May produce a dangerous X-class flare that could directly impact Earth
![latest_512_4500[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/latest_512_45001.jpg?quality=83)
Steve Davidson writes:
Right now, today, one of the largest sunspot groups of Cycle 24 – AR1890 – is pointing nearly strait at Earth.
AR1890 has already produced a large X-class Level 3 solar flare Monday. from Spaceweather.com:
X3-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Earth-orbiting satellites have just detected an X3-class solar flare from big sunspot AR1890 (Nov. 5th @ 2211 UT).
Here is the X-ray event recorded by the satellites:
And here is video of the AR1890 group burping out an M-Class 3.8 flare yesterday:
UPDATE: Close up movie of AR1890
Long-term, everyone knows we are inching into an extended quiet period of solar inactivity.
Today, and the next couple days, are a very notable exception.
[Let’s hope AR1890 rotates away from Earth with no indigestion while it has us in it’s sights. Monitor spaceweather at WUWT’s solar reference page – Anthony]
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Gail Combs says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm
Well this explains Super Typhoon Haiyan….
(Two can play the game of spin baby spin especially with the calm mild this fall)
And the halt in Arctic sea ice area increase.
Kelvin Vaughan says:
November 8, 2013 at 1:33 am
>>And the halt in Arctic sea ice area increase.<<
yeah, I am struggling to see why its stopped – as the mean temps are still quite low – unless its just wind/wave action stopping ice formation? (or maybe satellite data correction! LOL!)
geran says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:35 pm
M.C. Kinville says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:23 pm
>>>>>>
Second, NOBODY living in Alaska would be out photographing the Northern Lights in winter.
What else is there to do in Alaska in the winter?
Kev-in-Uk says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:13 am
Kelvin Vaughan says:
November 8, 2013 at 1:33 am
>>And the halt in Arctic sea ice area increase.<<
It's interesting to note in the ice area records how the blips in the graphs often line up year on year, give or take. I'm not sure to what extent this is down to geographical features ( e.g.once a basin is full of ice, excess will flow to warmer regions and be washed away), or climate states due to the angle of the sun and therefore the location of pressure zones. Suggestions on a postcard to….
The biggest group ever observed: http://www.leif.org/research/Biggest-Group-Ever.png
The earth scale in the bottom left hand corner makes you feel pretty insignificant!
To the north and east of Svalbard it looks as though it has been compacted by the wind/currents? South west you can see the gradual increase in ice concentration 10%, 40%, 70%, 80% – 100%
To the north and east it now goes straight from 0 to 100%, that was not the case a few days ago.
http://polarview.met.no/regs/c_map3.jpg
Similar has happened but to a lesser degree in the Kara:-
http://polarview.met.no/regs/c_map6.jpg
Always worth taking a look at:-
http://www.dwd.de/bvbw/generator/DWDWWW/Content/Oeffentlichkeit/WV/WVFK/English/Dynamisches/Objective/osisafIceConcNH__m00s__en,templateId=poster,property=poster.png
Where the daily changes are somehow more visible.
We don’t use overhead power lines in the UK except for the main grid. Everything local (power, phone, etc) is underground. Are these safe from induced EMF?
Really impressive video. Did we survive?
David L. Hagen: “If it does burst a Carrington class Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) then before it hits UNPLUG EVERYTHING & Disconnect from the grid.”
While your imagination is in gear give us your estimate of the voltage and current we can expect at our homes. Alternate or direct current? Are you sure you have thought through this correctly?
The way I understand after reading on this subject is that the problem back in 1859 or the more recent Montreal problem with the huge transformers with CMEs is not induced voltage locally, like in your computer or cell-phone, the magnetic flux is simply too small. It is what is happening to the Earth itself. If you have a generating plant in New York connected many hundreds of miles to another plant it is the difference in the “ground” that is the problem, the Earth itself then has a voltage induced across different latitudes or large distances and since nearly everything uses the Earth (the ground) as one of its returning legs that is where the very large D.C. currents get involved that can literally burn out large grid-scale transformers. Since this is D.C. currents, or very slow varying A.C. (≈1/10 Hertz at best), that is not going to be passed through the grid to your home, but you would then lose power though if the big transformers overload. Modern large transformers are very unforgiving to large D.C. flows or so I have read.
But a local plant a few miles from your home? Shouldn’t have a problem.
So, I think you sounding the alarm is a bit overblown. Danger to the long hauls in the grid if not direct current protected, yes. Danger to satellites if not static protected and shielded, yes. Danger to your personal home equipment, I would doubt it unless your home is so rural that it is a long haul from the nearest connection point, maybe then.
Possibly long telephone lines might be a larger concern.
Got better non-alarmist info about the physics involved with CMEs, let me know. Some estimates of the milli or nano Tesla and Hertz involved would be some great info so some calculations can check this out thoroughly.
@lsvalgaard
“….The biggest group ever observed….”
6 April 1947 ?
http://daltonsminima.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/6-April-1947.jpg
Again, Jupiter, Venus, Earth and Mercury….
With a little luck the magnetic pulse will totally destroy every computer that has anything to do with Obamacare. All traces of the horrible mess will be gone and they’ll have to start over with something sensible that works. It would be nice if Obama’s teleprompters are fried too.
“Sunspot group AR1890 takes direct aim at earth”
“May produce a dangerous X-class flare that could directly impact Earth”
“Right now, today, one of the largest sunspot groups of Cycle 24 – AR1890 – is pointing nearly strait [sic] at Earth.”
Great, more alarmism.
So is it “directly” or “nearly strait [sic]”?
Michele says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:40 am
Again, Jupiter, Venus, Earth and Mercury….
You forgot Ceres
And here’s a picture from the biggest sunspot group:
http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/images/gal_015.jpg
It covered an area of 6132 MH, 11890 has an area of 920 MH today…
steveta_uk says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:02 am
We don’t use overhead power lines in the UK except for the main grid. Everything local (power, phone, etc) is underground. Are these safe from induced EMF?
Not true! Most country areas are fed by overhead lines. It’s only in towns where they are underground.
Should the date of this article be added to to first paragraph so it doesn’t look alarming in perpetuity? Just a little editorial niggle of mine regarding articles that become dated but don’t have a date. The “posted on…” doesn’t always show up in Bing and Google.
“We don’t use overhead power lines in the UK except for the main grid. Everything local (power, phone, etc) is underground. Are these safe from induced EMF?”
Power surges are a result of the Earth’s magnetic field suddenly moving which induces a current to flow in conductors. The amount of surge depends on the length of the conductor, so I would conclude that the UK, being a small island with comparatively short power lines would fare better than continental power carriers such as Canada and the US.
Does no one know the electromagnetic field strength expected, Ya know volts per meter?
There was a problem with the railways in the early days when signal men were getting electric shocks. This was found to be due to long sections of track isolated from the ground on wooden sleepers, and since significant voltage differences could occur over long distances the track could be at quite a different potential than the ground. Since then, tracks have earthed regularly to prevent the build up.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Rail_earthing_02.jpg
2013 marks the 50th anniversary of OED’s first noted instance of the use of “impact” in the sense of “affect.” It seems that people who couldn’t keep “affect” and “effect” straight avoided the problem by resorting to this sloppy use of “impact.” Now the sloppiness–accepted and encased in concrete–comes back to bite us old fuddy-duddies as what is for us the correct meaning of “impact” makes for a rather alarming headline: “May produce a dangerous X-class flare that could directly impact Earth.”
Then again, it takes more than metaphor to wipe out our short wave communication. I’ll stay inside and read the dictionary. –AGF
@wayne
Kudo for the injection of common sense.
I’m no expert in the field but AFAIK the problem is that distribution network does not or sparsely implement serial compensation (capacitor). Also big distribution transformer are masterpiece of optimization, they operate at near “perfect” efficiency & the slightest amount of DC make them saturate & destroy.
Sun induced magnetic variation are (the best we know) only of very long wavelength (low frequency), then are significant ONLY to loop of considerable internal area (km). Nothing similar with EMP that have very fast changing rate, thus capable of inducing large current in small loop.
Take an airplane, make it do a U-turn in flight, does the complete reversal of magnetic earth field in a couples of seconds make it suffer electric problem? Of course not even if its still lot more dphi/dt than a Carrington style event…
Those very long wavelength have no problem penetrating conductive (non-ferrous) soil at a great depth, so burried transmission line won’t offer more protection than overhead line.
Aa a funny side note: I’ve heard from people working for Hydro-Quebec that the 1989 blackout event had the result that major electricity client(s) (USA) put pressure on Quebec to implement stabilization measure & isolate its “shoddy” network from client using gigantic DC-DC converter (DC ties) (I visited one that was offline for maintenance and its look like the reactor of a space ship but much bigger). The result was that during subsequent unstability catastrophy like blackout of 2003 when region of northeast US & Ontario all had fallen to darkness, those measures protected Quebec’s network from their “shoddy” network.
M class? We don’t care about no stinkin M class.
Call me when we get some decent X20+ action happening.
u.k.(us) says:November 7, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Just cus there are almost no sunspots left, during this peak, it doesn’t lead to them being more likely to kill our satellites or electric grid, does it ?
Knocking on wood as I post this 🙂
(does particle board count as wood?).
The Carrington event happened in a relatively quiet period. Think earthquake. A lot of stress built up and released at once or a little at a time. Which has the bigger impact? The sun may or may not operate in this fashion (over to you Leif).
Jeff Alberts says:
November 8, 2013 at 7:51 am
“Sunspot group AR1890 takes direct aim at earth”
“May produce a dangerous X-class flare that could directly impact Earth”
“Right now, today, one of the largest sunspot groups of Cycle 24 – AR1890 – is pointing nearly strait [sic] at Earth.”
Great, more alarmism.
Jeff,
When you’re staring down the bore of a loaded cannon that is aimed directly at you and may fire at any moment, it is not ‘alarmist’ to express concern for your continued health.
MtK
PS: Given the Dire Straits we’re in, it may be time to go Down To The Water Line
Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/50Vp1I3CJ74