Scientists Say Destructive Solar Blasts Narrowly Missed Earth in 2012

Mary Greeley

Massive solar eruption from the Sun captured in NASA time-lapse video

ITN

'Earth will have 15 minutes to protect electronics'

wnd/ By F. Michael Maloof

WASHINGTON – Scientists around the globe are joining those in the United States in becoming alarmed at the possibility of a plasma cloud from a solar superstorm that could wipe out vast electronics networks, because they say Earth would have only a notice of about 15 minutes.

U.S. space scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrator and the National Aeronautic Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center have been expressing concern over what is fast becoming a “solar storm maximum.”

And the alarms now are going off globally, with expressions of concern from European Union interests, the European Space Agency and Great Britain’s Royal Academy of Engineering, which is urging the British Space Weather Board to help that nation prepare for a massive solar flare.

“Our message is, don’t panic, but do prepare – a solar superstorm will happen one day and we need to be ready for it,” said Professor Paul Cannon who chaired the Academy’s working group.

Given the intensity of the increasing flare spewing from the sun’s surface, experts agree that scientists would have only 15 minutes of warning of an intense solar flare – a huge plasma cloud of charged particles that can become a nightmare to unguarded electronics on earth.

Right now, scientists are relying on an ageing satellite called ACE – Advanced Composition Explorer which provides the 15 minutes heads-up.

The concern has been rising as the sun continues spewing out new, massive flares even as Earth moves closer into alignment with the gigantic sun spots producing those flares.

This increased solar activity is occurring as sun spots multiply on the sun’s surface during what is expected to be its most active period, 2012-2013, in its 11-year cycle.

But scientists are worried the ACE satellite could fail, and replacement, called Discover, isn’t expected to be launched by NASA until 2014.

Europe’s ability to monitor space weather is not comprehensive, so radiation monitors and other devices are being added to as many satellites as possible as scientists seek ways to monitor such threats as closely as possible.

Europe has a number of ground-based measurement systems, including magnetometers, neutron monitors, GPS receivers and ionosondes. Some 20 European countries provide ground-based space weather measurements, with France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom contributing to reports at the European Space Weather Portal website.

According to Michael Hapgood, who heads the Space Environment at STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom, the infrastructure for the European space weather community provides valuable information to the space science and engineering community.

However, it also has a number of weaknesses, he said, in which the programs are fragmented, there is limited awareness among decision-makers who ultimately control budgets, poor quality of programs are offered and some still regard space weather as a part of astronomy.

To Hapgood, there also are threats to developing useful information. Because of fragmentation of the programs, it leads to piecemeal funding cuts. Space weather products also compete with other areas of astronomy and many, he said, view space between the planets as empty and therefore harmless.

Since satellites are integral to the infrastructure of the U.S., space weather data becomes critically important to anticipate anomalies and potential failures of the satellites. It also is the first step in making the satellites more resistant to such space weather events.

Indeed, numerous studies have shown a correlation of satellite anomalies with space weather. Most anomalies have occurred during periods of space storms. For example, anomalies experienced in 2003 occurred during the October 2003 Halloween storms.

Richard Fisher, NASA heliophysicist, warns about the damages that solar flares, CME, EMP can cause to Earth.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/earth-will-have-15-minutes-to-protect-electronics/#I3AJpUhozOQQ8gFK.99

Last Night: Sun grows super-hot 'dragon tail' in amazing NASA video

By Tariq Malik

Jan. 31, 2013: A huge filament of super-hot plasma, nicknamed the "Dragon Tail," erupts from the sun in this still image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. (NASA SDO)

A NASA spacecraft studying the sun has recorded amazing video of a giant plume of super-hot plasma erupting from the star's surface, only to crash back down hours later.
The solar plasma eruption, which NASA scientists nicknamed a "Dragon Tail," rose up from the sun's surface Thursday and was spotted by the agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a powerful spacecraft that constantly records the sun's weather in different wavelengths of light.

'Some of the plasma was released into space but not all could escape the gravitational pull of the sun.'

- Solar Dynamics Observatory mission officials

A video of the Dragon Tail solar eruption shows a tendril of solar plasma, which scientists call a "filament," extending across the northeastern face of the sun over the course of four hours. Near the end of the event, the filament begins to break apart.
"Some of the plasma was released into space but not all could escape the gravitational pull of the sun," SDO mission officials explained in a video description. "It's not surprising that plasma should fall back to the sun. After all, the sun's gravity is powerful. "
Filaments are plasma formations on the sun sculpted by the star's intense magnetic field, with one end anchored to the sun's surface. The other end can extend through the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, hundreds of thousands of miles into space.
Filament structures typically last about a single day, though stable ones can exist for months at a time, SDO officials explained. The plasma in filaments consists of super-hot helium and hydrogen that is electrically charged, they added.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is one of several spacecraft constantly monitoring the sun for signs of solar flares, eruptions and other space weather events. The sun is currently in an active phase of its 11-year solar weather cycle and is expected to reach its peak activity period in 2013. The current sun weather cycle is known as Solar Cycle 24.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/01/sun-grows-super-hot-dragon-tail/?intcmp=features#ixzz2Jh9hdCrQ

Report shows UN admitting solar activity may play significant role in global warming

foxnews

By Maxim Lott, Charles Couger

The Earth has been getting warmer -- but how much of that heat is due to greenhouse gas emissions and how much is due to natural causes?
A leaked report by a United Nations’ group dedicated to climate studies says that heat from the sun may play a larger role than previously thought.
“[Results] do suggest the possibility of a much larger impact of solar variations on the stratosphere than previously thought, and some studies have suggested that this may lead to significant regional impacts on climate,” reads a draft copy of a major, upcoming report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The man who leaked the report, StopGreenSuicide blogger Alec Rawls, told FoxNews.com that the U.N.’s statements on solar activity were his main motivation for leaking the document.

'The main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself.'

- StopGreenSuicide blogger Alec Rawls

“The public needs to know now how the main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself,” Rawls wrote on his website in December, when he first leaked the report.
Rawls blames the U.N. for burying its point about the effect of the sun in Chapter 11 of the report.
“Even after the IPCC acknowledges extensive evidence for ... solar forcing beyond what they included in their models, they still make no attempt to account for this omission in their predictions. ... It's insane,” he told FoxNews.com.
Some skeptical climatologists say that the statement in the U.N. draft report is important, but not game-changing.
“The solar component is real but not of sufficient magnitude to have driven most of the warming of the late 20th century,” Pat Michaels, the former president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and current director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, told FoxNews.com.
The U.N. report also says that the effect of solar activity will be “much smaller than the warming expected from increases in [man-made] greenhouse gases.”
An estimate from NASA said that solar variations caused 25 percent of the 1.1 degree Fahrenheit warming that has been observed over the past century.
But Michaels said that if the U.N. increases its estimates about how much the sun affects Earth’s temperatures, it might help the U.N. get its prediction models back on track. While the Earth warmed over the last two decades, it did so more slowly than the U.N. had predicted.
“Climate science has the problem of trying to explain why we are now in our 17th year without a significant warming trend. As a result, you are seeing many forecasts of warming for this century being ratcheted down,” he said.
Others say that the focus on solar activity distracts from the big picture -- the fact that the Earth is warming.
“I see climate contrarians try this trick almost every time a big new solar study comes out. They somehow tend to neglect mentioning that solar variation is smaller than the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide,” Aaron Huertas of the Union of Concerned Scientists told FoxNews.com.
To back that up, Huertas points to data that show that solar activity and temperature rose together from 1880 until 1960, but that then, solar activity stopped increasing -- even as temperatures continued going up.
“The basic evidence is that solar activity has varied a bit while global temperature keeps going up,” Huertas said.
But Rawls said that while solar activity has indeed stopped increasing, the important thing is that it remains at a historically high level.
“The simplest way to put it is: If you put a pot on the stove at the maximum temperature, and leave it on at that temperature -- are you telling me that the pot won’t keep warming?”
Rawls worries that if solar activity falls, the effects could be dire.
“Unlike warming, cooling really is dangerous, regularly dropping the planet into hundred-thousand-year-long glacial periods.”
NASA has said that there is evidence that the most recent “Little Ice Age” was caused by a dip in solar activity.
“Almost no sunspots were observed on the sun's surface during the period from 1650 to 1715. This extended absence of solar activity may have been partly responsible for the Little Ice Age in Europe,” during which temperatures were colder by about 1.8 degrees F than they are today, he said.
But Huertas said that’s not what we should worry about at a time when the effects of warming are already being felt.
“Climate change is affecting weather all across the planet and when it comes to extreme weather, the strongest links are to coastal flooding [and] heat waves,” Huertas said.
“While climate skeptics are arguing on the Internet about drafts of the report, states like New York and New Jersey are working to help people rebuild their homes in ways that have a better chance of surviving more destructive storms and flooding in the future,” he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/01/report-show-un-admitting-solar-activity-may-play-significant-role-in-global/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2Jh7Qkzjl

Solar storm bombarding Earth today

 

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Sun points a loaded gun in our direction

NASA / SDO

An "intensitygram" from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the double-barreled sunspot active region 1416 pointing toward Earth.

By Alan Boyle

As solar activity builds toward an expected peak in 2013, a double-barreled sunspot has been doubling in size over the past couple of days and now has the potential to shoot significant eruptions in our direction.

It's not certain that active region 1416 will erupt with coronal mass ejections as violent as the blasts that were thrown off by the sun late last month. But it has developed a mixed "beta-gamma" magnetic field that packs enough energy to throw off medium-scale solar flares, SpaceWeather.com reports.

"Any such eruptions this weekend would be Earth-directed as the sunspot turns to face our planet," SpaceWeather's Tony Phillips wrote.

Medium-size M-class flares are generally associated with the kinds of solar storms that produce enhanced auroral lights, but not huge inconveniences on Earth. It's the X-class flares you really have to watch out for: That level of solar storming could affect radio communications as well as satellites and electrical grids if the operators of those systems aren't careful.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have a wide array of space assets monitoring the sun, and for now all's quiet on the solar front. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center reported some problems tracking the Advanced Composition Explorer, a satellite that plays a key role in tracking solar storms, but those problems are expected to go away as ACE's orientation with respect to the sun improves. More >>

Solar blast heading our way

By Alan Boyle

The sun has unleashed a blast in Earth's direction, and that should cause brighter-than-normal auroral displays this weekend. Skywatchers won't be the only ones monitoring the storm: The folks in charge of power grids and orbiting satellites will also be on guard to make sure the disturbance in the (geomagnetic) force won't be disruptive.

Word of today's blast, technically known as a coronal mass ejection or CME, comes via SpaceWeather.com's Tony Phillips. NASA says the outburst sparked an M3.2-class solar flare, as well as a stream of electrically charged particles that is due to interact with Earth's magnetic field on Saturday. "Viewers can be on the lookout for increased aurora," NASA says.

M-class flares are capable of causing brief radio blackouts near the poles as well as minor radiation storms, but it's unlikely that this one will disrupt communication or power transmission networks. The forecast would be different if it were an X-class storm heading our way. As the sun approaches the peak of its 11-year activity cycle in 2013 or so, we can expect to see more powerful solar outbursts.  More >>

Epic Light Show Flashes Above U.S.

Discovery News
Right this moment, there's an epic magnetic battle raging above our heads.
On Monday, at around 2 p.m. ET, a coronal mass ejection (CME) slammed into the Earth's magnetosphere. According to NASA's Space Weather Laboratory, the conditions were just right for the CME's magnetic field to compress the Earth's magnetosphere so much that, for a short time (between 3:06 p.m and 3:11 p.m. ET), energetic solar wind particles penetrated as deep as geosynchronous orbit -- home to hundreds of communication satellites.
ANALYSIS: Epic Aurora Caught Cross Country -- Share YOUR photos of the aurora!
Although the interactions between solar plasma and Earth's magnetic field are often invisible, tonight is an exception. Vast aurorae are rippling through the atmosphere at very low latitudes.
At time of writing, the US was being given a dazzling show as Spaceweather.com reports:

Northern Lights have spilled across the Canadian border into the contiguous USA. Sighting reports have come from as far south as Arkansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Maryland, New York, Ohio and central California.

Yes, central California! To see some of the auroral displays, the Universe Today has a few reader's photos featured. My personal favorite is an earlier photograph taken in Norway.


More >

New solar cycle prediction - #NASA

An international panel of experts, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, in English) and sponsored by NASA, has issued a new forecast for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will its maximum, say, in May 2013 with a sunspot number below average.

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a maximum of 90 spots, the lowest number of all cycles counted since 1928, when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 70 spots," says the head of the panel, Doug Biesecker of the Center for Space Weather Forecasts (Space Weather Prediction Center, in English) from NOAA.

It is tempting to describe a cycle of these characteristics as "weak" or "soft", but that might give the wrong impression.

"We still remain below average, any solar cycle is capable of producing severe space weather," notes Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, took place during a solar cycle of the same size as we're predicting for 2013."

The storm that occurred in 1859, known as the "Carrington Event" in honor of the astronomer Richard Carrington, who witnessed this tremendous solar flare electrified transmission lines, caused fires in telegraph offices and produced Northern Lights so bright you could read the newspaper in its light reddish-green.

A recent report provided by the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that if a similar storm occurred today could cause between 1 and 2 billion dollars in damage to the infrastructure of our highly technological society, and lead to four to ten years to achieve full recovery. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused damage "only" 80 to 125 billion dollars.

Above: This chart represents the number of sunspots shows the maximum intensity measured in the last cycle, in blue, and the maximum intensity predicted for the next cycle in red. Credit: Center for Space Weather Prediction / NOAA. [More]

The latest forecast is based on a review of an earlier prediction, made ​​in 2007. That year, a panel of experts, divided into two positions, believed that solar minimum would occur in March 2008, followed by a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak peak in 2012. Competing models gave different answers and researchers were eager to know which is nearer the Sun

"It happened that neither of the two models was quite correct," says Dean Pesnell of Goddard Space Flight Center, who was the NASA representative in that panel. "The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting."

Researchers have known of the solar cycle from mid-1800. The graphs represent the number of sunspots counted since those days are like a roller coaster, up and down with a period of approximately 11 years.

At first glance, seems to be a regular pattern, but predicting the peaks and valleys has proved problematic. Cycles vary in length between approximately 9 and 14. Some peaks are high, others low. The valleys are usually short, lasting only a couple of years, but sometimes spread and become much longer. In the 17th century, the sun sank into a period of 70 years with no stains, which is known today as the Maunder Minimum, and still baffles scientists.

Above: The average number of sunspots per year between 1610 and 2008. Researchers believe that the newly launched Solar Cycle 24 will be similar to the cycle that peaked in intensity in 1928, indicated with a red arrow on the graph. Credit: NASA / MSFC

Right now, the solar cycle is in a valley - the deepest in the last century. In 2008 and 2009, the sun has broken records of the Space Age for the lowest amount of spots, weak solar wind and the low solar irradiance. It has been more than two years that the Sun emits a solar flare of significant size.

"In our careers, we had never seen anything like it," says Pesnell. "Solar minimum has lasted much longer than the date predicted in 2007."

In recent months, however, the sun has begun to show signs of life, but very timid. Small spots and "proto-spots" sun begin to appear more frequently. Huge plasma flows on the solar surface (known as " flow zone ") begin to increase in intensity and move slowly toward the solar Ecuador. Radio astronomers have detected a small but significant increase in solar emissions in radio waves. All these things are the precursors of an awakening of Solar Cycle 24 and form the basis of new and nearly unanimous forecast provided by the panel of scientists.

According to the forecast, the sun should remain calm for at least another year. From the standpoint of research, that's good news because solar minimum has proved more interesting than anyone had imagined.

The low solar activity has a profound effect on the Earth's atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract. The debris accumulates in orbit around the Earth because there is less aerodynamic drag. The quiet storm produces less solar wind around the magnetic poles of Earth. Cosmic rays are usually bounced by the solar wind, slip instead into the near-Earth environment. There are other side effects, too, that can only be studied under the sun remains quiet.

Meanwhile, the Sun cares little human committees. There could be more surprises, the panelists agree, and thus more forecast revisions.

"Go ahead and mark your calendar for May 2013," says Pesnell. "But mark it in pencil."

Source: Science & NASA

Armageddon or Hot Air? Earth braced for 'Strongest Sun Storm'

Our planet is gearing up for its largest magnetic storm in years - which is due to arrive later on Friday. A number of scientists have warned of a possible technological disaster, while some people are taking the precaution of staying away from electrical appliances like TVs, kettles and toasters.