From the AGU weekly highlights:
Large solar proton event explains 774-775 CE carbon-14 increase
Tree ring records indicate that in 774-775 CE, atmospheric carbon-14 levels increased substantially. Researchers suggest that a solar proton event may have been the cause. In solar proton events, large numbers of high-energy protons are emitted from the Sun, along with other particles. If these particles reach Earth’s atmosphere, they ionize the atmosphere and induce nuclear reactions that produce higher levels of carbon-14; the particles also cause chemical reactions that result in depletion of ozone in the ozone layer, allowing harmful ultraviolet radiation to reach the ground.
A previous group of researchers suggested that to cause the observed eighth century carbon-14 increase, a solar proton event would have had to be thousands of times larger than any that has been observed from the Sun. However, Thomas et al. believe that group’s calculations were incorrect. They modeled the atmospheric and biologic effects of three solar proton events with different energy spectra and fluences (number of protons per area). They find that an event with about 7 or more times greater fluence (depending on the spectrum) than an observed October 1989 solar flare event could explain the 774-775 CE carbon-14 enhancement. With a hard (high-energy) spectrum, an event with this fluence would result in moderately damaging effects on life but would not cause a mass extinction. They rule out an event with a softer spectrum because such an event would cause severe ozone depletion and mass extinction, which were not observed in the eighth century. The authors estimate that solar proton events of this magnitude occur on average once in a thousand years, and more often if the estimate is based on astronomical observations of flares on Sun-like stars. They note that although that may seem low, such an event would have severely damaging effects on the technology on which society relies.
Source:
Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1002/grl.50222, 2013 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50222/abstract
Title:
Terrestrial effects of possible astrophysical sources of an AD 774-775 increase in carbon-14 production
Abstract:
We examine possible sources of a substantial increase in tree ring14C measurements for the years AD 774-775. Contrary to claims regarding a coronal mass ejection (CME), the required CME energy is not several orders of magnitude greater than known solar events. We consider solar proton events (SPEs) with three different fluences and two different spectra. The data may be explained byan event with fluenceabout one order of magnitude beyond the October 1989 SPE.Two hard spectrum cases considered here result in moderate ozone depletion, so no mass extinction is implied, though we do predict increases in erythema and damage to plants from enhanced solar UV.We are able to rule out an event with a very soft spectrum that causes severe ozone depletion and subsequent biological impacts.Nitrate enhancements are consistent with their apparent absence in ice core data. The modern technological implications of such an eventmay beextreme, and considering recent confirmation of superflares on solar-type stars, this issue merits attention.
Authors:
Brian C. Thomas, Keith R. Arkenberg and Brock R. Snyder II: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, United States;
Adrian L. Melott: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States.
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Daniel Sweger says:
March 12, 2013 at 6:18 pm
—-
The fact that C14 production is not constant is already know, it’s one of the reason’s why there is an error bar around C14 dates.
Any how, they’ve been able to calibrate the C14 tables by taking objects who’s dates are known via other mechanisms and carbon dating them.
Hmm. Wondering if such an event (or the 1857 event) is more just bad luck (event aimed directly at earth), a truly gigantic, unusual event, or a combo of both.
Rob Ricket says:
March 12, 2013 at 7:00 pm
Political correctness gone wild. I read an article today that referred to lesbians as, “women of minority sexual orientation”.
—
If I hadn’t seen that in context, I would have assumed it meant women who prefer minorities. IE blacks, asians, hispanics, etc.
The power grid has protection. Whether it’s enough will, as always, be subject to debate.
When protecting the grid there are two considerations, the first is rise time, how quickly does the voltage level jump. With a lightning strike, the voltage can jump by thousands of volts in a matter of micro-seconds. The other is total energy. A lightning strike has a lot of energy, but it is small compared to projected EMP events.
Power lines have two types of protection, surge protectors and circuit breakers. Circuit breakers shut the system down in the case of a high energy event, but they are slow, taking several tenths of a second to react. Surge protectors can react quickly but would burn up if they tried to absorb a high energy event. The two together provide sufficient protection for most foreseeable events. The surge protector kicks in, absorbing what it can which gives the circuit breakers time to react.
There is cause for concern, but I”m not as paniced as many people seem to be.
george e. smith says:
March 12, 2013 at 11:09 pm
—
That twisting would control the voltage between each of the three wires, but an EMP would still raise the potential of all three wires relative to ground.
Joe Grappa says:
March 12, 2013 at 2:57 pm
“…”
____________
Bravo, Sir.
Lsvalgaard or another solar expert, while a bit off topic, sort of, I have a question for you. Does TSI fully account for the energy input, or effect on Earth from the solar “winds” eg… EUV and ????…etc…?
Wlf15y says:
March 13, 2013 at 7:51 am
Does TSI fully account for the energy input, or effect on Earth from the solar “winds” eg… EUV and ????…etc…?
The ‘T’ in TSI stands for Total [Solar Irradiance], so is the Total Radiative Output of the Sun [at least in our direction]. EUV is part of TSI. The solar wind [particles, magnetic effects, cosmic rays, etc] accounts for less than a millionth of the total.
@ur momisugly vukcevic
– Beautiful, haunting video from NASA Goddard. I’m struck by how much the colourized twists (Birkland currents?) of energy and magnetism, followed by violent ejections of something (ionized mass?), resemble the Z-pinch sequence as employed at point of fusion ignition by the FocusFusion folks (DPF dense plasma focus) (and hi-speed photographed). “resemble” – to my eye, that is, not ‘fact’.
@ur momisugly George E. Smith; and MarkW
– George, what you say makes sense (though it seems to contradict Dr. Svalgaard’s and MattS’ insight – I didn’t realize about the twisted sets of transmission line wires. I’ll ‘assume’ (risk) that this sophisticated technique to counter wave propagation is more employed in 1st World applications, less so in developing countries. Not understanding the physics I have to wonder though that although the wavelengths of space induced (?) EM surges is in 60 Hz range (?), meaning 5000 km waves, whether some interaction with the Earth’s own magnetic field and currents would work to ‘shorten’ those wavelengths, that is that shorter wavelength frequencies present in our EM environment would somehow be amplified.
– Mark – I afraid I don’t understand about a solar EMP ‘raising the potential’ of the transmission wire sets relative to ground, but while it makes some sense to me, also, my question would remain as above – whether some interaction/propagation of energy through the EM spectrum would nonetheless be at work in such an event.
I’m also not losing sleep over a ‘Solar Kill Shot’ – because none of us know ‘our time’; “teach us to count our days, then we shall acquire a heart of wisdom” as it says in Psalm 90 by Moses Our Teacher; and in any case Man(+Woman)kind have apparently survived such events in the past, however devastating. So far, at least 😉 But that said, I’ve heard you’re argument regards how robust is the Grid, and contrary explanations that a significant Solar EMP Event would cut through the surge protectors like butter, and far too quickly for the circuit breakers to cut in. Couldn’t this be tested somehow? My understanding is that electrical/plasma phenomena are scalable, so one would think something meaningful could be deduced from laboratory experiment…(though of course it wouldn’t account for my imagined ‘real world’ corollary EM effects mentioned above…)
All that said, I’d feel a little more sanguine if we were busy building a reserve of main transformers, which I understand take months to construct, and are as big as 3 story houses, or something (and of which, we have zero ‘spares’). Sort of like keeping some candles around the house, and some water carboys, in case of an icestorm, for example (I’m in Ontario, Canada :-))
issue@Zeke
Tiburon says: “(the author [Suspicous Observa] often references WUWT)”
“That is remarkable to hear that SuspiciousObserver “often references WUWT.” If anyone drops by that channel be sure to “reference WUWT” too. Perhaps you might “reference WUWT” and mention that “Greedy Lying Bastards” is a box office fail and WUWT says “When they lie right on the cover, it speaks volumes about the content of the film.”.
Or you might “reference WUWT” to point out that we could actually be producing far more oil and coal than we are. In any event, be sure to “reference WUWT” right back, to return the favor, and enjoy the response. They are going to love you! (: ”
Zeke, I’m afraid I can’t quite follow what you’re saying here. SO (Suspicious Observer) seems a very sober and measured individual, careful in his pronouncements, and he’s certainly more knowledgeable than ‘the average bear’ regards earth/sky interactions. He has his opinions, but is clear, repeatedly, to counsel that the listener use discernment, research and review and reach their own conclusions. He also states, that he’s of a mind the ‘whenever he hears only ‘one side’ of an idea, he’s suspicious’, and that he believes the actual Truth of “what’s really going on” lies somewhere between what we receive as information from the MSM and the many analyses, good and bad, that one finds in the private and contrarian media. This seems cool to me, which is why I listen to his daily 3 min. ‘weather reports’, daily.
If you’re implying that SO is a Warmist (as the term is understood here), I’d have to differ with you – if anything his commentary shows him a “Cool-ist” – though he has strong opinion that weather events are tending extreme, along with geo-seismic events (also within our solar system, both). – I’m at a little variance with him on this, as I’ve read the abstracts of multiple papers showing that nothing we’ve seen exceeds the bounds of ‘natural variability’. However, that said, I believe he’s right also (about the “extremes”), in that it’s not a question of How Big, or How Frequent, but rather, Where, and When, in overview.
If you’re implying that he has a following of commenters on YouTube who get bent out of shape about resource depletion, CO2 catastrophe, and the like – I wouldn’t know, I very rarely browse his comment threads, and have never commented there (he has over 70,000 subscribers, and nearly 12 Million Views). My impression regards his opinion of CAGW is that he ‘doesn’t have a dog in the fight’, and tries to educate his followers that while we (humans) certainly have some effects on our climate, it’s not by pathway of CO2 ‘enrichment’. He’s often referenced WUWT as source of articles further debunking this claim.
All that said, many of his opinions would not likely be welcome here at WUWT, and in those issues he does have a stake: – the EU model, HAARP, contrails/Chemtrails – ; but I further find his analyses of these issues to also be quite sober, and persuasive, and a welcome relief from the often ‘fever swamp’ quality of much that’s online in this regard (with exception of EU Model, which is, after all, going Mainstream step-by-step, despite it’s enormous threat to established scientific disciplines, and subsequently, scientific funding and careers. I could wish that everyone would just ‘get outta the Sandbox’ – there’s so much to learn and integrate that in a reasonable world no one would be ‘hurt’ by these ideas, only further enlightened, by opening themselves to new data and it’s implications. Isn’t that what science is supposed to be about?)
BTW, If you’re saying that Oil and Coal production should be amplified beyond our immediate needs without a concurrent ‘full-court push’ for alterative and do-able energy sources, I’d have to ask you, Why?
To me, Oil and Coal are far too valuable a resource for all aspects of our industrial plant to be burned for power, and their products and by-products are (likely) vital for future generations, at least until we get Star Trek “replicators” ;-).
We should get off them as an energy source as soon as practically possible. And I say this even though I tend (without meaningful geologic proofs or references) to the thinking of Dr Thomas Gold on this issue – that Oil is Abiotic, and sourced from deep mantle biologic processi. To me, however, it seems obvious that replenishment rates of fields is well below our rates of consumption, so ‘give it a rest’, if we can; – that is – we have to care for the living today, first.
Those curious about what all the fuss is about can find SO and his daily 3 min ‘weather reports’, here: – http://www.youtube.com/user/Suspicious0bservers
“””””…..MarkW says:
March 13, 2013 at 7:06 am
george e. smith says:
March 12, 2013 at 11:09 pm
—
That twisting would control the voltage between each of the three wires, but an EMP would still raise the potential of all three wires relative to ground……”””””
Mark, why don’t you throw in some calculations, to show us just how large an induced Voltage between the multiphase twisted cables and the ground can occur; well compared to the multi hundred kiloVolt potentials that are there already, or the multi megaVolt spikes that result from direct lightning strikes on power lines.
Solar EM bursts and EMP are like striking a match in a forest fire inferno, as power grid threats.
Now if you are talking about transient effects on the actual control electronics, you might have a weakness there, but the power machinery itself is quite another matter.
So just what is the characteristic impedance of a wire (high) over a ground plane, and how is the effective diameter of the wire impacted by the twisted structure.
Are we talking about a new species of Brazillian jungle butterfly here ?
This problem is akin to the problem of cancers “caused” by power lines going across school grounds. Simple field and energy density calculations show such fields are about 27 orders of magnitude too low to cause changes in any atomic or molecular structure in a human body.
“””””…..Tiburon says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:46 am
>……………………………………<
@ur momisugly George E. Smith; and MarkW
– George, what you say makes sense (though it seems to contradict Dr. Svalgaard’s and MattS’ insight – I didn’t realize about the twisted sets of transmission line wires. I’ll ‘assume’ (risk) that this sophisticated technique to counter wave propagation is more employed in 1st World applications, less so in developing countries. Not understanding the physics I have to wonder though that although the wavelengths of space induced (?) EM surges is in 60 Hz range (?), meaning 5000 km waves, whether some interaction with the Earth’s own magnetic field and currents would work to ‘shorten’ those wavelengths, that is that shorter wavelength frequencies present in our EM environment would somehow be amplified.
– Mark – I afraid I don’t understand about a solar EMP ‘raising the potential’ of the transmission wire sets relative to ground, but while it makes some sense to me, also, my question would remain as above – whether some interaction/propagation of energy through the EM spectrum would nonetheless be at work in such an event………"""""
Well Sharky, nothing I said, is in conflict with what Dr Svalgaard said about currents induced in long wires.
He has a PhD (wild guess) in presumably solar physics, so he would understand solar emps.
I only have a bachelor degree in Physics, including a major in Radio-Physics, that being EM propagation theory (Maxwell/Hertz), Antenna design Transmission line theory, Electronics, Ionospheric physics, radio transmission and reception; you know, that sort of stuff.
The power transmission lines are twisted, not for any EMP reasons. At 60 Hz, the wavelength in air is 5,000 km, or about 1250 km for a quarter wavelength, so long crosscountry transmission grids, are a significant fraction of a wavelength at 60 Hz, so a whole lot of power is radiatively lost from the transmission lines, if you DON'T twist them. The twisting results in mutual cancellation of one wire by the others, and completely kills any dipole radiation and many other higher order radiation modes as well.
Dr Svalgaard said nothing about twisted wires.
Not sure what MattS's insight was, I must have missed that.
And if as you said, you don't understand the Physics, why would you wonderabout the earth magnetic field fluctuations. Are YOU aware of ANY fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field, that happen at frequencies that are even HIGHER than the 60 Hz of power line transmission frequencies ? I'm not; which doesn't mean they don't occur; just means that I've never heard of that.
Incidently, any long wire antenna, that is short compared to a quarter wavelength, (lambda/10) looks electrically like a capacitor.
So the equivalent circuit of a long wire antenna, would be your EMP generator as a Voltage source of so many Volts per metre electric field strength (microvolts per metre for radio/tv), times the antenna height, with a series source resistance of 377 Ohms (120 pi, the characteristic impedance of free space), connected by a small capacitor ( a few tens of picoFarads)to whatever electrical load you have. The magnetic coupling to a long wire antenna is small compared to the electric field coupling.
You hear a lot of talk about varying EM fields from the sun. You don't hear a heck of a lot of information about the time rate of change of those fields. The sun is a pretty big object. It doesn't tend to do a lot of things in too much of a hurry.
But now that is over in Dr Svalgaard's bailiwick, about which I know next to nothing.
You have to have wire coils with varying magnetic fields to induce currents in them. The inductance of a wire over a ground plane is of the order of 3.3 nanoHenry's per cm, or about 0.1 microHenry per foot. So the induced Voltage would be L di/dt, so of you know the rate of change of current in your emp field, then you could calculate the induced current in a wire.
Oh! Noes!……We are all gonna die from a Solar event!!!!!!! Let’s gather up several Quadrillion dollars and build spaceships to put a tinfoil hat on the earth. Yep! that will do it!
I see mass media every where doing test marketing to see if they can con us with solar events, since the climate scam is winding down.
They picked a loser with CO2 and now in their ignorance start banging the drum for anther loser idea during the least active solar cycle in quite a long time.
They find that an event with about 7 or more times greater fluence (depending on the spectrum) than an observed October 1989 solar flare event
What ‘October 1989’ event are they talking about. The NE power outage was in March, 1989 caused by a solar event.
Did they even look for or find any spike in the 1857 event?
george e. smith says:
March 13, 2013 at 11:20 am
…….
Hi George
Here is what one hour of geomagnetic storm ( recorded at Tromso) looks like:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SO.htm
these are recordings at 1 min rate, I am sure there must be lot more of higher frequencies..
Not much of a chance for a standing wave at above frequency
Thanks George E. – I’m going to save your comment for leisurely review! At this rate you’ll be inspiring me to head back to college for physics/electronics (seriously). This stuff fascinates, but the visualization still eludes. BTW, I of course do NOT know of any higher frequencies in our magnetic field than the power line 60 Hz – would have been all over that, were it so ;o).
But it does give me a little ‘assignment’ to explore, should I find access to sources in the future. As you point out, there are millions of volts of potential between earth and sky so mayhaps there’s something ‘unexpected’ that can develop, in special circumstance? Just babbling, so never mind.
I’m still not clear then why wires burned during the Carrington (this is anecdotal of course), except that I suppose they weren’t high voltage/frequency and certainly weren’t braided to cancel out dipole radiation and higher orders of rad.
And also not clear why at least one, if not more, of the honkin’ main transformers burnt out during the Quebec event…all considered. Something to do with them ‘acting as antenna/capacitors’?
Please don’t feel constrained to answer, btw – you’re not gettin’ paid for this Physics 101 stuff, and I can carry m’own water in terms of reading and research. Thanks again…
@Dennis Gaskill “I see mass media every where doing test marketing to see if they can con us with solar events, since the climate scam is winding down.
They picked a loser with CO2 and now in their ignorance start banging the drum for anther loser idea during the least active solar cycle in quite a long time.”
Dennis, firstly it seems pretty well accepted and established from what I’ve read, that flares/CME’s can occur irrespective of where we are in the solar cycle, minima or maxima…
Secondly, while I agree there’s the usual sensational catering to folk’s fears in the MSM, it’s not to my eye focused on the condition of our star, our high atmosphere, nor our magnetics. Rather, it seems like NASA and the like are grudgingly letting out little hints that there are some changes that are ‘outside the norm’ going on over the last few centuries and recent decades, on earth and in the solar system, and for which they don’t have a clear accounting. Do they ‘know or suspect more than they’re telling us’? Who knows! A big blessing about our modern info universe is that source data is widely available, as is popular peer-to-peer communication, so many qualified folks can do analysis and bring out these anomalies and their potential implications.
Given the range of anomalous data emerging, I think it’s reasonable to suspect that macro changes in our environment, not of our doing, may be pointing towards substantive shifts in the earth’s ‘balance’ – energy balance perhaps, or homeostasis – towards a different order.
Solar Kill Shot? Not so much.
sorry, vukcevic….what’s on the y axis?
@Duster says:
March 12, 2013 at 3:34 pm
If you’re staying in the 535 time frame, Muslims won’t be doing any haranguing for another 100 years or so, since Muhammad didn’t have his visions until c. 622.
Tiburon says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:21 pm
………..
graph is updated
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SO.htm
@Joe Kirklin Grappa:
Hey, if he wants to use CE for Christian Era, that’s his choice…
😉
@MattS:
That’s not a prototype weapon, it is an EMP testing station. Mil Spec gear goes there to be tested against pulses of the size likely from nukes.
@Anyone Worried:
Old (up until about 1986) Mercedes Diesels have NO electronics on the engine. There is a vacuum driven fuel shut off to stop it, once running. Only “electrical” needed is the starter motor and battery… I have one. I’ll be driving. (The “kid” got the wagon with “points” in it… so he will be driving too 😉
Old cars are still out there…
Any vehicle based on a design used by any major military power ought to be fine, too (that is why they have the test station…) Frankly, I’d expect any solar event to be orders of magnitude less than a nuke in the ionosphere, so don’t expect cars to “have issues” anyway (even those with computers).
@Tiburon:
We don’t need to “save the oil” for “petro” chemicals. They were made from coal before the petroleum was found to be cheaper and Eastman Chemical still does use coal. Also most “petro” chemicals in the USA are made from natural gas as it is cheaper here. Also we can make them from wood (guess where we got methanol aka “Wood Alcohol” before using coal or natural gas?…) and even from trash. ANY carbon source will do. (Heck, we could even use carbonate rocks…)
The notion that running out of oil means running out of plastics and organic chemicals is just a fantasy to scare the children and other gullibles.
We never run out of energy, and the carbon never leaves the planet, so we can always make carbon based chemicals as needed.
Using charcoal as a Diesel fuel:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/chws-charcoal-liquid-diesel-fuel/
Why we never run out of energy supply:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/ulum-ultra-large-uranium-miner-ship/
Or other stuff:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
Meanwhile, back at the sun….
has anyone correlated times of major Carrington type events with any particular solar cycle or pattern? Or is it just random noise and not much pattern?
“””””…..Tiburon says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:15 pm
Thanks George E. – I’m going to save your comment for leisurely review! At this rate you’ll be inspiring me to head back to college for physics/electronics (seriously). This stuff fascinates, but the visualization still eludes. BTW, I of course do NOT know of any higher frequencies in our magnetic field than the power line 60 Hz – would have been all over that, were it so ;o)……”””””
An interesting EM antenna comparison, is the typical marine antennas used on small private vessels for Marine VHF communications (line of sight) and the old, now seldom seen Loran-C navigation system.
Marine VHF is at frequencies near the broadcast FM bands. 136 MHz seems to come to mind.
So at that frequency the wavelength is about 2.2 metres, or about 7 ft 3 inches.. So a half wavelength dipole antenna would be about three feet 8 inches long….But vertical whips are used for that, and they only need to be a quarter wave long, since the reflected image of the whip, in the ground (ocean) provides the other quarter wave. Some small boats do use a springy wire a couple of feet long, but for serious use if going offshore some distance, the standard whip antenna is 8 feet long. Now it is NOT a full wavelength long antenna, it actually consists of several smaller segments stacked end to end, inside the fiberglass pole to form an antenna array, which has higher gain and directivity.
Well a Loran C whip antenna looks about the same, 8 feet long and usually not as small diameter at the VHF whip.
Well Loran-C operates at a frequency of 100 kHz, so the wavelength is 3,000 metres long, so 8 feet is a pitiful small fraction of a wavelength, even with its reflection in the ground. And it is a long range longer than line of sight system, feeding mostly off the ground wave. So it looks like a very small capacitor in series with the effective electric field and of course the 377 Ohms source resistance. All that matters signal wise, is how much capacitance to free space it has. That is why they are usually larger diameter, and typically consist of a strip of copper foil wrapped on the inside of the fiber glass tube. Larger diameter gives a bit more capacitance..
A very well known salt water fly fisherman (now deceased) loved to hunt for tarpon with a fly rod, seeking world records; he had many. He had his own special fishing boat made, which was an open side console boat for shallow water, and inside the boat he had built a rectangular fishing ring platform. A square stainless steel boxing ring, except about five foot square, sitting about 18 inches up off the center of the boat on a central pedestal bolted to the fiberglass inside of the boat (insulated from the water). So he would stand up in the ring, with rails to lean against so he didn’t trip over, and from up there he could look in any direction and cast in any direction without bothering his guide, who poled the boat for him, hunting fish.His fly line just dropped on the boat bottom outside the ring.
One place he liked to fish for record tarpon, was at Homosassa Florida, north of Tampa. It has deeper water, and not a lot of bottom structure to tell where you were; but the fish knew where they were, and if you found them in one place yesterday, chances were good, they would go down the same roads today, and tomorrow, if you had any idea where the hell you were.
So he had a Loran C system set up in his boat, to tell him exactly where he was.
Well there’s the rub. An 8 ft high fiberglass whip sticking up on the boat is simply not compatible with fly fishing. He and his guide tried everything making quick disconnect whip antennas, so they could take it down and stow it in a rod rack, but then you couldn’t keep track of where you were. I was fishing there one year, and he and his guide (who was also my guide) asked me if I had any ideas about how to get his Loran-C whip up in the air, and not get in the way of his 360 circle casting space.
So I told him, just get rid of the whip antenna; throw it away. well you see all that matters for Loran-C is how much capacitance to space you can get, and all you need to get lots of capacitance, is abig pile of scrap metal in the boat. Perfect !, his five foot square stainless steel frame bull pen, was a whole bunch of welded together SS pipes and it was insulated from the water, and had a ton of capacitance compared to an 8 ft whip.
So we simply connected the input terminal to his Loran receiver, to a strategic point on the bull pen frame, and in came Loran-C signals loud and clear. Well the fishing competitors, were suspicious, that somehow this guy seemed to know exactly where the tarpon runs were from day to day, but they couldn’t get close enough to see what he had in his boat. Well everybody knew about his casting platform.
So to spread a bit of confusion on the waters, I told my guide to call this chap up on the radio, and ask him how his new phased array Loran-C rig was working. Well talk about consternation; all the competitors from that “other” fishing camp, were hitting the books to find out what the hell a Loran-C phased arrray antenna system looked like. None of them coujld see the little screw, and solder lug that tied his receiver to his elevated casting platform, to give him a Loran-C antenna par excellance..
The Loran whip, and the marine VHF whip look almost identical, but they are completely different in construction and operating principles.
OT
Lightning from the Sakurajima volcano eruption
http://www.vijesti.me/data/slika/23/225826.jpg
photo by Martin Reitze. “Volcanic lightning is still a mystery, though it may be that electrically charged silica part of magma interacts with the atmosphere when it flies out of a volcano”.
OT but solar related..
A cool discovery about the Sun’s next-door twin
20 Feb 2013
One of the great curiosities in solar science is that our Sun’s outer atmosphere – the corona – is heated to millions of degrees when its visible surface is ‘only’ about 6000 degrees. Even stranger is a curious temperature minimum of 4000 degrees lying between the two layers, in the chromosphere. Now, using ESA’s Herschel space observatory, scientists have made the first discovery of an equivalent cool layer in the atmosphere of the Sun-like star, Alpha Centauri A.
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=51395
And..
NASA’s IRIS Spacecraft Is Fully Integrated
1.18.13
..Scheduled to launch in April 2013, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) will make use of high-resolution images, data and advanced computer models to unravel how matter, light, and energy move from the sun’s 6,000 K (10,240 F / 5,727 C) surface to its million K (1.8 million F / 999,700 C) outer atmosphere, the corona. Such movement ultimately heats the sun’s atmosphere to temperatures much hotter than the surface, and also powers solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which can have societal and economic impacts on Earth.
“This is the first time we’ll be directly observing this region since the 1970s,” says Joe Davila, IRIS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “We’re excited to bring this new set of observations to bear on the continued question of how the corona gets so hot.”
A fundamentally mysterious region that helps drive heat into the corona, the lower levels of the atmosphere — namely two layers called the chromosphere and the transition region — have been notoriously hard to study. IRIS will be able to tease apart what’s happening there better than ever before by providing observations to pinpoint physical forces at work near the surface of the sun.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/iris/news/iris-integration.html
It seems to me that there is a soft intensity to connect the solar system physics, especially the solar periods in respect to the solar system periods, to try to connect this with terrestrial global periods of climate or climate proxies.
But instead of a basic research of this matter there come up strange ideas based on old history books with a crucifix on the sky some 1239 years ago.
More than three years ago I have given some hints that there is a stable geometric connection between solar tide functions and the terrestrial global climate, but it was rejected or ignored.
Directed by the idea to fight the holy sceptical war against the CO2 cult and its monotone increasing content in the atmosphere, there were no place to work on climate physics. An example of this is the adjusting of the measured sea level after the history trend of the last century using a linear function. Science? No.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/2013_rel2/sl_ns_global.txt
Taking the function of the sea level rise data in that the seasonal effects are removed, one can see, that there is a function superimposed to the linear function. This function can be studied better, if the average linear trend of 3.22 mm per year is also removed form the data.
It may be of interest that the maximum values of the seasonal ‘effects’ are top with beginning of the calendar year, because the Earth have it nearest distance from the Sun then. But there is one other major oscillation frequency superimposed to the sea level trend, which can be analysed as f = 6.3 oscillations per year, an this is may be more of interest, because this frequency cannot only be addressed to the solar tide function of the couple of Mercury/Earth, it is moreover in coherent phase with the ‘spring tide’ events on the sun.over the data time interval.
The period of Mercury [ME] is 0.240846 years. The period of Earth [EA] is 1.00001742 years. Taking the difference of the frequencies one gets the synodic frequency.
F syn = f_ME – f ER = 4.15172 – 0.999982 = 3.1517379 periods per yer. The solar tide frequency is then twice the synodic frequency = f tide_ME/EA = 6.30347 periods per year.
The solar tide function of the couple of Mercury/Earth can be taken for the time range 1950 AD – 2038 AD from: http://www.volker-doormann.org/mercury_earth_hel_tide.txt
Additionally to the two discussed frequencies superimposed to the sea level trend there is a complex function, that seems to have a connection to the ONI function:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml .
This all is shown in this graph:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/sea_level_vs_solar_tide_1.gif
What ever is the real ’cause’ of the increasing linear trend of the seal level data adjustments of the University of Colorado; the questions remain, why is the sea level oscillation frequency in phase with the solar tide function of the couple of the most dense objects in the solar system ?, and why is the reconstructed temperature function in the alps by Prof. G. Patzelt in a correlation to some two tide couples in the solar system with a main period of ~900 years?
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_23_ghi2_patzelt_sp1.jpg
V.