MONUMENTAL SOLAR SYSTEM ANOMALIES: Welcome To The Quiet Sun - Solar Cycle 24 Activity Continues To Be The Lowest In NEARLY 200 YEARS!

February 12, 2016 - SUN - It has been a couple of months since WUWT has checked in on the progress of solar cycle 24. Right now, the sun is in “cue ball” mode, with no large visible sunspots as seen above in the most recent Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) photo.


Since there is a new analysis out at Pierre Gosselin’s website by Frank Bosse and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, I thought it would be a good time to do an update. They write:

[The sun was] rather quiet in January. The determined solar sunspot number (SSN) was 56.6, which is 71% of the mean this far into the period, calculated using the 23 previously measured solar cycles.

Figure 1: Plot of the monthly sunspot number so far for the current cycle (red line) compared to the mean solar cycle (blue line)
and the similar solar cycle no. 5 (black).

The earlier peak occurring at month number 35 (fall 2011) signaled the time of the SSN maximum at the sun’s northern hemisphere. The later peaks occurring at about month no. 68 (mid 2014) are the SSN maximum for the sun’s southern hemisphere.

They also have a prediction, read about it here. Full report (in German) here.

As you can see from the plots in Figure 1, the current level of activity of solar cycle 24 seems close to that of solar cycle number 5, which occurred beginning in May 1798 and ending in December 1810 (thus falling within the Dalton Minimum).

The maximum smoothed sunspot number (monthly number of sunspots averaged over a twelve-month period) observed during the solar cycle was 49.2, in February 1805 (the second lowest of any cycle to date, as a result of being part of the Dalton Minimum), and the minimum was zero.(ref: Wikipedia)

Below is what the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has offered this month. Sunspot count continues below the red prediction line. 10.7 cm radio flux is about at the prediction level, and the Ap geomagnetic index continues to rise, suggesting that the solar magnetic dynamo might be a bit more active, but that activity isn’t translating into increased sunspots or radio flux.

Sunspot Number Progression

F10.7cm Radio Flux Progression

AP Progression

As always, there’s more at the WUWT Solar Reference Page - WUWT.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: Collapsing Magnetosphere And Magnetic Polar Migration - Northern Lights Head South As Geomagnetic Storm Reveals Aurora Borealis In Central Russia!

Aurora in Mikhailovsky District of the Ryazan Region.  © RIA Novosti/Igor Podgornyi

March 19, 2015 - RUSSIA - An abnormal atmospheric phenomenon was visible throughout the relevantly low latitude of central Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg on Tuesday. A powerful geomagnetic storm promises to continue for a second day, also including an aurora.

Witnesses and amateur astronomers have been busily posting photos and videos of this atmospheric event - so rarely seen in Central Russia - on blogs and social media.

As a rule, the aurora borealis is visible in regions close or above the Polar Circle, for example in Russia's Arctic city of Murmansk.

© www.moveinfo.ru

But sometimes extremely powerful solar flares cause this atmospheric phenomenon to be visible in much lower altitudes, as is the case now.

Auroras on the North and South Poles of our planet are caused by solar winds, when charged particles such as electrons and protons enter and exit the gases of Earth's atmosphere, thus causing ionization, which manifests in optical emissions.

Russia's Institute of Applied Geophysics reported that geomagnetic field disturbance began at about 13:00 GMT on Tuesday.

According to the Laboratory of X-ray Astronomy of the Sun, geomagnetic field variations were surging throughout the day.

Russia's weather forecasting service says the geomagnetic field disturbance is set to continue for two more days.

"The areas with highest probability of [seeing] the aurora borealis are the north of Eurasia, including Scandinavia and the northern part of the Baltic Sea," the forecasters said.

Residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg are likely to see the Northern Lights for a second night.


WATCH: Stunning auroras over Russia.

The previous night unusual polar lighting was easily visible in many cities across the Central Russia, including Arkhangelsk, Bryansk, Ivanovo, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Petrozavodsk, Tula, Vologda and Ekaterinburg, and in neighboring Belarus. - RT.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: Collapsing Magnetosphere And Magnetic Polar Migration - Severe Geomagnetic Storm Lights Up New Zealand's Sky!

© Liz Carlson

March 19, 2015 - NEW ZEALAND - A severe geomagnetic storm has whipped through Earth's magnetosphere, putting on a light show at both ends of the earth.

The storm, which began on Tuesday, is among the strongest in the current 11-year solar cycle, earning a rating of a "severe" G4 on a one-to-five scale, which means it had the potential to affect power grids, high-frequency communications and satellite operations.

Interestingly, there was no radiation storm, which typically accompanies geomagnetic storms of this magnitude. Therefore, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center was not expecting disruption to satellite electronics or polar-routed aviation.

But the changes in density in the ionosphere - the very high levels of Earth's atmosphere - could cause more drag on low-orbit satellites, which operators may have to adjust for with thrusters. Simple GPS technology, like the kind in your car or on your smartphone, could be affected in the form of difficulties locating your position.

The Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, in the sky at Himatangi Beach on Tuesday night, March 17. © Stephen Chadwick

The solar wind was not particularly fast, but it was potent enough to cause the severe geomagnetic storm, according to Joe Kunches, director of space weather services at Atmospheric and Space Technology Associates.

Quick & Dirty all sky timelapse of last night's Aurora Australis over Dunedin. https://t.co/grEmccCUTt #Dunedin #aurora

— Ian Griffin (@iangriffin) March 17, 2015

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Green from space. We have @Space_Station aurora views:

No items found.

https://t.co/UG1x2YutsO pic.twitter.com/FBpXJ5OIhd

— NASA (@NASA) March 17, 2015

Rendering 300 frames takes a while doesn't it! Meanwhile, here's another still from last night. #Dunedin #aurora pic.twitter.com/KWqHLnrEjA

— Ian Griffin (@iangriffin) March 17, 2015

There's a stunning aurora over Crowborough, East Sussex tonight. The view from the Wetherspoons car park is magical. pic.twitter.com/nLfMzMGqNg

— Nick Harvey (@mrnickharvey) March 17, 2015

Solar storm smacks Earth, pushes northern lights — so more people can enjoy colorful sky show http://t.co/7ESH5nGvHD pic.twitter.com/Dvi3SZtwLB

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 17, 2015

The storm's strength came as somewhat of a surprise to forecasters and was probably caused by the combination of two coronal mass ejections from an active sunspot region, forecasters at the prediction centre said.

Space weather models predicted just a "glancing blow" from these ejections, which instead have caused a stronger disruption here on Earth, and vivid auroras.

Sunspots full of high magnetic energy frequently explode and send plumes of radiation called solar flares into space. When these flares and the super-heated plasma that can accompany them interact with Earth's magnetic field, radioactive energy sometimes makes it into the Earth's upper atmosphere.

These particles can interfere with radio communications and global positioning systems, and when strong enough, they can even harm the electrical grid. But they do have at least one positive effect: The impact of the particles with the upper atmosphere creates a beautiful glow that we know as the northern lights.

Because the Earth's magnetic field funnels charged particles from these solar storms towards its poles, polar regions are much more likely to be affected by them. That's why the auroras are most frequently seen at the poles and rarely make it to North America, as they have this week.

Solar cycles are periodic changes in the sun's activity, including the number of sunspots and solar flares, that have an average duration of about 11 years. They are marked by solar maximums and minimums. The sun is currently close to the solar maximum of this cycle, which began on January 4, 2008, and likely peaked in April 2014.

The Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ranks the intensity of geomagnetic storms on a G-scale of one to five, with five being the strongest. According to the centre, on average around 100 G4-magnitude storms occur every solar cycle. This is the first G4 storm since the fall of 2013. There hasn't been a G5 storm - the strongest on the scale - since August 2005.

The current storm is in season, so to speak, since they are most common around the equinoxes.

Research as to why solar storms are more common and severe around the equinoxes is still ongoing, but it most likely has to do with the way the Earth's position relative to the sun changes. The Earth's orientation changes what parts of its magnetic field are interacting with the sun's, making those interactions more volatile.

North Island Aurora

Central North Island residents were seeing pink as the Southern Lights, or Aurora Australis, lit up the sky.

The Aurora Australis is usually only visible in southern New Zealand but was clear in the skies over Himatangi Beach in the Manawatu when resident Steve Chadwick snapped some pictures before midnight.

Chadwick, who teaches astronomy and philosophy at Massey University and dabbles in astrophotography, said he was out taking pictures from about 9pm.

"You need a dark sky away from the city lights and you have to be able to have a long exposure," he said.

"At this latitude they're a lot fainter than in the pictures but at best you could see faint red."

As someone who's lived in the Manawatu for most of his life, this was only the second time he'd ever seen the lights so it was a special moment, he said.

Travel blogger Liz Carlson captured the stunning sky from Wanaka. "Last night you could see beams of light dancing over the mountains around Wanaka and you had every colour visible, red, yellow, pink purple and green. It was pretty spectacular to see. This was shot with a 15 second exposure from Eely Point looking over Lake Wanaka around 11pm."

Palmerston North Astronomical Society president Jeremy Moss said the colourful light phenomena was caused by charged particles, like protons, neutrons, ions and electrons, being released from the sun and hitting the Earth's atmosphere.

"The closer you are to the pole, so north and south, the more likely you are to see it," he said.

"We don't see it very often in the north of New Zealand unless there's some pretty serious solar activity going on so we were pretty lucky last night."

He said the lights were reasonably common in Southland and they usually didn't last for more than several minutes. - Stuff.

THE ELECTRIC UNIVERSE: The "Elephant In The Room" - Giant Veil Of "Cold Plasma" Discovered High Above Earth, Clouds Of Charged Particles Stretch A Quarter The Way To The Moon!

February 03, 2013 - EARTH - Clouds of "cold plasma" reach from the top of Earth's atmosphere to at least a quarter the distance to the moon, according to new data from a cluster of European satellites. Earth generates cold plasma—slow-moving charged particles—at the edge of space, where sunlight strips electrons from gas atoms, leaving only their positively charged cores, or nuclei.

An artist's rendering of ESA's Cluster II spacecraft in orbit. Illustration courtesy J. Huart, ESA.

Researchers had suspected these hard-to-detect particles might influence incoming space weather, such as this week's solar flare and resulting geomagnetic storm. That's because solar storms barrage Earth with similar but high-speed charged particles. Still, no one could be certain what the effects of cold plasma might be without a handle on its true abundance around our planet. "It's like the weather forecast on TV. It's very complicated to make a reasonable forecast without the basic variables," said space scientist Mats André, of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics. "Discovering this cold plasma is like saying, Oh gosh, there are oceans here that affect our weather," he said.

The Trick to Finding Cold Plasma
Researchers already knew that some cold plasma existed in the ionosphere, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth's surface. But few researchers had looked for the clouds between 12,400 and 60,000 miles (20,000 and 100,000 kilometers) high. André and his colleague Chris Cully suspected the plasma could be out there, but they knew the positive charge of spacecraft wasn't helping any search efforts. Similar to the way cold plasma is created, sunlight strips electrons from spacecraft materials, making their hulls positively charged. Like two matching magnetic poles, a spacecraft would simply repulse any cold plasma around it.

An artist's rendition of Magnetospheric Multiscale mission as it sweeps through a magnetic reconnection
event caused when the solar wind meets Earth's magnetic fields. Credit: SWRI

To find the stuff, André and Cully instead analyzed anomalies in data from the European Space Agency's Cluster II spacecraft. This group of four satellites swings around Earth in a highly elliptical orbit. At the orbit's peak, the probes reach nearly halfway to the moon. The enormous distance gives researchers a chance to sweep through and monitor Earth's magnetic field and electrical activity, including the influence of "hot" charged particles emitted by the sun. Anomalies in the Cluster II data turned out to be shockwaves from cold plasma particles moving around the satellites.

Cold Plasma a Space Weather "Elephant"
In the end, the pair found that cold plasma makes up between 50 and 70 percent of all charged particles within the farther reaches of Earth's magnetic field. André says it's now time to start updating space-weather models to take the extra cold plasma into account—at this point, for instance, nothing is known about how the plasma might affect solar storms. This influence is "not a minor thing in space weather," André said. "It's an elephant in the room."

The cold-plasma study has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. - National Geographic.

POLE SHIFT: Imminent Magnetic Pole Reversal - Northern Lights Shine Through "Crack" in Earth's Magnetic Field!

A "crack" in Earth's magnetic field has opened the way for yet another thrilling display of the northern lights near the top of the world.

The AuroraMAX wide-angle camera snapped this picture of the northern lights over Yellowknife
in Canada's Northwest Territories early Feb. 27. For more from AuroraMAX, check out the
project's website and Twitpic gallery.

We're in the middle of an upswing in the sun's 11-year activity cycle, leading up to an expected peak in 2013. If solar storms get too intense, there could be a heightened risk of outages in satellite communication and electrical grids. But fortunately, the only significant effects from the solar outbursts so far have come in the form of heightened auroras, occasionally ranging as far south as Nebraska. Auroras arise due to the interaction of Earth's magnetosphere with electrically charged particles streaming from the sun. That interaction energizes atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen in the ionosphere, causing ripples of greenish and reddish light between 60 and 200 miles up in Earth's polar regions.

SpaceWeather.com's Tony Phillips reports that the interplanetary magnetic field tipped south this week and opened a crack in our planet's magnetic shield to fuel a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm. The Space Weather Prediction Center said the storm was sparked by particles sent out from the sun during an eruption last Friday. You can see the atmospheric physics at work in the picture above, captured by Andrei Penescu in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, on Feb. 27. Fittingly, Kangerlussuaq is home to the Sondrestrom Upper Atmospheric Research Facility, a project that studies the aurora and other atmospheric phenomena.

Here are a few other photos from this week's auroral displays, plus two video extras. One is "Temporal Distortion," a time-lapse tribute to the aurora and other wonders of the night sky by Dakotalapse photographer Randy Halverson. It includes some of the auroral imagery we featured back in October, and features original music by Bear McCreary, the award-winning composer for TV shows such as "Walking Dead" and "Battlestar Galactica." The other is David Peterson's compilation of time-lapse videos captured by astronauts on the International Space Station, including some primo views of the aurora from above. Here's what NASA's Mike Fossum, a former space station resident, had to say about the clip: "This is the best video I've seen from photos we took on ISS! Stunning!!" Can't argue with that... - Cosmic Log/MSNBC.

WATCH: Temporal Distortion.

WATCH: Time-lapse footage of the Earth as seen from the ISS