Predicting Space Weather

eldavojohn writes "Recently, a new discovery has been made explaining how & predicting when space weather occurs. Hopefully this will allow us to predict when and where these extreme forces of magnetic flux occur so that we can prepare to repair satellites or shut them down for safety reasons. Recent activities on the sun have surprised scientists including the explosive "solar tsunami" that happened last week. From the article, "The new study shows that the Northern Lights, also called aurora, and other space weather near Earth are driven by the rate at which the Earth's and Sun's magnetic fields connect, or merge, and not just by the solar wind's electric field. The merging occurs way out in space, at a spot between the Earth and Sun, roughly 40,000 miles above our planet's surface. Researchers have now developed a formula that describes the merging rate of the magnetic field lines and accurately predicts 10 different types of near-Earth space weather activity, such as the aurora and magnetic disturbances.""

Space Weather

[JeepFanatic (993244)]

I have enough problems getting accurate forecasts for my LOCAL weather. How am I supposed to trust the "Space Weatherman"?

Re:Space Weather

[uab21 (951482)]

I know that you were shooting for funny there, but actually it should be easier to predict this than your local weather. It is a much simpler system (two objects of interest) with reasonably well understood rules at the scale of interest. Local weather, OTOH, is influenced by a much more complex system (the global atmosphere) with myriad influences (many heat sources, water sources, pressure variations, friction), multi-phase flows, as well as poorly understood rules at influential scales (turbulence - see the Navier-Stokes millenium problem). I would think that this sytem would lend itself to accurate prediction far more easily (now getting enough accurate data to make that prediction may be where the difficulty lies, currently)

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[The_Wilschon (782534)]

Plasmas, even very rarefied ones like the solar atmosphere, are very complex and chaotic systems. The atmosphere (of Earth) is subject to the laws of hydrodynamics. The solar atmosphere (the domain of space weather) (and yes, the solar atmosphere does extend out quite far, way past Earth's orbit) is subject to the laws of Magnetohyrdodynamics [wikipedia.org]. I would say that space weather ought to be immensely more difficult to predict. You have essentially one source of heat, but sources of magnetic fields are plent

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[creimer (824291)]

The local weather forecast can suck at times. The forecast in my area was heavy rains a few days ago. When it sounded like it was raining pretty hard, I looked out the window to see no rain at all. Turned out it was raining into my bathtub (broken pipe from upstairs apartment). The forecast was correct but the area was wrong.

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[Aqua_boy17 (962670)]

How am I supposed to trust the "Space Weatherman"?

I know, but look at it this way. At least they'd finally deserve the title "meteorologists".

Great!

[by Anonymous Coward]

Now I'll know way in advance when to put on my lead lined underwear!

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[creepynut (933825)]

That's easy enough, some of us never take them off!

You hear about that new restaurant on Venus?

[BadAnalogyGuy (945258)]

They say the view is nice, but the atmosphere stinks.

News Flash: Evidence of Space Warming

[aquatone282 (905179)]

Researchers have found evidence that human-based carbon emissions are causing a 0.000001% increase in background radiation throughout the known universe. This man-made change will cause the extinction of life-forms on other worlds sometime in the next 50 billion years.

Al Gore will address the United Nations at 1 p.m. with a new 123-slide PowerPoint presentation outlining the new taxes that must be implemented immediately to stop Space Warming.

Tomorrow's weather:

[Tribbles (218927)]

Cold again, with a distinct lack of atmosphere.

X-ray bursts

[LM741N (258038)]

For the longest time, when my laptop wasn't being used, I would have it connected via serial port to my Medcom Geiger-Muller counter. I was trying to see if I could detect any spike in background radiation when a solar flare occurred. (the initial event is an X-ray burst that deionizes the ionosphere) I never did have the laptop on when one hit.

arecibo

[Speare (84249)]

Sadly, although Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico does a lot of "space weather" kinds of analysis, its funding is in danger of being reduced to begin paying for other observational projects that are still in development. I just visited ARO last week, it's mindboggling to look at the spherical primary reflector which covers nearly twenty acres of land, and to think it might be mothballed in the near future, just as people realize the importance of space weather in their daily lives.

Wouldn't you know it..

[Rob T Firefly (844560)]

You know you're going to get space rain if you've just washed your space car or watered your space lawn.

Summary a little misleading

[Vellmont (569020)]

The merging occurs way out in space, at a spot between the Earth and Sun, roughly 40,000 miles above our planet's surface.

40,000 miles isn't really that far, relative to what we consider "home". Geosynchronous satellites orbit at roughly 26,000 miles, and the moon orbits at more than 200,000 miles above earths surface.

In comparison to the average Sun-Earth distance is 93 million miles, so 40,000 miles is .04% of the distance. If your neighborhood grocery store is 3 miles away, .04% of the distance would be 6 feet.

The Space Weather forecast for next week.

[autophile (640621)]

Space Weather advisory week 2006.49:

Sunday: Highs in the upper -270K, dark. Chance of atmospheric distrubance: 0%

Monday: Highs in the upper -270K, dark. Chance of atmospheric distrubance: 0%

Tuesday: Highs in the upper -270K, dark. Chance of atmospheric distrubance: 0%

Wednesday: Highs in the upper -270K, dark. Chance of atmospheric distrubance: 0%

Thursday: Highs in the upper -270K, dark. Chance of atmospheric distrubance: 0%

Friday: Highs in the upper -270K, dark. Chance of atmospheric distrubance: 0%. Occasional space probe passing through.

Saturday: Highs in the upper -270K, dark. Chance of atmospheric distrubance: 0%.

Not a waste!

[bchernicoff (788760)]

Wasting time? These forecasts and the associated warnings that are generated when solar events occur are critical for protecting satellites and astronauts in orbit, predicting intereferance in HF radio transmissions including GPS accuracy, etc.

Re:Not a waste!

[monopole (44023)]

It doesn't stop there. Extreme space weather can induce failures in the electrical grid resulting in large scale blackouts.

Re:Not a waste!

[yanko22 (207000)]

It must have something to do with magnetic field exerting force on a moving electric charge [wikipedia.org].

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[Toby The Economist (811138)]

Won't save you from a big meteorite strike, though.

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[uab21 (951482)]

But of course, the tranmission and the particles are traveling at the speed of light so the transmission doesn't get there in time

Actually the particles are not travelling that fast, see http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarstorm_s peed_040614.html [space.com] which states

Potentially disruptive solar storms can't reach Earth in less than half a day, scientists have determined

So there should be time.

You avoid lightning by looking at clouds.

[ScentCone (795499)]

But of course, the tranmission and the particles are traveling at the speed of light so the transmission doesn't get there in time

You can't outrun lightning on the golf course, either. But you can check the radar before you book a tee-time. I suppose the point is that there are some indicators of when we will have some fast-as-light (or very-fast-particles) crap coming our way - based on other behaviors - and that, like predicting earthquakes (another thing you can't outrun), we can still take a few prec

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[ScentCone (795499)]

And the universe begins to look more electric

I don't think that theory is very well grounded. *rim-shot*

Thank you, I'll be here all afternoon. Try the cold pizza.

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[danpsmith (922127)]

Take the red pill and learn about Electric Universe Theory.

I took the so-called "red pill" [wikipedia.org], and discovered the following: "Suffice to say for now that if science is what you are looking for, you will find none where the electric sun is concerned, save that which shows it to be an untenable hypothesis."

Please don't push your misguided psuedo-science off as something grounded in reality. Remember, scientists look for facts and work them into theory, quacks make up a "theory" and then try to find facts to f

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[TapeCutter (624760)]

Check out his posting history, logic and math will not alter this guy's rigid dogma.

The EU theory preys apon the same ignorance as "Chariots of the Gods" did in the 70's. The entire "theory" is a book that uses real observations to demolish a straw man argument. The authour can be somewhat excused since he seems to be suffering from persecution complex concerning the "scientific establishment", however I do find it drepressing that he is dragging gullible people down with him.

The best thing the GP cou

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[Ungrounded Lightning (62228)]

Why cant they just send them up there with the proper shielding in the first place?

Because (in addition to the weight issue) proper shielding for solar mass ejection events makes damage from cosmic radiation FAR WORSE. The small number of horrendous-energy particles, absent shielding, mainly pass through tissue causing litte damage. But run them through a "shield" and each kicks out a storm of lower (but still high) energy charged particles that are going slow enough to each cause a LOT of interactions in