Solar Minimum Explodes
9.15.2005
September 15, 2005: Just one week ago, on Sept. 7th, a huge sunspot rounded the sun's eastern limb. As soon as it appeared, it exploded, producing one of the brightest x-ray solar flares of the Space Age. In the days that followed, the growing spot exploded eight more times. Each powerful "X-flare" caused a shortwave radio blackout on Earth and pumped new energy into a radiation storm around our planet. The blasts hurled magnetic clouds toward Earth, and when they hit, on Sept 10th and 11th, ruby-red auroras were seen as far south as Arizona.
So this is solar minimum?
(rest at link...if you have the browser ability, you can play a neat movie of the flare by clicking on the picture to the right in the article)
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/15sep_solarminexplodes.htm?list87148September 14th 2005 EARTH CHANGES TV NEWSLETTER
Part II - Geomagnetic Storms and Human and Animal Behavior
by Mitch Battros – ECTV
An article published May 14, 2005 by AFP titled “Whale Strandings Linked to Solar Activity” brought world attention to a better understanding of just how much solar activity affects our home and ourselves. The article tells us: “Surges of solar activity may cause whales to run aground, possibly by disrupting the creatures' internal compasses, according to German scientists.” It has been hypothesized that humans also have an ‘internal compass,’ but perhaps not only to provide a sense of direction or whether it’s ‘day or night’ or ‘up or down,’ but also as part of human intuition.
The whale article goes on to state: “University of Kiel researchers Klaus Vaneslow and Klaus Ricklefs looked at sightings of sperm whales found beached in the North Sea between 1712 and 2003. They compared the record with another set of historical data - astronomers' observations of sunspots, an indicator of solar radiation. They found that more whale strandings occurred when the sun's activity was high.” In fact, they found that 90 percent of strandings happened when the length of the Solar Cycle was below average, which some scientists believe leads to a higher flux in solar radiation, and hence a greater distorting effect on Earth’s magnetic field. So the important thing is not sunspot count! , but intensity. Further, if the effect is indeed magnetic, then if you’ve read so far, you know that CME blasts are the real culprit.
Noting that homing pigeons and dolphins have an organ containing small crystals of magnetite that allows them to ‘see’ magnetic fields, the authors wonder, “It may be the same for whales. Sperm whales migrate long distances with very little visual clues as to where they are going. It would be unsurprising if they too had a magnetic sense.”
As an NADA certified acupuncturist, in March 2002, I attended our annual NADA Acupuncture Convention, held that year in Las Vegas, Nevada. I have been a practicing member of N.A.D.A. since 1995. At the 2002 convention I delivered a presentation on the Sun-Earth connection. Having a good understanding of magnetics and the human/animal grid, I am comforted in this practice which has been known for thousands of years indicating an energy which runs through all living things. The Chinese call it Chi or Qi; the Japanese call it Ki; in India, it’s called Prana, and of course Luke Skywalker called it “the force”.
In the practice of acupuncture, we are taught early on of the magnetic grid that surrounds and permeates the body. When this energy field is disturbed and becomes out of balance, it manifests as illness (both physical and mental). The very basis of acupuncture is the study of the human grid or energy field and its connection to our anatomy. The largest part of an acupuncturist’s study is identifying and defining the energy network through the human/animal body, made of meridians. Meridians are a network of bio-magnetic grids (energy points) that run through all living things. When the life force energy is out of balance, it manifest as illness. Depending on the ailment, an acupuncturist manipulates certain meridians to restore balance to the body and mind.
I believe it is the action of charged particles emitted from the Sun in the way of solar flares and CMEs, and interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field are the causes of our extreme weather disruption. I also believe this very same interchange has a direct effect on human/animal behavior. Could it be true there is an epidemic of human “mood and personality disorders” such as depression, anxiety, phobias, and addictions that could be attributed to a changing environment directly related to the Sun?
A shocking statistic indicates the world’s population has reached record-breaking consumption of pharmaceutical drugs, which tends to confirm this epidemic of mood and personality symptoms. Could magnetic shifts also be affecting humans as well?
Just as the Earth has its magnetic field, so do humans. It makes sense that what would certainly disrupt one would disrupt the other. Are we indeed connected to the Earth and universe in ways current science is just beginning to explain?
Equation:
Sunspots => Solar Flares => Magnetic Shift => Shifting Ocean and Jet Stream Currents => Extreme Weather and Human Disruption
Let’s look at the science behind this. First, scientists are aware of a strain of bacteria called magnetotactic bacteria whose internal bodies contain lodestone (magnetite). R. Blakemore, a researcher at the University of New Hampshire, discovered that, within their single-celled bodies, they create about 20 cubical crystals of magnetite, oriented along the axis of their body. They appear to use this to navigate in straight lines rather than go round in circles. Since then, magnetite-bearing organs have been found in homing pigeons, tuna, honey bees, dolphins and whales.
R. Aidan Martin, of the ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research (www.elasmo-research.org) reports on their website that in 1988, Dr, Margaret Klinowska of the Research Group in Mammalian Ecology and Reproduction of Cambridge University compared records of mass cetacean strandings in Britain and the United States against geomagnetic maps (which plot variations in the intensity of magnetic fields at the Earth’s surface caused by a variety of reasons, including differences in the underlying rock. On the maps, these variations appear as contour lines, with areas of high magnetism showing as ‘hills’ and areas of low magnetism as ‘valleys.’ Analysis revealed that most mass strandings occurred where the magnetic valleys were oriented perpendicular to the shore.
This discovery suggests that at least some whales navigate by following a magnetic map of the ocean floor in lieu of landmarks in the vast, dark ocean. There are regular magnetic variations in the oceans, and magnetic hills and valleys stretch for huge distances across the ocean floor. Possibly the whales use the magnetic contour lines in the same way we see roads on a map. These magnetic ‘freeways’ often follow continental shelves, but not always. Dr. Klinowska theorizes that whales may strand when they follow a magnetic road leading onto shore. She also suggests that solar activity can affect this pattern, possibly causing irregular fluctuations that ‘move the road.’ So whale mass strandings may be the magnetic equivalent of traffic accidents.
Martin goes on to speculate how whales sense Earth’s magnetic field. Studies in Germany suggest that cetacean retinas contain magnetite, making them sensitive to magnetic fields of an intensity consistent with geomagnetism, and may see the surrounding magnetic field superimposed on their field of view. It’s possible that they ‘see’ a magnetic field analogously to contours on a topographical map.
Earth’s magnetic field may provide several types of cues useful for navigation based on memories of previous migrations. This works well if things are stable from year-to-year, but things are not. Because of the displacement of magnetic poles from the rotational poles, there is a difference between true north and magnetic north. This variation slowly changes over time as the magnetic poles drift. In addition to these horizontal and vertical directional components, the geomagnetic intensity also increases with latitude, from about 0.3 gauss at the equator to about 0.7 gauss at the poles. (A few millennia ago, it was more like 5.0 gauss. For comparison, a typical therapeutic magnet has a field intensity of 10,000 gauss.)
Field intensity also decreases with distance from the Earth’s surface. In addition to these global features are localized magnetic anomalies depending on such things as iron content of surrounding rocks. On top of that, we have the push-pull effect of magnetic disturbances associated with solar activity. If a pod of whales migrates based on memory of a field like a road map, a magnetic storm could ‘move the roads around,’ and they end up crashing on the beach.
Other researchers speculate that as the whale moves through the Earth’s magnetic field, this movement generates tiny, micro-voltages in its body, which specialized organs detect.
In an article published Sept. 11th 2005 in the ‘Sunday Times – Britain’, which is put out by an “independent” company called Health Protection Agency, which is not associated with any official governing body, reports of recent studies showing human disruption due to electromagnetic fields. The report suggests people can suffer nausea, headaches, muscle pains, depression, anxiety, confusion, and compulsivity when exposed to electromagnetic fields from mobile phones, electricity pylons and computer screens. (I would add geomagnetic storms. mb). Some describe this new found condition as “electrosensitivity”, a heightened reaction to electrical energy, is currently being lobbied to become an acknowledged diagnosis.
A report by the unofficial “independent” Health Protection Agency (HPA), to be published next month, will state that increasing numbers of British people are suffering from the syndrome. While the total figure is not known, thousands are believed to be affected to some extent. The report, by the independent agency’s radiation protection division, acknowledge most doctors do not recognize the term “electrosensitivity” therefore would not know how to treat sufferers and that more research is needed. It will give a full list of the symptoms, which can include dizziness, irregular heartbeat and loss of memory, depression, anxiety, confusion, and compulsivity.
Although most European countries do not recognize the condition, we are hopeful Britain will follow Sweden where electrosensitivity was recognized as a physical impairment in 2000. About 300,000 Swedish men and women are sufferers.
=========================================================Solar Storms
By Sten Odenwald
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, March 10, 1999; Page H01
For thousands of years, the aurora borealis or "northern lights" have lit the skies and human imagination with ghostly incandescence. Most often seen in Arctic regions but occasionally visible as far south as the Mediterranean, they have inspired awe, fright and a fair measure of misunderstanding.
Tiberius Caesar mistook their red glows for a fire in progress and dispatched an army to Ostia in 34 A.D. to inspect damage. But until the 19th century, no one seriously thought that they could hurt anybody -- unless, as an Old Norse legend warned, you happened to whistle at one!
Now we know better. Technological advances have made it possible for auroras and other "storms" in space to make themselves felt in the form of power blackouts, satellite failures and even pipeline explosions.
Space weather generally varies with the 11-year sunspot cycle: the more sunspots, the more storms and the more voluminous the "solar wind," as scientists call the stream of charged particles that incessantly blows off the face of the sun. Already, we are well on the way to the next solar maximum, expected to peak next year.
The maximum usually coincides with an increase in two other kinds of extremely bad "space weather." In one, powerful solar flares hurl protons and electrons almost to the speed of light. That acceleration produces blasts of X-rays that radiate into space. Both the particles and radiation can disrupt short-wave communication on Earth.
Were that not enough, the sun also can spawn billion-ton clouds of plasma and their associated magnetic fields. Traveling at more than 1 million mph, some of these "coronal mass ejections" (CMEs) may arrive at the Earth in only a few days.
In many ways, they actually are more noxious than the more familiar solar flares. CMEs pummel Earth's magnetic field like a sledgehammer 1 million miles wide and upset the delicate balances of trapped particles in the Van Allen radiation belts and elsewhere within the boundaries of Earth's magnetic field. [See illustration below].
The first indication that space weather has worsened usually is a spectacular auroral display in Arctic regions. When the solar wind hits the Earth's magnetic field, electrons and protons inside the field are accelerated into currents that flow along the gossamer-thin magnetic field lines and converge on the polar regions.
As they enter the thickening atmosphere about 500 miles above our heads, the particles collide with atoms and molecules of oxygen and nitrogen, which shed their added energy as light, producing ethereal shapes and colors.
But that's not all. The motion of other populations of charged particles within Earth's magnetic field causes great currents of charged particles to circulate in space like a 10,000-mile-wide river. These invisible stratospheric rivers can alter the geomagnetic field temporarily and produce "magnetic storms."
Humanity began feeling the effects of the solar maximum as soon as technology became sophisticated enough to respond. During the late 1800s, vast networks of wires were strung to carry telegraph and telephone traffic, setting the stage for a giant-scale reenactment of one of history's most famous physics experiments.
English physicist Michael Faraday discovered in his lab that, if you take a magnet and move it near a loop of wire, electrical current flows in the wire. The moving field induced a corresponding motion of charge in the wire. Faraday's "magnetic induction" soon was put to use in the first electric generator.
Exactly the same thing happened when solar storms triggered changes in Earth's magnetism, affecting thousands of miles of telegraph wires. Electrical currents induced by the changing fields often were so powerful that telegraphers didn't need battery power to send their information. Some operators were even treated to near-electrocution!
Placing wires under the ocean made no difference. In the Atlantic cable between Scotland and Newfoundland, 2,600-volt surges were recorded during a magnetic storm in March 1940. Short-wave broadcasts often were blocked for hours, and "technical difficulties" were expected and even jokingly tolerated.
Some effects of solar storms were far beyond the nuisance level, especially at higher latitudes. In August 1972, a 230,000-volt transformer at the British Columbia Hydroelectric Authority blew up when shifting magnetic fields induced a current spike. On March 13, 1989, a storm plunged Quebec into a complete power blackout, affecting millions.
Over the years, such failures -- which follow the sunspot cycle -- have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
Earlier in this decade, the North American Electric Reliability Council, which oversees the entire U.S. electrical grid, estimated that a storm only slightly stronger than the one that hit Quebec could cascade into the United States. Such a disruption then would have cost the U.S. economy between $3 billion and $6 billion, about the damage inflicted by Hurricane Hugo in September 1989.
THE PIPELINE PROBLEM
Long uninterrupted pipelines also can bring solar storms "down to Earth." Magnetic storm currents acting on pipelines are known to enhance the rate of corrosion over time, with potentially catastrophic cumulative effects.
On June 4, 1989, a gas pipeline explosion demolished part of the Trans-Siberian Railway, engulfing two passenger trains in flames and killing 500 people.
Unlike the Siberian pipeline, the Alaskan oil pipeline built during the mid-1970s is a newer technology specifically designed to minimize corrosive currents now well known to modern pipeline engineers.
Since the last solar maximum in 1990, hundreds of millions of people have come to depend on flawless, reliable work by an armada of satellites worth tens of billions of dollars. They are increasingly vulnerable.
In orbit above the protective layers of the atmosphere, they are prey to potentially hazardous dosages of radiation. The most destructive element seems to be high-energy electrons that penetrate deep into a spacecraft and affect delicate electronics.
Data bits in critical control programs can change suddenly from "1" to "0" or vice versa. The resulting false commands can put satellites into unplanned, and even fatal, operating modes.
In addition, many satellites have attitude control systems that sense the direction of Earth's magnetic field to determine up from down. During magnetic storms, polarities can change abruptly, causing satellites to upend themselves.
The list of major satellites incapacitated by adverse space weather is long and costly. Recent examples include an AT&T Telstar 401 satellite that experienced a massive power failure in 1997 only days after a solar storm arrived at Earth.
Last May, PanAmSat's Galaxy IV satellite, insured for $165 million, mysteriously lost attitude control and halted service for 45 million pagers in North America. Several new Motorola Iridium satellites suffered attitude control failures about the same time. In 1998, satellite insurance companies paid $1.8 billion in claims, of which half was for satellite failures in orbit.
PERILS IN ORBIT
Space storms don't even have to take a direct swipe to harm a satellite. Many satellites are placed in low Earth orbit (LEO) only a few hundred miles above the surface. During heightened solar activity, the added energy puffs the atmosphere up like a balloon, increasing atmospheric friction on LEO objects.
One result has been the premature demise of such satellites as the Solar Maximum Mission in 1990 and Skylab in 1979.
The planned International Space Station, also designed for LEO, will have to be periodically reboosted in orbit to avoid the same fate. Its assembly will involve 1,200 hours of spacewalks, mostly between 2000 and 2002 during the peak of the sunspot cycle.
Atmospheric friction causes other headaches. During the Quebec blackout in March 1989, the U.S. Space Command had to recompute orbits for more than 1,300 objects affected by momentarily increased air resistance. Nonetheless, LEO is considered prime orbital real estate for the latest generations of communication satellite networks.
According to one estimate, as many as 1,000 new satellites will be launched between 1997 and 2007, virtually all in LEO. During the next six years, the demand for voice and data transmission services will increase substantially, and the fraction carried by satellite services will reach $80 billion a year.
With the next solar maximum nearly underway, many institutions are responding. To safeguard the power grid, electric companies have begun to hire space weather forecasters and use advanced warning of inclement geospace conditions.
Many new commercial satellites, however, may be more susceptible to solar storm damage than their less sophisticated predecessors only a decade older because they lack adequate shielding and radiation-hardened circuitry.
The type of shielding needed depends on where you are going and how long you want to keep working. In geosynchronous orbit about 22,500 miles above Earth where most communication satellites operate, the interior of a satellite equipped with as little as one-fourth of an inch of aluminum would receive about 1,000 rads (a unit of radiation dosage) a year.
As a rule, damage to sensitive electrical components becomes a problem at about 30,000 rads, considerably more than a satellite would accumulate in a typical 10- to 15-year lifetime.
For most satellites, the degree of shielding is a matter of cost. Shielding is dead weight, but launching it into space costs just as much as launching million-dollar technology -- an average of between $5,000 and $10,000 a pound. Thus, engineers design many satellites with the least amount of shielding and the most sophisticated and vulnerable technology possible.
PATCHWORK MODELS
How much shielding is enough? Engineers use mathematical models to estimate the total radiation dosage during a satellite's planned operating lifetime given the thickness of the spacecraft's skin, the kinds of particles involved and their energies. In the mid-1960s, NASA became a leader in developing and refining such models.
These older models do not factor in effects of solar flare events, which can produce a year's worth of radiation damage in a few days or less. Still, these models are used widely today.
Since the mid-1980s, NASA has invested millions of dollars in research satellites, and soon a new generation of more accurate models will be ready. In the interim, designers rely on a patchwork of older models to calculate shielding needs.
How the new armada of LEO satellites will survive the coming solar maximum is unknown.
If you hear about power outages or satellite failures over the next 18 months, don't blame El Nino. Instead, consider blaming ol' Mr. Sun. After all, he's been up to the same shenanigans for about 4 billion years.
Sten Odenwald is education and public outreach manager for NASA's IMAGE satellite program.
. . . Here comes the solar maximum
Earth has a magnetic field that presumably is generated by the flow of currents or conductive metals within its core and extends tens of thousands of miles into space.
When electrically charged particles from the sun hit that field, they are deflected sideways. The same principle is used in your television set to bend beams from the "electron gun" at the back of the picture tube so they strike different parts of the screen.
But when an event such as a solar flare bombards Earth with an abnormal amount of particles, previously trapped particles in distant parts of the geomagnetic field are accelerated. Those particles stream down the field lines into the polar regions.
But sometimes the particles form streams that generate their own magnetic fields. In that case, excellent conductors such as metals are subject to the induction effect, the principle that makes electric generators work.
The "alternator" in your car actually is a generator that charges the battery and supplies most of the electrical power. It consists of a rotating magnet (the rotor) surrounded by a dense coil of wire (the stator). The coil of wire on the rotor is energized by an electrical current from the voltage regulator so the rotor acts like a small electromagnet.
When the rotor spins at several thousand revolutions per minute, its changing magnetic field induces electrical energy to flow in the coils of wire in the stator.
In the same way, solar storms produce changing magnetic fields that can induce current flow in power lines and other conductors.
Human flesh is a partial electrical conductor. Otherwise, nerves and muscles wouldn't work. But the threat to people comes from what high-energy radiation and particles can do to DNA.
High-energy particles such as protons and neutrons can collide with the atoms that make up the DNA molecule, breaking chemical bonds and potentially causing errors to appear in genetic information. Because people are constantly surrounded by radiation from the ground, air and food, some of this damage cannot be avoided.
Outside the bulk of Earth's atmosphere, however, the risk rises dramatically. Astronaut Shannon Lucid reported that, on the Russian Mir space station, the typical radiation dosage was the equivalent of about eight daily chest X-rays. During a solar storm at the end of 1990, Mir cosmonauts received a full year's dosage in a few days.
The maximum career dosage for radiation is about 400 rem. A rem is a unit of radiation that measures the amount of energy delivered to organic material. A single chest X-ray produces about .06 rem of radiation dosage, and our natural background environment supplies about .35 rem each year.
Major solar flares can deliver from 100 to several thousand rems in a few hours or days for an astronaut inside a spacesuit. That would lead to radiation sickness, and in extreme cases, death. Space station construction workers caught off-guard during even minor flares would be grounded for several years after such an encounter.
Incidentally, you don't have to be in low Earth orbit to be affected.
Although the atmosphere protects most airline flights well from space radiation, transcontinental flights taking the polar route pass through regions of Earth's magnetic field where particles become concentrated.
Airline flight crews who travel these routes frequently can accumulate as many as .9 rem a year. This is more than the allowed annual dosages for nuclear plant operators and comparable to what shuttle astronauts receive during a typical one-week mission.
Blowing Up a Storm
When currents flow -- or, more generally, whenever electrically charged objects move -- they create magnetic fields.
You can observe the effect by hooking one end of a copper wire to a battery, making a couple of loops and then holding the free end near the other battery terminal. Set a compass next to the loops. When you touch the wire to the terminal, allowing current to flow, the compass needle will twitch, registering the magnetic field you have created.
Currents also flow in the sun. Although an ordinary atom is electrically neutral, the temperature inside the sun is hot enough to strip electrons off atoms, producing a stew of negatively charged electrons and positively charged atomic nuclei called a plasma.
These plasmas boil like oatmeal in a pot, heated by the 15 million-degree nuclear hot plate deep in the core. As they rise toward the surface, they cool and begin to sink in a process called convection. Convection currents take up nearly one-third of the outer portion of the sun.
By means still unknown, rivers of charged particles sometimes generate powerful magnetic fields that loop like gigantic ropes and sometimes push to the surface. When they emerge, they create sunspots.
We see these as dark spots because intense magnetic fields stifle local convective flow of energy from the interior, making gases in the spots about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the surrounding solar surface, which is about 10,400 degrees. As a result, the spots -- typically the diameter of Earth or larger -- appear relatively dark, although they actually are brighter than the full moon.
Sunspot fields become more or less numerous on a cycle that averages 11 years from a minimum of a few to a maximum of nearly 200. No one knows why it's that particular span of time. But it seems to be associated with the predictable reversal of the sun's magnetic field: Every 10 to 12 years, north becomes south, and south becomes north.
Observers do know very well that periods of high sunspot activity produce a much greater volume of "solar wind," the spray of atomic nuclei, electrons and other particles that are blown off the sun's surface at about 1 million mph and eventually arrive at Earth.
Ordinarily, the wind isn't very strong, averaging about 80 particles per cubic inch. Every few weeks or so during peak years of solar activity, the sun hurls clouds of particles into space. These can double or triple the density of the solar wind near Earth for hours or days.
These "coronal mass ejections" and their more fleeting companions, "solar flares," appear to be more common during sunspot maximum periods.
Maranatha!
Deborah
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