More confirmation of Sun-Earth connection

[solrey]

A lightning strike in Africa helps take the pulse of the sun.

Thanks to a serendipitous discovery by Tel Aviv University's Prof. Colin Price, head of TAU's Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science, and his graduate student Yuval Reuveni, science now has a more definitive and reliable tool for measuring the sun's rotation when sunspots aren't visible -- and even when they are. The research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics, could have important implications for understanding the interactions between the sun and the Earth. Best of all, it's based on observations of common, garden-variety lightning strikes here on Earth.

Waxing and waning, every 27 days

Using Very Low Frequency (VLF) wire antennas that resemble clotheslines, Prof. Price and his team monitored distant lightning strikes from a field station in Israel's Negev Desert. Observing lightning signals from Africa, they noticed a strange phenomenon in the lightning strike data — a phenomenon that slowly appeared and disappeared every 27 days, the length of a single full rotation of the sun.

"Even though Africa is thousands of miles from Israel, lightning signals there bounce off the Earth's ionosphere ― the envelope surrounding the Earth ― as they move from Africa to Israel," Prof. Price explains. "We noticed that this bouncing was modulated by the sun, changing throughout its 27-day cycle. The variability of the lightning activity occurring in sync with the sun's rotation suggested that the sun somehow regulates the lightning pattern."

[mharratsc]

I keep wondering when that one serendipitous discovery comes along, and just makes most of those Mainstreamers think to themselves "Holy Bovines, Batman! That looks just like what those EU crackpots have been talking about!"

Then, the very next day... Dave wakes up Down Under and- sipping his morning beverage- notices with a quizzical expression that overnight there was a huge increase in the number of new Forum members, and website hits...

One can only hope!


Mike H.

[jjohnson]

I'm full of hope that we'll see more defectors in the coming year. Eric Lerner's Focus Fusion group seems to be getting right along (first goal - the pinch - almost right out of the box, with 7 to go, at a bargain price.) See Miles's latest article decrying and debunking mainstream math and theory and lack of reality. This time it's NASA's propaganda that they post on Hulu.com . This flick is (or is not) about the Rip in the Fabric of Space, and Miles rips THEM a new one!

Is this true, Dave? Lots more hits and new members? We've got to get our textbooks on the shelves! With math - that's a shiny lure that may snag a few big ones from the Ortho-Docs. I see on the Focus Fusion blog, in the PC/EU section (yes, they gab about us, too. Wait a minute; I'm one of them, too. It's all good, mon; ALL de time!) - that a lot of them are up against the establishment screeners and need lists of arguments and predictions and what-all to help knock the pins out from under those who refuse to give up a gravity driven and controlled cosmology. There's a fellow Ozzie calls himself Pluto on there with some good observations. You may know him, but I do not, unless you, like Miles, have a couple of noms de plume.

PS Back on the subject, the article describes the influence of the sun on the ionosphere, and not on the frequency or strength of lightning or storm activity, itself. We all know that the ionosphere changes under solar influence, but why should it change specifically on the 27 day rotation cycle? Is the sun lopsided and have a strong side and a weak side? What exactly is concluded by these data?

Jim

[redeye]

PS Back on the subject, the article describes the influence of the sun on the ionosphere, and not on the frequency or strength of lightning or storm activity, itself. We all know that the ionosphere changes under solar influence, but why should it change specifically on the 27 day rotation cycle? Is the sun lopsided and have a strong side and a weak side? What exactly is concluded by these data?

The moon:

The Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth with respect to the fixed stars about once every 27.3 days[nb 3](its sidereal period).

From wiki

Cheers!

[junglelord]

Of course the sun controls lightning in a very significant way, they will see that as time goes on.

[jjohnson]

JL: please elaborate, if you know something here. No teasing allowed with vague statements!

[MGmirkin]

the article describes the influence of the sun on the ionosphere, and not on the frequency or strength of lightning or storm activity, itself.

Agreed. That's what they're saying... That is to say, the sun in some manner affects the ionosphere and how signals from lightning get bounced about or distorted. As opposed to saying that sun modulates lightning itself.

The Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth with respect to the fixed stars about once every 27.3 days[nb 3](its sidereal period).

From Wiki[pedia]

One hopes they've done their homework and isolated effects of the sun from effects of the moon. Interesting coincidence if the sun has a similar rotational period to the moon's orbital period. Doubt the two are related, of course. Just an interesting coincidence.

Too bad they don't say "how" the sun affects the ionosphere or why it should take on a periodicity with respect to the rotation rate. One wonders if the sun is in some way inhomogeneous. By way of magnetic fields, electric fields, etc. And the motion of said inhomogeneous regions on / in the sun in some way translates through the plasma of interplanetary space to Earth. Or is there some wobble to the Sun that in some way gravitationally affects the ionosphere...?

~Michael Gmirkin

[Grey Cloud]

Re the Sun and Moon.
Presumably they were doing this during the day when the Moon was on the other side of the planet and have therefore ignored it (?).