov, and T. Peter
Abstract:
We have modeled the atmospheric impact of a major solar energetic particle event similar in intensity to what is thought of the Carrington Event of 1–2 September 1859. Ionization rates for the August 1972 solar proton event, which had an energy spectrum comparable to the Carrington Event, were scaled up in proportion to the fluence estimated for both events. We have assumed such an event to take place in the year 2020 in order to investigate the impact on the modern, near future atmosphere. Effects on atmospheric chemistry, temperature and dynamics were investigated using the 3-D Chemistry Climate Model SOCOL v2.0. We find significant responses of NOx, HOx, ozone, temperature and zonal wind. Ozone and NOx have in common an unusually strong and long-lived response to this solar proton event.
The model suggests a 3-fold increase of NOx generated in the upper stratosphere lasting until the end of November, and an up to 10-fold increase in upper mesospheric HOx. Due to the NOx and HOx enhancements, ozone reduces by up to 60–80% in the mesosphere during the days after the event, and by up to 20–40% in the middle stratosphere lasting for several months after the event. Total ozone is reduced by up to 20 DU in the Northern Hemisphere and up to 10 DU in the Southern Hemisphere.
Free tropospheric and surface air temperatures show a significant cooling of more than 3 K and zonal winds change significantly by 3–5 m s−1 in the UTLS region. In conclusion, a solar proton event, if it took place in the near future with an intensity similar to that ascribed to of the Carrington Event of 1859, must be expected to have a major impact on atmospheric composition throughout the middle atmosphere, resulting in significant and persistent decrease in total ozone.
…
From the concluding remarks:
Comparing the outcome for temperature and dynamics modeled with SOCOL with results of Jackman et al. (2007), who investigated the SPE of October/November 2003 using
their 3-D TIME-GCM, we see that these results are in good qualitative agreement. They show that shortly after the event happened, the southern hemispheric polar region has a decrease in temperature throughout the entire mesosphere, similar to our results for the northern hemispheric polar region.
The difference between their results and ours is in the intensity of the changes. For the temperature a decrease of more than 3K is shown in this work while Jackman et al. (2007)
depict a decrease of up to 2 K. The fact that our results show a larger effect can be due to the intensity of the solar proton event. The Carrington-like event presented in this paper
represents an event that is more intense than the SPE of October/ November 2003.
The qualitative agreement of our results, modeled with the 3-D CCM SOCOL, for the changes in NOx, ozone, temperature and dynamics, with those obtained by Thomas et
al. (2007) and Jackman et al. (2007), corroborates the finding that solar proton events of this strength have intense atmospheric interactions in a broad altitude range starting from
80 km down to 30 km, with repercussions for surface air temperature.
The latter range from a cooling of up to 5K in eastern Europe and Russia to a somewhat smaller decrease of about 3K for the Southern Hemisphere in Argentina. Therefore
it is important to analyze the impact of energetic particles with a 3-D CCM to ensure that the dynamical and transport aspects are properly taken into account. In this paper,
the solar proton event was placed during equinox. We think that the impact could even be larger if it would happen during earlier winter because the polar vortex prevents the exchange of fresh air from the mid-latitudes with the polar region.
Final Revised Paper (PDF, 1740 KB) Discussion Paper (ACPD)
H/t to The Hockey Schtick
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You wouldn’t need to worry about the anarchy that follows since you would already be dead. Let me put it in perspective. If the power goes out for a long time people have the erroneous assumption that everyone will start attacking each other instantly. They won’t, it will take a while for the reality of he situation to sink in. Human beings are very good at self deception. So lets say it happens in late December, now we need to take a look at how long each possible killer is out there:
Starvation takes 30-60 days
Lack of water (Dehydration) takes 3-5 days
Freezing to Death (Hypothermia) <12 hours
A vast majority of deaths north of 40° Lat will be from Hypothermia long before they run out of water, or starve and well before the anarchy of the thing sets in. Freezing to death does not equal anarchy, anarchy is the breakdown of government and order and has nothing to do with the temperature.
Two things to look up is what happened at the end of the MWP to France and read John Ringo's "The Last Centurion" both deal with what happens in a slowly cooling world. In both cases the deaths from anarchy is a pittance to deaths from freezing, lack of water and food.
In the event of a lost neutral, the voltage imbalance will be a function of the relative sizes of the connected loads on each leg. The ratio of the voltages will be the same as the ratio of the total resistive load on the “A” leg and “B” leg.
richardscourtney says:
September 27, 2012 at 10:13 am
vukcevic:
re your post to me at September 27, 2012 at 9:17 am, if I misunderstood anything then I apologise. I hope there is now mutual understanding.
Richard
Thanks, but no need to. I am the one to blame for not stating clearly what the graph is suppose to show. I find your comments informative and arguments well constructed, an example to follow, but that requires the knowledge and communicating skills, hence ‘mutual understanding’ may not be readily achievable.
D Böehm says:
September 27, 2012 at 9:05 am
I don’t disagree DB.
If the Carrington event had any effect at all it was to enhance warming for a couple of decades until the underlying trend from the LIA re established itself.
HenryP says:
September 27, 2012 at 8:57 am
Tallbloke says
Given that HADsst2 shows a warming over the 1859-69 decade,
A massive ozone loss, if this is what the C-effect causes, would ultimately lead to a warming effect, but probably spread over 5-10 years.
Can you show me that graph, Tallbloke?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/to:1895/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/to:1895/scale:0.005/offset:-0.5
Notice also the el Nino events at solar minima
boballab says:
September 27, 2012 at 10:18 am
“You wouldn’t need to worry about the anarchy that follows since you would already be dead.”
You are mistaken about this. I have lived without power for three years in the Canadian wilderness. I would be fine. Thank you very much.
Anthony understood what I meant. You did not. You went off on some tangent that had little or nothing to do with what I posted. People would care if it was cold, but they would not care as to the accuracy of that temperature. Jump on someone else.
“Notice also the el Nino events at solar minima”
Looks like the extra energy entering the oceans during solar max is discharged some years later in El Ninos around solar minimum.
I hadn’t seen evidence on the timescale of single solar cycles before but it fits in well with my proposition that a more active sun alters the air circulation to allow more energy into the oceans to skew the ENSO balance in favour of El Nino.
Stephen Wilde says:
“Looks like the extra energy entering the oceans during solar max is discharged some years later in El Ninos around solar minimum.
I hadn’t seen evidence on the timescale of single solar cycles before but it fits in well with my proposition that a more active sun alters the air circulation to allow more energy into the oceans to skew the ENSO balance in favour of El Nino.”
More like the warmed water accumulates at the surface rather than being replaced by the cold up-welling of the Humboldt current. When the Sun is *less* active, e.g. slower solar wind, the trade winds weaken and encourage Nino conditions. This is marked by the typical sharp drop in the Ap index within the first 2yrs from solar cycle minimum, which are the events Tallbloke is referring to.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/e/summaries/ensogw.php
@richardscourtney (September 27, 2012 at 8:08 am)
An average isn’t a gradient.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 26, 2012 at 9:13 pm
MarkW says:
September 26, 2012 at 7:56 pm
I don’t remember reading about a similar cooling event following the 1859 Carrington even.
Indeed there wasn’t any. That puts the whole thing into the realm of fairy tales.
I love Leifs absolute denial that the sun can influence the temp or the climate…..classic
Stephen Wilde (September 27, 2012 at 8:47 am)
“Since the entire global air circulation is a single entity I fail to see how one can have regional changes that do not have global implications.”
Careful here. Be wary of accidental misinterpretation.
Global implications? Of course, but a gradient is not the same thing as an average. AAM & LOD tell us not that a global average temperature is modulated by the solar cycle, but rather that the midlatitude westerly winds are. That points directly to a modulation of equator-pole temperature gradients (via the thermal wind relation).
There’s NOT a 1:1 correspondence between equator-pole gradient changes and global average changes.
Cordial advice: Tell a story that’s consistent with observation.
Best Regards.
Ulric Lyons says:September 27, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Ulric, trade-winds have NOTHING to do with El Nino 2] when extra energy enters the sea -> evaporation increases INSTANTLY. Evaporation is a ”cooling process” (your freezer works on evaporation process) / when you are running, get hot; sprinkle some water – the hotter you were – the colder you get; because extra heat increases evaporation.
3] extra evaporation means extra clouds; clouds are as sun-umbrellas for the sea – clouds intercept part of the sunlight, that never reaches to the water = less warming of the water, until equalizes. Doesn’t take years, but few days. It’s called ”self adjusting mechanism”. 4] extra clouds = extra rain, rain brings extra coldness to the sea and land. tallblocke is not here to inform, but to confuse; it’s not in his interest the truth to be known
Ulric and Peter,
I don’t see anything in your comments that is inconsistent with what I said.
I deliberately left the fine details of the process alone in order to focus on the grand overview. Your comments simply help to flesh out the fine detail
Stefan,
Not all the solar energy gets to provoke more evaporation immediately. A lot of it penetrates the surface to depths of up to 300 metres and is moved around before it can return to the surface in order to affect the evaporation rate. The return to the surface at other places and other times affects the winds as Ulric points out.
Furthermore the actual data shows reduced cloudiness when more energy is getting into the oceans..Tallbloke correctly draws attention to that counter intuitive fact. Most of the extra energy going into the oceans when the sun is active occurs under dry, cloud free, subtropical high pressure cells where cloud development is suppressed by descending air.
Sorry for the typo, Paul.
Kelvin Vaughan says: September 27, 2012 at 3:34 am said: ”I have just decided what I want written on my headstone. “I told you it wasn’t warming!” and you can have “My formulas were fanatically ignored!.”
Hi Kelvin, idea is goood.
2]It’s no point proving to them; that they are wrong; they know that they are wrong – by trying to silence you – they are admitting that they know that they are wrong. 3] when you see some juicy lies, copy and keep for record, for the time when ”truth and reconciliation” comes. .
4]If one ”pretend” to know what was the GLOBAL temp for 1885, he will be on a witness stand under oath. By having temp for London for that year – knowing what was daily temp on Easter island, Midway in Pacific, Antarctic ocean / continent… he is talking about his integrity, not about the GLOBAL temperature
At that time wasn’t collected for Oceania, inland Australia; but now is. Will be compared: if when the temp in London goes up or down by a degree – does it goes same simultaneously on those places also?! THEY ARE 70 TIMES LARGER THAN ENGLAND!!!
5] nobody knows the GLOBAL temp for last year, to save his life, because on 99,9999999% of the planet nobody is monitoring now, they know about 19 century…?! Now they monitor for the hottest minute, but the other 1439 minutes is ignored – the other minutes are much more important, than the hottest – thousand to one influences… they don’t get cooler simultaneously by 2C, if the hottest minute is colder by 2C than yesterday. 6] if between two monitoring places is 100km and gets warmer by 2C than yesterday – but between the next two monitoring places is 1300km gets colder by 0,5C ====== for them larger area doesn’t have any different meaning. Because of their misleadings, trillion $$$ has being squandered, children brainwashed in school and university, lots of other crimes in progress. Punishment must fit the crime. The more evidences = the better for the jury. They are avoiding my proofs, facts and formulas as the devil avoids the cross
Kelvin, guess what’s the temp in your room – then look at the thermometer – most of the time you will be wrong guessing by 1-2-3-4C, your room temp, Kelvin, now. They can guess what was the temp in midway / mid pacific, 130y ago, on the other side of the planet… They know even what the amount of ozone was then…? using ozone as a smokescreen… because they started panicking – time is against them. People on the street will not buy for much longer; warmer / colder / warmer planet. It only proves that they don’t even know how the ozone functions. We overlooked the white lie regarding ozone, to prevent plastic burning, CFC; but using ozone to con about global temperature – they will discover that in industrial chemistry, the truth is already known; and the manipulators are 101% WRONG. Cheers.
Fun reading here, sorry about the long hyperlink. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.narucmeetings.org%2FPresentations%2FNARUC%2520EMP%2520Presentation.pdf&ei=3yZlUJ_6M6XryAGz4oHwBA&usg=AFQjCNGFpw2GqL_smKFziom-Oj9W6NYo1w&sig2=-4gs0lSe6GC6vTBFNnGFTw
@Stephen Fisher Wilde
Can you point me to cloud data that matches solar variables?
I need a direct link to a plain-text data-page.
Tallbloke or anyone else:
I make the same request of you.
Is there anyone here that thinks ocean surface currents have little or nothing to do with atmospheric wind?
Is there anyone here that thinks atmospheric wind patterns have nothing to do with surface temperature gradients?
Boballab, I once fasted for 6 weeks. Two more weeks would’ve killed me?
Paul Vaughan:
I assume you are aiming to win the ‘Mosher Award’ for cryptic irrelevance.
At September 27, 2012 at 7:18 am you asserted
At September 27, 2012 at 8:08 am I replied saying
because
I then gave pertinent quotes from the paper and concluded saying
At September 27, 2012 at 7:08 pm you have replied by saying in total
Oh! So you think that makes your original comment right? You’ve got to be kidding!
Subsequently, at September 27, 2012 at 7:32 pm, you talk about pole-to-equator gradients and say
But I am not aware of anybody who has ever claimed there is such a “1:1 correspondence”.
Then, at September 27, 2012 at 10:04 pm you post in total
Immediately followed by your post at September 27, 2012 at 10:07 pm which says in total
The answer to both those questions is ‘Probably not’.
Do you have other cryptic irrelevancies to throw into the thread?
Richard
Stephen Wilde says:
“I don’t see anything in your comments that is inconsistent with what I said.”
You say a more active Sun favours El Nino, I say a less active Sun favours El Nino, you can’t get more opposite that that. The studies in the link I provided are also entirely inconsistent with what you said.
@stefanthedenier
The trade winds force upwelling of colder water by Ekman pumping.
Ulric.
One just needs to time shift the El Ninos by 5 years or so which is approximately half a solar cycle.
It is reasonable to accept some delay between solar energy entering the ocean and accumulating during solar max and then being released at or around solar minimum.
Obviously it isn’t quite that simple since other factors affect the ENSO process but in broad terms that is entirely plausible and seem to be largely borne out by tallbloke’s link.
@richardscourtney (September 28, 2012 at 12:15 am)
Were this my home, I’d show you the door.
I note evasion of my solar/cloud question:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/26/new-study-finds-that-a-carrington-class-solar-event-could-cause-global-cooling-of-more-than-3c/#comment-1092487
That’s the result I expected.