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.""

Not a waste!

[bchernicoff]

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:Space Weather

[uab21]

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)

Re:why this is so hard

[timtwobuck]

According to wikipedia, solar flares & the solar wind travel at around 1 million km/h.

Just for reference, the speed of light is 1 billion km/h. We may not need to worry about subspace just yet.

Re:Not a waste!

[yanko22]

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

Summary a little misleading

[Vellmont]

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.

Re:Space Weather

[The_Wilschon]

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 plentiful, and affect the motion of plasmas in much more complex ways than heat does, because the plasma itself is a major source of magnetic fields.

Re:Not a waste!

[monopole]

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

Re:And the universe begins to look more electric

[TapeCutter]

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 could do for himself is to read Carl Sagan's "Demon haunted world", I have suggested this to him but he seems incapable of handling the "truth".