From NASA Mid-level Solar Flare Erupts from the Sun May 8, 2014
The bright light on the left side of the sun shows an M5.2-class solar flare in progress on May 8, 2014.This image, captured by NASA’s SDO, shows light with a 131 Angstrom wavelength, which highlights the extremely hot material in a solar flare and is typically colorized in teal. Image Credit: NASA/SDO› View full disk image
The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 6:07 a.m. EDT on May 8, 2014, and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, captured images of it.
Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
To see how this event may impact Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.
This flare is classified as an M5.2-class flare. M class flares are on the order of a tenth as strong as the most intense flares, the X-class flares.
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From NOAA’s SWPC, metrics for April are in.
Sunspots are right about where the predictive line suggests.
Ditto for radio flux
And, the Ap magnetic index continues to bump along the bottom as it has done since the regime shift in October 2005, indicating a sluggish solar dynamo:
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MarkW says:
May 9, 2014 at 2:29 pm
“Another point, the sun is currently at peak, the predictive line passed peak months ago and is now falling.”
..
Uh….not from a TSI standpoint
http://www.acrim.com/TSI%20Monitoring.htm
Doug Huffman…
..
The paper you refereed to was published 2000.
The data / study I presented was eight year later and based on direct observation using satellites.
You are welcomed to hold the results of the “model”, but I prefer to use more current direct measurement of the sun.
brians356
Everybody will “decide” ….the free market price of hydrocarbon fuels will cause each and every user of said fuels to decide how efficiently they will use them in the course of the business they conduct.
Get real. Twenty sheets of 1/2″ 4×8 gypboard weighs 1,216 lbm. And where are you carrying the 5 gallon pails of mud, the screw gun, screw feeder, miscellaneous taping knives, sander with vacuum attachment, shop vac, dry wall stilts, sheet jack and… well, you should get the idea by now.
Right. And when the taxes dropped on top of the commodity are 10X or so the actual cost of goods sold (COGS), how “free” is the market, really? Especially as there will no doubt be various “exemptions” for government agencies at the federal, state and local level, “critical” users (who just happen to be well-connected to the government apparatchiks) and so on. What could possibly go wrong?
D.J. Hawkins
Iteration #2
Be creative
https://www.google.com/search?q=trailer+pulled+by+motorcycle&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=xk1tU9PbF46jyASqqIL4Aw&sqi=2&ved=0CEMQsAQ&biw=1549&bih=842
DJ Hawkins
…
Especially this one
D.J. Hawkins says:
May 9, 2014 at 2:52 pm
Taxes have been around for a long time. They even had taxes in Egypt when they built the pyramids. The taxes on hydrocarbons have been around for a long time. The price of a gallon of fuel today is determined more by the underlying NYMEX price quote than the taxes on said product. Irrespective of taxes, the basic supply / demand mechanism still determines the cost of fuel today. When I pay $3.90 for a gallon of gasoline, the taxes (in my state) are less than $0.90…so the major cost is not taxes, but the fuel itself.
Oh, and if I use the gasoline for non-road purposes, I can avoid paying the road use taxes.
I noticed we moved up to “motorcycles” from “mopeds”. Sorry, no goal post moving. I showed you the shortcomings of your flippant solution. Stick with the original paramaters or admit you weren’t nearly as clever as you thought.
Let’s go back to the Solar Flares for few moments.
On the other thread there is a Great Hunt for the elusive not 11 but the 22 year solar cycle in the climate data. Some of us see it everywhere even engraved in the Mann’s hockey stick. To regret of some cyclo-enthusiasts (myself included) Dr. S is not commenting, however Willis E is doing his best.
So why would and with what purpose we would look for magnetic cycle, if solar magnetic field by time it reaches the Earth is so week that is measured in nanoTesla, while our own Earths field is measured in units 1000 times stronger, i.e. micro Tesla.
The common solar wind is ordinary everyday affair and as said above very weak. Occasionally, as it was case few days ago, solar flare or a Coronal mas ejection takes place, this carries much stronger magnetic field, up to 2% of the Earth;s field at poles.
This incoming magnetic field could be of the north or south magnetic polarity, this is very important point.
When the Earth is hit with a CME (by the time it reaches Earth it is often referred to as magnetic cloud) with leading edge that is polarised north, it breaches the Earth’s magnetosphere shield, load it with plasma (mainly protons), and so called magnetic reconnection (a sort of short circuit) ensures, result is a geomagnetic storm which often is visible as aurora.
Most of us know what aurora looks like, but what is this ‘reconnection’ thing?
A very complicated physics, kind of thing Leonardo once painted, here is a demonstrating video:
So what, you might say. When reconnection occurs a strong current is induced in polar regions with energy discharge equivalent to a 6 magnitude earthquake, every few minutes. Some scientists think that such events affect polar stratosphere in number of ways. I would even go further and suggest that it contributes to splitting of the polar vortex, so very much in vogue with meteorologists this winter.
Denmark scientists have diligently recorded annual aurora occurrences for nearly 100 years 1873-1965 and then stopped, but this record is long enough to show strong 10.5 and 21 year periods, obviously related to the sunspot cycles.
From above it is not clear why there is there 2×10.5 year period there, when sunspot is 10.5 ?
NASA observations found that solar coronal mass ejections – CMEs in the even-numbered solar cycles tend to hit Earth more often with a leading edge that is magnetized north, which initiates magnetic reconnection ‘fireworks’.
All that is fine, the effect appears to matter, but why the magnetic cycles period (usually referred to as 22 year, varies from 20 to 24 years) is so illusive.
Two magnetic fields, the earth’s (which has a decadal ripple) and the solar combine according to the principle of superposition and since they are of different frequency, they ‘cross-fade’ into sum and difference. I did some ‘numerology’ on this and got this, as got this:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
managed to get it published, but suffice to say it is not recognised as a ‘proper science’.
NASA-JPL scientist (Dr. J. Dickey) sais: “…. Other possibilities are that some other (earth’s) core process, where magnetic field originates, could be having a more indirect effect on climate, or that an external (e.g. solar) process affects the core and climate simultaneously. ”
Does that mean that even if Willis E convincingly concludes “No solar magnetic cycle is evident in the climate data” , that in reality it isn’t so.
Yes it does.
This is possibly the longest comment I posted on any WUWT thread, so I do hope it gets through moderation. Thanks.
D.J. Hawkins
Iteration #3
Be creative
The tax structure TODAY is as you say. For the watermelons to have their way, you have to make hydrocarbon useage artificially expensive. Which means increasing costs way above today’s norms. If I drive 30 miles a day to and from work and get 30mpg I use 5 gallons of gas per week. Say my take home pay is $1,000 per week. At $3.50 per gallon, I’m spending $17.50 per week to earn $1,000. For myself, you’d probably have to push that to somewhere around $100 per week before I start looking to change how or what or how often I drive. YMMV, but that would require a tax structure boosting gas prices to $20.00 per gallon, or about 6x COGS. That’s not a “free” market anymore. The government is now driving the price structure, not producers and consumers. And you still haven’t dealt with the very likely occurance of favoritism in the tax structure.
Be responsive, be specific, or be gone.
D.J. Hawkins says: May 9, 2014 at 3:03 pm “I showed you the shortcomings of your flippant solution. Stick with the original paramaters or admit you weren’t nearly as clever as you thought.”
An argument from authority and without doxastic commitment (skin-in-the-game) is hardly clever, it is only argumentative. On the interwebz you can get anything you want, ‘ceptin’ Alice.
“A liberal is someone who is determined to reach into your shower and adjust the water temperature for you.” W.F. Buckley
She’s also someone who decides what type of transportation you need to use, and how much you should be paying for energy in order to [wait for it!] … Save The Planet.
From chuck on May 9, 2014 at 1:26 pm:
But it does result in the attention of Code Enforcement, who will be using energy and venting emissions to write you up for noncompliance, and fine you those hundreds of dollars you were saving to buy a more efficient appliance that would save you tens of dollars a year. So not mowing yields an increase and a lack of decrease in emissions.
Plus they may just have someone mow the grass for you at a penalizing rate, thus the emissions will occur anyway.
Why not cut your emissions by using an electric mower plugged into your solar panels? You won’t be mowing when it’s raining.
What sort of primitive backwater do you live in? Here in the modern world we have automatic pilotless ignition, cited for gas ranges as using 30% less gas than a standing pilot.
We could also have ranges with manual igniters for individual burners, as we do with backyard grills and small propane heaters, if the aesthetics can clear the marketing department.
Yes, there are still appliances like water heaters that have pilot lights, the low-end models. But if you care about the planet you’d have a tankless water heater, with automatic pilotless ignition, and stop heating water unnecessarily.
Of course, all this fussing about reducing emissions is just wallowing about until the real solution comes about, community-sized boxcar nuclear reactors. Automatic, sealed, fueled for twenty years, just drop them on a concrete pad and hook up the wires, until it’s time to swap in the replacement. Could be air cooled, but the heat could be used for local industries like food processing, or for supplying heating and hot water to the surrounding housing development.
Then the emissions will come WAY down. You’ll be happy.
D.J. Hawkins says:
May 9, 2014 at 3:22 pm
“The tax structure TODAY is as you say.”
Yes, and if you’d take a look at consumption patterns TODAY, you’ll note that with the higher price of the base commodity, we are consuming less oil TODAY than we were in 2006. Didn’t even have to change the tax structure to accomplish that !!!
– – – – – – –
D.J. Hawkins,
Yes, and . . .
John
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
“community-sized boxcar nuclear reactors. ”
Yup….your local terrorist can’t wait for the first one to be installed.
vukcevic says:
May 9, 2014 at 3:04 pm
Just correcting some errors:
Coronal mas ejection takes place, this carries much stronger magnetic field, up to 2% of the Earth;s field at poles.
No,more like 0.1%
energy discharge equivalent to a 6 magnitude earthquake, every few minutes.
No, every few hours, so two orders of magnitude less.
it contributes to splitting of the polar vortex
No, not at all.
NASA observations found that solar coronal mass ejections – CMEs in the even-numbered solar cycles tend to hit Earth more often with a leading edge
No, the 22-yr cycle in geomagnetic activity runs from maximum to maximum.
suffice to say it is not recognised as a ‘proper science’.
You are right, it is not.
(e.g. solar) process affects the core and climate simultaneously. ”
Solar processes cannot affect the core.
that in reality it isn’t so.
In few of your errors [which I have pointed out many times, to no effect] , I would go with Willis.
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
“automatic pilotless ignition,”
Currently available spare parts for existing equipment…
http://www.grainger.com/product/1RZY5?gclid=CLLipfz3n74CFY0WMgodIGcAtA&cm_mmc=PPC:GooglePLA-_-HVAC%20and%20Refrigeration-_-HVAC%20Controls-_-1RZY5&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=1RZY5&ef_id=U21c8wAABIjsM4VN:20140509225547:s
Current “How to Troublesoot” web guides.
.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/furnace-pilot-light-troubleshooting-53855.html
…
…
Keep in mind, “old” equipment is still in service. Contrary to your misconception, not everybody on this planet can afford the latest and greatest technology.
Which of course had nothing to do with the economy tanking and the persistant underemployment in the U.S. since then. Or the huge increase in natural gas supplies because of fracking and the displacement of oil as a fuel and chemical feed stock. And of course when the feds refuse to allow new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico, that can’t possibly have an effect on supply, can it? Despite which, oil production in the US is up from 5 million barrels per day in 2006 to 7.5 million barrels per day in 2013 and refinery capacity is up slightly from 17.3 to 17.7 mbpd 2006 to 2012. Also, since the price of gasoline at the pump in the US is flat to slightly down from 2010 to date, whatever reduction in oil consumption over THAT period is not the result of price pressure.
chuck says:
May 9, 2014 at 3:59 pm
It has a 24 volt connection. And if electric power goes out in your neighborhood so does your hot water.
@kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
May 9, 2014 at 3:27 pm
I had considered a tankless water heater for when my current tank dies. Not anymore, at least not until I have a generator to provide temporary power to at least a portion of my house. During Sandy, it was more than a might chilly in NJ. Because my “old” 40 gallon tank natural gas heater sported a gas standing pilot, I had hot water all through the outage. You cannot overestimate how good it feels to take a hot shower under those conditions if you’ve never been through them. A tankless heater needs electricity for the electronic ignition, and even if it has a standing pilot, it still has a flow switch and high temp cutout that won’t work without electricity. As far as I can tell, and by no means have I surveyed the entire market, if these devices don’t positively say it’s OK to fire up the gas, you won’t get hot water.
D.J. Hawkins says:
May 9, 2014 at 4:07 pm
I was talking about consumption.
You talk about production.
When prices go up, people consume less. That is what is evident in the data in the past eight years.
“whatever reduction in oil consumption over THAT period is not the result of price pressure.”
…
Actually, it is due to price pressure. It’s one of the reasons people are purchasing more fuel efficient vehicles, and the reason people are driving less. Unlike you, some people have had to adjust their lifestyles due to the effects of the recent financial crisis.