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January 25, 2012

Solar storms reach earth

Mark Schlachtenhaufen The Edmond Sun

EDMOND — A solar radiation storm and geomagnetic storm were interacting with the earth’s environment, agencies said Tuesday.

If you’ve heard much about the Mayan calendar and the Dec. 21, 2012 doomsday predictions you’ve probably heard something about a massive solar maximum event that may stop all satellites from functioning and completely disrupt earth’s telecommunications and power grids.

Scientists say that isn’t happening today.

Located some 93 million miles away from Earth, the sun is a star, a hot ball of glowing gasses at the heart of our solar system. Occasionally the sun generates a solar flare, a sudden, rapid and intense variation in brightness that occurs when magnetic energy built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released, according to NASA.

Midday Tuesday, the National Weather Service reported that a geomagnetic storm and a solar radiation storm were under way. At one point, a geomagnetic storm warning was in effect.

The solar radiation storm was at strong levels (S3 on an S1 to S5, minor to extreme scale), but had dropped below its peak and was expected to continue to slowly decrease throughout the day. Impacts to that point included some airlines avoiding polar routes and reports of flights at high altitudes flying at lower than usual heights.

During a strong solar radiation storm, radiation hazard avoidance is recommended for astronauts on spacewalks and passengers and crew in high-flying aircraft at high latitudes may be exposed to radiation risk, according to the NOAA space weather scale. Single-event upsets, noise in imaging systems and slight reduction of efficiency in solar panels likely impact satellite operations. Degraded radio transmission through the polar regions and navigation position errors are likely.

The geomagnetic storm was the least intense level on the G1-G5, minor to extreme scale. At this intensity, weak power grid fluctuations can occur, minor impact on satellite operations are possible and migratory animals are affected at this and higher levels, according to the NOAA space weather scale. Another impact is that aurora are commonly visible at high latitudes (northern Michigan and Maine).

In both types of events, the duration will influence the severity of effects.

On Sunday, NASA reported, the sun erupted with an M8.7 class flare, an earth-directed coronal mass ejection, and a burst of fast moving, highly energetic protons known as a “solar energetic particle” event. NASA’s Goddard Space Weather Center’s models predicted the coronal mass ejection moved at almost 1,400 miles per second on its way toward Earth.

The frequency of flares coincides with the sun’s 11-year cycle, according to NASA. When the solar cycle is at minimum, active regions are small and rare and few solar flares are detected. These increase as the sun approaches the maximum part of its cycle. Different dates have been suggested for the next solar maximum. Several years ago, it was May 2013.

On Dec. 22, 2011, NASA posted an article stating the end of the world predictions for Dec. 21, 2012 are not true. The article put the next solar maximum in the 2012-2014 time frame, and pointed out it is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.



marks@edmondsun.com | 341-2121, ext. 108

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