From Columbia University
Astronomers find clues to decades-long coronal heating mystery
Drs. Michael Hahn and Daniel Wolf Savin, research scientists at Columbia University’s Astrophysics Laboratory in New York, NY, found evidence that magnetic waves in a polar coronal hole contain enough energy to heat the corona and moreover that they also deposit most of their energy at sufficiently low heights for the heat to spread throughout the corona. The observations help to answer a 70-year-old solar physics conundrum about the unexplained extreme temperature of the Sun’s corona – known as the coronal heating problem.
Hahn and Savin analyzed data from the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer onboard the Japanese satellite Hinode. They used observations of a polar coronal hole, a region of the Sun where the magnetic fields lines stretch from the solar surface far into interplanetary space. The findings were published on September 30th in the October 20th edition of The Astrophysical Journal.
To understand the coronal heating problem, imagine a flame coming out of an ice cube.
A similar effect occurs on the surface of the Sun. Nuclear fusion in the center of the Sun heats the solar core to 15 million degrees. Moving away from this furnace, by the time one arrives at the surface of the Sun the gas has cooled to a relatively refreshing 6000 degrees. But the temperature of the gas in the corona, above the solar surface, soars back up to over one million degrees. What causes this unexpected temperature increase has puzzled scientists since 1939.
Two dominant theories exist to explain this mystery. One attributes the heating to the loops of magnetic field which stretch across the solar surface and can snap and release energy. Another ascribes the heating to waves emanating from below the solar surface, which carry magnetic energy and deposit it in the corona. Observations show both of these processes continually occur on the Sun. But until now scientists have been unable to determine if either one of these mechanisms releases sufficient energy to heat the corona to such high temperatures.
Hahn and Savin’s recent observations show that magnetic waves are the answer. The advance opens up a realm of further questions; chief among them is what causes the waves to damp. Hahn and Savin are planning new observations to try to address this issue.
This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences through the Solar, Heliospheric and Interplanetary Environment program.
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Well I think this intergalctic current stuff is, to say the least, unproven. But electron flows aren’t necessarily all visible.
Christoph Dollis says:
October 20, 2013 at 1:53 pm
“Well I think this intergalctic current stuff is, to say the least, unproven. But electron flows aren’t necessarily all visible.”
Ok, then why don’t I feel the effects in every rain storm?
Reread what you posted:
Christoph Dollis:
re your posts culminating at October 20, 2013 at 1:46 pm.
OK. I trust that knowing I read them makes you feel better.
Oh, and I inform that I felt better when I read the kind advice to me – which I adopted – from The Pompous Git in response to the exchange which you misrepresent. He wrote saying to me
Richard
Yeah, I was disagreeing with Poptech a third of the time, Richard, and that continued on Roy Spencer’s site after the thread was closed.
But OK then. Continue your stellar record of reading these situations correctly and think that Poptech and I were acting in concert with the goal of manipulating you into saying nutty things like he’s a danger to himself.
lolz.
Alright, so cutting to the chase, I would imagine it’s because you’re not in the clouds. Being in thunder-producing clouds is probably unwise.
Christoph Dollis says:
October 20, 2013 at 2:16 pm
“Alright, so cutting to the chase, I would imagine it’s because you’re not in the clouds. Being in thunder-producing clouds is probably unwise.”
What meemoe_uk said :
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 1:05 pm
” I think lightning occurs around rainclouds because the water makes the air more conductive to the intergalactic current.”
Meemoe said “around rainclouds”. So I was wondering under the EU idea why the intergalactic current doesn’t cause lightning around all rain clouds. Now, one does not have to be in the clouds to see or feel the effects of lightning. So I was just asking Meemoe if the EU idea had any validity why doesn’t the intergalactic current show up as lightning around all rain clouds rather than just thunderstorms. The answer of course is because that is not what causes lightning.
Fair enough, Tom.
Then why do I not see lightning in every rain storm?
Because some\ most rain is from water clouds that has adjusted to the different electric field in the sky.
You need the water to rise fast to the top of the troposphere e.g. hammer head cloud on a hot convective day. This might sound like contrary to what I’ve been saying, but it isn’t. The rising water vapor is subject to the strong electric field of the Earth. It doesn’t create it. As long as you understand that, then most of the conventional theory on lightning can be adapted to fit in with it.
So the water is initially the same voltage as the Earths surface, i.e. it initial surrounding, it rises fast into the atmos, where it is suddenly a very different voltage to its environment (i.e 10^7V difference). The water tries to adjust to the voltage of the environment by shedding electrons ( clouds are usually positively charged wrt Earth ), but these electrons can’t escape the cloud, so accumulate at the bottom. This in turn causes a reservoir of positively charge water to pool at the top of the cloud. This builds up until the voltage breaks the resistance of the lower troposphere and the lightning starts.
I’m sure ice rubs against water etc in a cloud. But the idea of ice rubbing water creates charge separation is wrong ( to my mind at least ). The water is subject to a high voltage that exists in the atmosphere regardless of the cloud. Conventional science is looking for a reason for the 10^7volts and uses a van de graf analogy and is sticking with it to the exclusion of consideration of other causes.
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 3:31 pm
I’m sure ice rubs against water etc in a cloud. But the idea of ice rubbing water creates charge separation is wrong ( to my mind at least ).
The ice pellets do not rub against water [fluid or as vapor] but against the graupel [pellets of snow]. I explained that already. The ice pellets are small and light and are convection to the top of the cloud, while the graupels are heavier and stay where they are in the middle of the cloud or might even fall down [melt and become rain]. The creation of charge separation by friction is something every knows and experiences [walk across a nylon carpet, touch a metal doorknob and feel the shock]. What a VdG generator and a thundercloud have in common are 1) friction, 2) moving the charges, and 3) a place to store them.
And i find it amusing when conventional science tries to explain lightning in pyroclastic clouds ( clouds of steam & volcanic fine material ). They plough straight on with the van de graf analogy and ice rubbing against the water in the cloud. Doesn’t bother them that a pyroclastic cloud is too warm for ice to exist in it.
The real cause is simply moving material fast between 2 environments with different voltages causing the excess charge to arc back to its initial environment.
The ice pellets do not rub against water [fluid or as vapor] but against the graupel [pellets of snow]. I explained that already.
Excuse me if I don’t parrot the details of the ice friction storm cloud theory precisely. My desire to learn all the details is dampened when I think the theory is wrong.
The creation of charge separation by friction is something every knows and experiences
Yes. Probably why it was favored as a candidate to explain storm clouds.
But the reality is its hard to get any charge built up by playing around with a combo of snow ice and water, I played around in many winters, never had the slightest experience to suggest any snow\ice\water combo can readily separate electric charge to a notable degree. Never heard anything to the contrary.
Only way to do it is to shift snow\ice\water to an environment with a preexisting different voltage e.g earth to 4 km in the sky in. Then it will act electrically, but so do most things.
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 4:11 pm
“And i find it amusing when conventional science tries to explain lightning in pyroclastic clouds ( clouds of steam & volcanic fine material ). They plough straight on with the van de graf analogy and ice rubbing against the water in the cloud. Doesn’t bother them that a pyroclastic cloud is too warm for ice to exist in it.”
Is it not true that the fine volcanic material moving rapidly inside such cloud would create the friction needed for charge separation?
It isn’t too warm for sudden forced friction by different materials.
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 4:11 pm
But the reality is its hard to get any charge built up by playing around with a combo of snow ice and water,
You cling to that water bit. The friction is always between solid particles, be they cold as in thunderclouds and a VdG generator or hot is in pyroclastic flows.
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 4:29 pm
My desire to learn all the details is dampened when I think the theory is wrong.
You can only judge if a theory is correct or wrong if you know the details. Sticking your head in the sand and not wanting to see is cult-mentality: why bother with evidence when you know the TRUTH. You confirm that nicely here.
Is it not true that the fine volcanic material moving rapidly inside such cloud would create the friction needed for charge separation?
It could, but I doubt it. Leif will tell you it does.
You can only judge if a theory is correct or wrong if you know the details.
Ok. Here’s a detail on which the theory is based which i find dubious. Solid particles are needed to rub against each other for the charge separation to work. As we’ve only got water to work with it’ll have to be ice. A problem here is that usually dissimilar solids are required to rub against each other. But here we’ve only got ice. So we need to appeal to water’s ability to make different forms of ice and hope that qualifies as different solids, but really it’s ice on ice, so its a bit of a reach. There’s always been a lot of research into ice, but I’ve never heard of anyone rubbing 2 blocks of dissimilar synthesized ices together to get charge separation, even though this would be strong evidence for the ice rubbing theory for storm clouds.
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 6:32 pm
(Tom in Florida says: Is it not true that the fine volcanic material moving rapidly inside such cloud would create the friction needed for charge separation?)
It could, but I doubt it. Leif will tell you it does.
———————————————————————————————–
Please provide me with supporting evidence on why you doubt it.
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 6:53 pm
So we need to appeal to water’s ability to make different forms of ice and hope that qualifies as different solids
They don’t really need to be of different chemical composition, just to have different response to the friction with the air and with each other. Smaller particles become positively charged [loses electrons] while larger ones pick up negative charge [captures electrons]. The friction between snow and a ski also produces an electric field [as shown by Petrenko and Colbeck, 1995, “Generation of electric fields by ice and snow friction” J. App. Phys., 77 (9), 4518-4521] or is that again the aliens zapping the skier with the galactic electric currents?
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 6:53 pm
There’s always been a lot of research into ice, but I’ve never heard of anyone rubbing 2 blocks of dissimilar synthesized ices together to get charge separation, even though this would be strong evidence for the ice rubbing theory for storm clouds.
That you have never heard about something is not evidence that that thing doesn’t happen and people have, in fact, created electrification by rubbing ice on ice: e.g http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281969%29026%3C1259%3AEPOARI%3E2.0.CO%3B2
They don’t really need to be of different chemical composition, just to have different response to the friction with the air and with each other. Smaller particles become positively charged [loses electrons] while larger ones pick up negative charge [captures electrons].
Sounds desperate verging on ridiculous. Same material, ice, not a particularly good dielectric, building up 10^7V just cos some bits are bigger than others. Don’t believe it.
Anyway I’ve looked around the old research papers and found lab results that explain that under thundercloud conditions charge separation is achieved when micro supercooled water droplets and ice crystals are mixing. Super cooled water is odd stuff, it has a stash of potential energy to become ice but cant state change without help. To this effect it seems like it tries to fall towards this state change potential by trying to alter its electric charge hence it will grab charge off nearby ice crystals.
This for me is a satisfactory conventional explanation for static charge build up, not like ice just rubbing ice.Feynman’s spirit is proud of me.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281957%29014%3C0426%3ATCS%3E2.0.CO%3B2
meemoe_uk says:
October 20, 2013 at 11:09 pm
under thundercloud conditions charge separation is achieved when micro supercooled water droplets and ice crystals are mixing.
What happened to the galactic electric current?
Dunno. Could still be there, for sure its powering the sun.
For Earth, there are 3 possibilities. An external power source is necessary to explain the 40% solar power Earth internal power output. Either that or there’s ‘creation’ going on inside the Earth and every other planet moon star i.e. a breach of the 1st law. Lastly it could be a hollow planet\star universe. Both the 1st 2 are plausible, the last one is unlikely but I can’t rule it out yet.