From PhysicsWorld blog: The cover feature of the August issue of Physics World, which is now out in print and digital formats, looks at the Sun – and in particular, at the consequences here on Earth of a “solar super-storm”. As I point out in the video [below], these violent events can disturb the Earth’s magnetic field – potentially inducing damaging electrical currents in power lines, knocking out satellites and disrupting telecommunications.
One particularly strong solar super-storm occured back in 1859 in what is known as the “Carrington event”, so named after the English astronomer who spotted a solar flare that accompanied it. The world in the mid-19th century was technologically a relatively unsophisticated place and the consequences were pretty benign. But should a storm of similiar strength occur today, the impact could be devastating to our way of life.
The feature has been written by Ashley Dale from the University of Bristol, who last year took part in a gathering of space experts to examine and report on the potential consequences of a solar super-storm here on Earth. I don’t want to cause alarm, but as Dale points out, the Earth is, on average, in the path of Carrington-level events every 150 years – which means we are five years overdue.
Reports:
SolarMAX_Executive summary Adobe Acrobat PDF
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SolarMAX_Final report.pdf Adobe Acrobat PDF
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“All bounds…of reason!” LOL! Well I’m totally there on the ‘entertaining’ part in terms of Vukcevic’s positions, Leif, as I would be, if queried, for the consistent rigour you demand of your interlocutors –
But I’m not so easily persuaded his positions are without merit. I’ve learned of late, that the Big G – the Gravitational Constant, isn’t all quite so, in all situations, and spent time trying to puzzle out Dr. Pierre-Marie Robittaille’s reported observations and commentary, and his pretty comprehensive invalidation of Kirchhoff’s Law of Thermal Emission – and given he’s pretty well the “Father” of the MRI I gotta sort of listen up, {as I try to do when YOU give complete explanations of your understandings} – so, of late, I’m being a little more careful about ‘assumptions’, be they in Basic and Established Physics, or anything else handed down from my Betters, from far Above my Station….
More on point – I’m at a lost, conceptually, trying to reconcile, without resort to arcane mathematics of which I don’t have a snowball’s chance in parsing, the existence of ‘electrojets’ crossing 10’s of lightyears, with your insistence on the ‘neutrality’ of the interplanetary (and I’d therefore assume, interstellar) mediums.
I’m also quite bemused (puzzled, encouraged) about your description of Comets as having ‘magnetotails’….I thought the ‘traditional understanding’ was that they were ‘dirty snowballs’, and that any such tails were simply ice sublimated to gaseous water, “heated by the Sun”….
Doesn’t them having ANY magnetic aspects imply that they are of different ‘charge’ than the environment they enter as they approach Old Sol? And that such ‘outgassing’ is much (MUCH) more likely a process of electrical ‘machining’ as they (the comets) attempt charge equalization?
I guess it’s obvious to you that for whatever bad juju I’ve been subjected to from your standpoint, ‘a little knowledge being a dangerous thing’, that 1) I enjoy the adrenalin rush of ‘intellectual danger’ and 2) I don’t quite accept that Space is “electrically neutral”, nor that magnetism can exist in absence of Current.
Hate to be a bother, but there you have it. Maybe I’m just a wannabe ‘smuggler’, in Vukcevic’s sense… 😉
This is not all quite without ‘practical purpose’, at least from my standpoint – arriving at the Truth of our situation in the Cosmos. Remember the old Space Elevator Concept? That given sufficient progress with graphite molecular bonding and the like, that a cable could be anchored somewhere on the equator, and we could simply lift payload into orbit rather than boosting it out of the ‘gravity well’? That had me all quite excited, until I learned about Red Sprites and Blue Jets in the upper reaches, and someone pointed out that such a thing might be quite akin to dropping a copper cable across a high tension transmission line. Not…wise.
Tiburon says:
August 6, 2014 at 2:22 pm
But I’m not so easily persuaded his positions are without merit.
Vuk has posted here for years. Not a single shred has had any merit whatsoever. He knows that.
I’m also quite bemused (puzzled, encouraged) about your description of Comets as having ‘magnetotails’
You can directly see the magnetotail [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_tail ]. It consists of ions carried away by the magnetic field of the solar wind.
I don’t quite accept that Space is “electrically neutral”
In space there is no resistance to electric currents, so any collection of charges of one sign next to [or at some distance from] a collection of charges with the opposite sign will instantly short out.
nor that magnetism can exist in absence of Current.
In a perfect conductor [and Space is very nearly that – having no resistance] any change of a magnetic field will induce an electric current that will oppose said change, so the magnetic field cannot change. That is why the magnetic field in the solar wind [having originated within the Sun] is still there throughout the solar system.
Maybe I’m just a wannabe ‘smuggler’, in Vukcevic’s sense…
Ignorance is one thing. Willful ignorance is worse. Which is yours?
Well I’d certainly HOPE the Former, Leif! I’m not dogmatic – I grew out of that 40 years ago when I came out of Enviromental Studies having been indoctrinated to (and made LIFE CHOICES BASED UPON), the Club of Rome “Limits to Growth” politicized science propaganda, and slowly woke up to the GIGO nature of the postulates. Then, now nearly two decades ago, I was guided by literally hundreds of hours reading papers on John Daly’s (RIP) Still Waiting For the Greenhouse and Wiki and science dictionaries to a lay understanding of how much a crock was the CAGW farrago. Long before “hockey sticks” and Gore Effect (or his BS movie, for that matter).
Caused a bit of ‘stress’ among my doctrinaire greenie intellectual friends, but what the hey. My instincts proved out well enough.
You’ve given me some solid ‘food-for-thought’ in your last comment, and I thank you; – and in respect of your time I ought to ruminate a bit before seeking more clarification – so will – but on one of your points: –
“In space there is no resistance to electric currents, so any collection of charges of one sign next to [or at some distance from] a collection of charges with the opposite sign will instantly short out” – doesn’t a Birkland Current carry a charge very different than the surrounding environment? Why doesn’t IT “short out”….
And what about the concept of ‘double layers’, electrical, in the Corona, and their explanatory power to account for the jump from 5000 C on the solar surface to 2M C a few kilometers (AU-speaking) above?
Leif – I don’t of course really understand what I’m looking at, but I DO watch the Sun, pretty well DAILY for 5 or 6 minutes, in various angstrom wavelengths, and DO examine sunspots for ‘magnetic mixing’ in pretty well real time, and DO check the BZ and Density and Speed readings of the solar ‘wind’ stream (ya, it’s not a ‘wind’), and the reaction of the various magnetic meters here on earth for response…again, daily, pretty well every day, and for a couple of years now!
I watch the world earthquake sites as well, and global storm visualizations, pressure, precipitation, etc etc, and I try to gain an ‘organic’ or ‘instinctual’ feel for the relationship between these things. [I’ll therefore likely see a Big One before 99% of the planet, – … not that it’s a high priority for me, as I don’t even have water set aside let alone a ‘go-kit’ or food/fuel – but probably should if only to help others – heck, we went through the Ice Storm here in Eastern Canada, I should know better]
This stuff is at the edge of my conceptual understandings – but I do maintain an interest in Science History, if not the machinations, and I believe I’ve read that near to the time that Hannes Alfen received his Nobel, and whom I believe you knew (?), “repented” of much of his earlier work with “magnetohydrodynamics” – and intimated that our fundamental understanding of the Sun needed full re-address. What’s a guy to ‘believe’, ignorance aside?
And then there’s Plasma. Which some say…exists…in space.
Tiburon says:
August 6, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Well I’d certainly HOPE the Former
Vuk subscribes to the latter. He [proudly?] says that he is a slow learner.
“In space there is no resistance to electric currents, so any collection of charges of one sign next to [or at some distance from] a collection of charges with the opposite sign will instantly short out” – doesn’t a Birkland Current carry a charge very different than the surrounding environment? Why doesn’t IT “short out”….
A Birkeland current is the shorting out of charges. It flows because the charges are replenished [by the solar wind].
And what about the concept of ‘double layers’, electrical, in the Corona, and their explanatory power to account for the jump from 5000 C on the solar surface to 2M C a few kilometers (AU-speaking) above?
The jump is not due to ‘double layers’, but probably to ‘nano flares’, millions of small ‘reconnection events’ of oppositely directed magnetic fields.
I believe I’ve read that near to the time that Hannes Alfen received his Nobel, and whom I believe you knew (?), “repented” of much of his earlier work with “magnetohydrodynamics”
His early ideas about MHD are still the firm foundation for most of space physics, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfv%C3%A9n_wave
What [my old friend] Alfven railed against was misuse of the concept. It is necessary that MHD breaks down in certain situations [e.g. when oppositely directed magnetic fields are pressed together by movements of the plasma], otherwise nothing interesting would ever happen. When MHD breaks down, electric currents flow and they are the cause of everything interesting, e.g. of the heating of the corona.
Tiburon says:
August 6, 2014 at 3:52 pm
And then there’s Plasma. Which some say…exists…in space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics) :
“Plasma is loosely described as an electrically neutral medium of positive and negative particles (i.e. the overall charge of a plasma is roughly zero).”
Again, thank you for your direct and comprehensive replies! This clarifies a lot for me – and some things are falling into their proper places, somewhat to my surprise! It also allows me some solid conceptual reference points to follow upon…
There are some others with whom I can correspond regarding the fundamentals you describe, and hopefully I can in my mind reach a form of ‘map’ of the territory and precisely where lie the points of contention…
I wish you a very good night!