Earth - atmosphere

Historic planetary instability and catastrophe. Evidence for electrical scarring on planets and moons. Electrical events in today's solar system. Electric Earth.

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Birkeland
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Re: Scientists discover surprise in Earth's upper atmosphere

Unread post by Birkeland » Thu Sep 10, 2009 4:12 pm

Anthony Watts: This gives a whole new meaning to “Total Solar Irradiance”. Instead of TSI, perhaps we should call the energy transfer that comes from the sun to the earth TSE for “Total Solar Energy” so that it includes the solar wind, the geomagnetics, and other yet undiscovered linkages. Jack Eddy is smiling and holding up the patch cord he’s been given at last, wondering how long it will be before we find all the connectors - “This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down”
"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see" - Ayn Rand

tholden
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Solar wind heats magnetosphere

Unread post by tholden » Fri Sep 11, 2009 6:12 am

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2336324/posts
UCLA atmospheric scientists have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere. The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, could improve the safety and reliability of spacecraft that operate in the upper atmosphere.

"It's like something else is heating the atmosphere besides the sun. This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down," said Larry Lyons, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and a co-author of the research, which is in press in two companion papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

The sun, in addition to emitting radiation, emits a stream of ionized particles called the solar wind that affects the Earth and other planets in the solar system. The solar wind, which carries the particles from the sun's magnetic field, known as the interplanetary magnetic field, takes about three or four days to reach the Earth. When the charged electrical particles approach the Earth, they carve out a highly magnetized region — the magnetosphere — which surrounds and protects the Earth.

Charged particles carry currents, which cause significant modifications in the Earth's magnetosphere. This region is where communications spacecraft operate and where the energy releases in space known as substorms wreak havoc on satellites, power grids and communications systems.

The rate at which the solar wind transfers energy to the magnetosphere can vary widely, but what determines the rate of energy transfer is unclear.

"We thought it was known, but we came up with a major surprise," said Lyons, who conducted the research with Heejeong Kim, an assistant researcher in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and other colleagues.

"This is where everything gets started," Lyons said. "Any important variations in the magnetosphere occur because there is a transfer of energy from the solar wind to the particles in the magnetosphere. The first critical step is to understand how the energy gets transferred from the solar wind to the magnetosphere."

The interplanetary magnetic field fluctuates greatly in magnitude and direction.

"We all have thought for our entire careers — I learned it as a graduate student — that this energy transfer rate is primarily controlled by the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field," Lyons said. "The closer to southward-pointing the magnetic field is, the stronger the energy transfer rate is, and the stronger the magnetic field is in that direction. If it is both southward and big, the energy transfer rate is even bigger."

However, Lyons, Kim and their colleagues analyzed radar data that measure the strength of the interaction by measuring flows in the ionosphere, the part of Earth's upper atmosphere ionized by solar radiation. The results surprised them.

"Any space physicist, including me, would have said a year ago there could not be substorms when the interplanetary magnetic field was staying northward, but that's wrong," Lyons said. "Generally, it's correct, but when you have a fluctuating interplanetary magnetic field, you can have substorms going off once per hour.

"Heejeong used detailed statistical analysis to prove this phenomenon is real. Convection in the magnetosphere and ionosphere can be strongly driven by these fluctuations, independent of the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field."

Convection describes the transfer of heat, or thermal energy, from one location to another through the movement of fluids such as liquids, gases or slow-flowing solids.

"The energy of the particles and the fields in the magnetosphere can vary by large amounts. It can be 10 times higher or 10 times lower from day to day, even from half-hour to half-hour. These are huge variations in particle intensities, magnetic field strength and electric field strength," Lyons said.

The magnetosphere was discovered in 1957. By the late 1960s, it had become accepted among scientists that the energy transfer rate was controlled predominantly by the interplanetary magnetic field.

Lyons and Kim were planning to study something unrelated when they made the discovery.

"We were looking to do something else, when we saw life is not the way we expected it to be," Lyons said. "The most exciting discoveries in science sometimes just drop in your lap. In our field, this finding is pretty earth-shaking. It's an entire new mode of energy transfer, which is step one. The next step is to understand how it works. It must be a completely different process."

The National Science Foundation has funded ground-based radars which send off radio waves that reflect off the ionosphere, allowing scientists to measure the speed at which the ions in the ionosphere are moving.

The radar stations are based in Greenland and Alaska. The NSF recently built the Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks.

"The National Science Foundation's radars have enabled us to make this discovery," Lyons said. "We could not have done this without them."

The direction of the interplanetary magnetic field is important, Lyons said. Is it going in the same direction as the magnetic field going through the Earth? Does the interplanetary magnetic field connect with the Earth's magnetic field?

"We thought there could not be strong convection and that the energy necessary for a substorm could not develop unless the interplanetary magnetic field is southward," Lyons said. "I've said it and taught it. Now I have to say, 'But when you have these fluctuations, which is not a rare occurrence, you can have substorms going off once an hour.'"

Lyons and Kim used the radar measurements to study the strength of the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere.

One of their papers addresses convection and its affect on substorms to show it is a global phenomenon.

"When the interplanetary magnetic field is pointing northward, there is not much happening, but when the interplanetary magnetic field is southward, the flow speeds in the polar regions of the ionosphere are strong. You see much stronger convection. That is what we expect," Lyons said. "We looked carefully at the data, and said, 'Wait a minute! There are times when the field is northward and there are strong flows in the dayside polar ionosphere.'"

The dayside has the most direct contact with the solar wind.

"It's not supposed to happen that way," Lyons said. "We want to understand why that is."

"Heejeong separated the data into when the solar wind was fluctuating a lot and when it was fluctuating a little," he added. "When the interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations are low, she saw the pattern everyone knows, but when she analyzed the pattern when the interplanetary magnetic field was fluctuating strongly, that pattern completely disappeared. Instead, the strength of the flows depended on the strength of the fluctuations.

"So rather than the picture of the connection between the magnetic field of the sun and the Earth controlling the transfer of energy by the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere, something else is happening that is equally interesting. The next question is discovering what that is. We have some ideas of what that may be, which we will test."

###

Co-authors on the papers include colleagues at Chungbuk National University in South Korea and SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif.

For more about the National Science Foundation and the research it supports, visit http://www.nsf.gov.

UCLA is California's largest university, with an enrollment of nearly 38,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The UCLA College of Letters and Science and the university's 11 professional schools feature renowned faculty and offer more than 323 degree programs and majors. UCLA is a national and international leader in the breadth and quality of its academic, research, health care, cultural, continuing education and athletic programs. Four alumni and five faculty have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom or follow us on Twitter.

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solrey
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Solar Wind Surprise

Unread post by solrey » Fri Sep 11, 2009 12:25 pm

Some good comments supporting the electric universe on this WUWT article about the fluctuating IMF, inducing charged particle flow in the magnetosphere.
Dennis Wingo (13:59:49) :

Its funny, I wrote a paper about this for a physics class in college and the professor said that it was bunk.

The idea is to model the solar/terrestrial interface as an electrical circuit. The Earth is an RLC circuit (R is the Earth, L and C being the ionosphere/Earth with the atmosphere being the dielectric) and that solar activity modulates (powers) this circuit.

I will even make a prediction that the magnitude of this effect can be noted by measuring the total global lightning. A prediction would be that during low solar activity that lightning is less when averaged across the globe. Think of it this way, the atmosphere, being a dielectric, is more often violated by the large electrical currents in the atmosphere. In the polar regions this is dissipated through the aurora, and nearer the tropics it is through classic dielectric bleed through as understood by the theory of capacitors.

None of this energy transfer is noted in any direct TSI measurement that only measures visible/near IR energy.
Mike Lorrey (18:33:06) :

“Instead, the strength of the flows depended on the strength of the fluctuations.”

For those of us with electrical/electronics experience or training, this sets off bells and whistles. In an electromagnet inductor (such as the Earth is), “This implies that the component alternately absorbs energy from the circuit and then returns energy to the circuit. A pure reactance will not dissipate any power.”

Since the conductivity and permeability of the materials that make up the Earth electromagnetic inductor do not have zero impedance, this means there is not pure reactance, and thus the impure reactance will dissipate power transferred to it from the Sun as heat, and *CONCENTRATED AT THE POLES*, particularly the pole which absorbs most of the current.

Since ice in the Antarctic ice cap is mostly pure water ice, its impedance is high and conductivity is low. Arctic sea ice has a much higher conductivity, and thus should absorb more of the current there, and generate more heat as a result. This can explain arctic warming.
I put in my 2c's:
solrey (10:27:28) :
M. Simon (09:29:29) :
“And the energy applied to a DC motor’s field coils is too small to affect the motor’s output. And yet the field in such a motor actually controls the motor output. Does such an idea work for climate: TBD.”
Like an “Insulated-Gate Bi-Polar Transistor” effect. The electromagnetic induction produced by the fluctuating magnetic field, acts as the “gate” on the system, controlling the “switching” and total power output. The magnetosheath as the emitter, the ionosphere as the collector. The magnetosphere as the epitaxial drift region.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulated- ... transistor
The IGBT is used in medium- to high-power applications such as switched-mode power supply, traction motor control and induction heating. Large IGBT modules typically consist of many devices in parallel and can have very high current handling capabilities in the order of hundreds of amps with blocking voltages of 6,000 V.

The extremely high pulse ratings of second- and third-generation devices also make them useful for generating large power pulses in areas like particle and plasma physics, where they are starting to supersede older devices like thyratrons and triggered spark gaps.
Scaled up to a Sun/Magnetosphere/Earth system? Something to think about.
“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality"
Nikola Tesla

Lloyd
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Re: Solar wind heats magnetosphere

Unread post by Lloyd » Fri Sep 11, 2009 6:33 pm

* Moderators, please combine this thread and the one at http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... f=4&t=2368 as they seem to be the same topic.

Florian
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energy exchange beween the solar wind and the magnetosphere

Unread post by Florian » Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:09 am

An interesting news about the energy exchange between the solar wind and the magnetosphere:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 091337.htm
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Florian
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer.

mharratsc
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Re: Scientists discover surprise in Earth's upper atmosphere

Unread post by mharratsc » Sat Sep 12, 2009 2:04 pm

"We've discovered that things move easier if you push them if you put something under them that rolls! This was completely unanticipated by our models!
We're currently investing millions of dollars into what shape of rolling device we should use. Doing some math, we think that triangles or squares would be the most likely option. If that doesn't work, we're pretty sure that we could add some extra dimensions to Reality to speed things up... or perhaps make them out of Dark Matter which we're positive has less friction than regular matter..."

...

Was that too sarcastic? I'm sorry... maybe. o.O

Mike H.
Mike H.

"I have no fear to shout out my ignorance and let the Wise correct me, for every instance of such narrows the gulf between them and me." -- Michael A. Harrington

jjohnson
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Re: Solar Wind Surprise

Unread post by jjohnson » Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:13 am

Here is a link to a reasonably elementary PDF on what IGBT's are and do, and how. Using "steering currents' as a self-regulating mechanism reminds me of the EU discussions on the sun and how it controls its power balance. Application to the Earth model seems like an interesting idea to try on for size. Applications to a "supernova" event are also interesting, as something non-linear at a critical electrical stress point seems to occur, and the self-regulation turns to a different mechanism to relieve the stress. All that excess electricity has to go somewhere !

http://www.fairchildsemi.com/an/AN/AN-9016.pdf

jj

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MGmirkin
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Re: Scientists discover surprise in Earth's upper atmosphere

Unread post by MGmirkin » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:37 pm

mharratsc wrote:We're currently investing millions of dollars into what shape of rolling device we should use. Doing some math, we think that triangles or squares would be the most likely option.
Perhaps if you tried adding a few more vertices around the periphery? Maybe pentagonal or hexagonal? I mean, sure the number of sides might increase, but think about the benefits!

Feel free to shout me down for heresy to the 3-vertex [triangular] model of "rolling"... ;)

*Tongue planted firmly in cheek*

Best,
~Michael Gmirkin
"The purpose of science is to investigate the unexplained, not to explain the uninvestigated." ~Dr. Stephen Rorke
"For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD." ~Gibson's law

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MGmirkin
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Re: Scientists discover surprise in Earth's upper atmosphere

Unread post by MGmirkin » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:47 pm

So, to simplify it down a bit to "sound byte" level...
"Any space physicist, including me, would have said a year ago there could not be substorms when the interplanetary magnetic field was staying northward, but that's wrong," Lyons said. "Generally, it's correct, but when you have a fluctuating interplanetary magnetic field, you can have substorms going off once per hour.
"Heejeong separated the data into when the solar wind was fluctuating a lot and when it was fluctuating a little," he added. "When the interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations are low, she saw the pattern everyone knows, but when she analyzed the pattern when the interplanetary magnetic field was fluctuating strongly, that pattern completely disappeared. Instead, the strength of the flows depended on the strength of the fluctuations.
when you have these fluctuations, which is not a rare occurrence, you can have substorms going off once an hour.
So, why is it that when the IMF is fluctuating strongly (one assumes there are strongly fluctuating currents to cause this change in the IMF?), the substorms can start going off rapidly?

Best,
~Michael Gmirkin
"The purpose of science is to investigate the unexplained, not to explain the uninvestigated." ~Dr. Stephen Rorke
"For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD." ~Gibson's law

LAShaffer
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Re: Scientists discover surprise in Earth's upper atmosphere

Unread post by LAShaffer » Fri Sep 18, 2009 2:53 pm

I think we need more data. If the magnetic field is fluctuating strongly, the current must also be fluctuating, but why? Is the flow too weak to maintain the current, or is the current perhaps alternating toward neutral, or even reversing? Two other recent discoveries might provide the answer. I recently read a paper on an anomalous solar wind that was measured to have an unusually high proportion of heavy element protons and electrons. Or perhaps there is simply a larger proportion of hydrogen ENA's than normal in the flow, not mixed in well, ie, embedded in the wind in "gusts"? This would (presumably)cause the fluctuations in the IMF. If the current between the sun and the earth is fluctuating, the earths magnetic field and global electrical currents will react regardless of the orientation of the two fields. Another classic case of ignoring the electrical current behind the magnetic field? Time of year could also be a factor, if the IBEX first light results (and one of my theories)are any indication. Unfortunately, they are keeping the all-sky results under wraps until October.
That's an excellent question. And it will probably drive me crazy for a while.

LAShaffer
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Re: Scientists discover surprise in Earth's upper atmosphere

Unread post by LAShaffer » Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:36 am

Found this paper;

http://www.space.noa.gr/~daglis/publications/eos97.pdf
Significant enhancements of O+ ions, observed during the growth phase of substorms by
CCE (Charge Composition Explorer, one of the three AMPTE spacecraft), were suggested to
trigger substorm onset by favouring the occurrence of plasma instabilities.
Interesting. It discusses the storm and sub-storm dynamics inside the magnetosphere. Lot's of electrical "stuff" going on here.

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Tzunamii
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NASA launches rocket, dozens report strange lights

Unread post by Tzunamii » Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:56 pm

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD9AQQRRG0
"The rocket is designed to create an artificial cloud. NASA hopes the experiment will provide information on the formation and properties of noctilucent clouds, which occur at high altitudes."
Small article for now, looking for more info from the eyewitnesses.

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Birkeland
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Re: NASA launches rocket, dozens report strange lights

Unread post by Birkeland » Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:34 am

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see" - Ayn Rand

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Vek
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Phantom storms

Unread post by Vek » Tue Oct 06, 2009 11:54 am

So far, all results from Goncharenko's widespread survey point strongly towards a link between the stratosphere and the upper atmosphere. "In a casino, it's called hitting a blackjack," she says. "In research, it's a successful experiment."

The question remained: how exactly might weather on Earth drive these space-weather events. No process known to atmospheric physics would allow a specific local phenomenon like the stratwarm to propagate all the way from the stratosphere above the North Pole to the ionosphere above the equator.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... space.html

"ghostly tides of charged particles" :o

Who you gonna call ? :mrgreen:
"You will see that when the filters are cleared, that we are all connected.
This is just the way it is."
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The Great Dog
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Re: Scientists discover surprise in Earth's upper atmosphere

Unread post by The Great Dog » Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:53 pm

There are no other dogs but The Great Dog

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