Direct Hit! Several #solarstorms are expected this week, led by this first one below. This one should hit May 10, but multiple storm hits will follow, possibly clear through May 12 before things calm down. In fact, another Earth-directed storm is launching NOW, as I write this. pic.twitter.com/7NzLMbkrwm
INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: The odds of a strong solar flare today have more than doubled in response to a sudden profusion of large sunspots. NOAA forecasters say there is a 55% chance of M-class flares and a 15% of X-flares. The most likely source is Earth-facing sunspot AR3213, which has an unstable ‘delta-class’ magnetic field.
Above: The sun is crackling with M-class solar flares.
STRANGE TIDES IN THE PLASMASPHERE: Tides are one of the oldest phenomena known to physics. Ocean waters rise and fall like clockwork in response to the gravitational pull of the sun and Moon. There’s nothing surprising about tides.
Yet, researchers studying tides have just found a big surprise. There are tides in Earth’s plasmasphere, and they are very strange. The discovery was published in the Jan 26th edition of Nature Physics.
The plasmasphere is a lopsided donut of cold plasma inside Earth’s magnetic field. It is created by leakage from the top of Earth’s atmosphere (the ionosphere). The outer surface of the plasmasphere is called “the plasmapause”–and that is where the tides have been found.
“We can think of the plasmapause as the surface of a ‘plasma ocean’ surrounding Earth,” says one of the lead authors Quanqi Shi of Shandong University. “Using a 40-year database of satellite observations, we report the first identification of lunar tides on the surface of this plasma ocean.”
It is not surprising that Moon’s gravity would stretch and modulate the shape of the plasmasphere. After all, the plasmasphere is made of matter, and matter responds to gravity. But the response is not what the researchers expected.
Shi explains: “Interestingly, the lunar plasmaspheric tide forms a few percent bulge that is offset 90 degrees ahead of the Earth-Moon axis, which is significantly different from the high tide in Earth’s liquid oceans.” This inexplicable offset was verified by nearly 36,000 plasmapause crossings by various spacecraft over almost four solar cycles from 1977 to 2015.
What’s going on? The researchers aren’t certain, but they believe gravity and electromagnetism may have joined forces to produce a new kind of tidal effect.
Space physicists have long known that the Moon’s gravity affects winds in Earth’s ionized upper atmosphere. This means the Moon can actually modify electrical currents in the ionosphere, altering electromagnetic fields. The research team looked at data from NASA’s Van Allen Probes and found that, indeed, electric fields reaching up into the plasmasphere appear to be modulated by lunar tides. Computer models suggest that these fields can shift the bulge to a 90 degree offset position and explain its daily and monthly variations.
“Our discovery of this plasma tidal effect may indicate a fundamental interaction mechanism in the Earth-Moon system that has not been previously considered,” says Shi. “Understanding this phenomenon could lead to better forecasts of space weather and improved safety for spacecraft and satellites.”
GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G2-CLASS): Moderately strong G2-class geomagnetic storms are possible on March 31st when a CME is expected to hit Earth’s magnetic field. During such storms, naked-eye auroras can descend into the USA as far south as, e.g., New York and Idaho (geomagnetic latitude 55o). In fact, the storm might be stronger than predicted. The source of the CME, active sunspot AR2975, has just sent two more CMEs right behind it. Aurora alerts:SMS Text.
SOLAR FLARE, TSUNAMI AND RADIATION STORM (UPDATED): A lot of things just happened all at once. Sunspot AR2975 erupted on March 28th (1129 UT), producing a major M4-class solar flare. The blast propelled a ‘solar tsunami’ through the sun’s atmosphere. You can see it rippling away from the blast site in this movie from the Solar Dynamics Observatory:
This tsunami was ‘radio-active.’ Its rippling leading edge beamed radio waves toward Earth. “I received a fantastic solar radio burst at 56 MHz,” reports Rob Stammes who recorded the outburst at his space weather observatory in Lofoton, Norway. At about the same time, the US Air Force says they recorded both Type II and Type IV solar radio bursts.
Ironically, while the sun was turning itself into a temporary radio beacon, it simultaneously wiped out some radio transmissions on Earth. A pulse of X-rays from the flare ionized the top of the atmosphere over Africa, causing a shortwave radio blackout:
Aviators, mariners, and ham radio operators in the area may have noticed fading and other unusual propagation effects at frequencies below 30 MHz.
Energetic protons accelerated by the flare+tsunami are now peppering Earth’s magnetosphere, causing a minor S1-class radiation storm. Our planet’s magnetic field is funneling some of these particles toward the poles where a second type of radio blackout is underway–a Polar Cap Absorption Event. Airplanes flying over these regions may find that their shortwave radios won’t work during the transit: polar cap absorption map.
UPDATE: Newly-arriving coronagraph images from SOHO confirm that a full-halo CME is heading for Earth. Stay tuned for movies and estimates of the CME’s arrival time. Solar flare alerts:SMS Text.
Many Solar Flares, Two Impacts Coming, More Expected (2 min)
Solar Flare During the Show, Disaster Cycles Confirmed | S0 News Mar.28.2022 (4 min)
Can Earth Handle a Superflare? Ionosphere, Tornados, and more | S0 News Mar.27.2022 (4 min)
Large Solar Flare M4.0 Earth Directed CME – Moderate Geomagnetic Storm Expected – Full Analysis (4 min)
Multiple flares incoming and important confirmation of Space Weather. This is what the European Space Agency (ESA) writes, “Several planned ESA missions that are set to further increase global understanding of the changing environment will also be tackled at the conference
These include the UK-led TRUTHS mission, which will collect measurements of incoming solar radiation and solar radiation reflected from Earth’s surface, traced to an absolute metrological reference. This will be used to improve climate datasets and calibrate observations from other satellites.
Notice how it is called the Truths mission. Actions speak louder than words…..
Long Solar Flare, Multiple CMEs Coming to Earth | S0 News Nov.2.2021 (5 min)
There have been four significant quakes this week with the seismic energy “bouncing” across the world. at about 28 minutes Dutch notes the hot-spots. Could this be the reason for the spate of fires? Increased solar activity brings increased electromagnetic activity and with that comes earthquakes.
7/23/2021 — Large M6.7 Earthquakes bouncing back and forth across Pacific!
Dutch is pretty good at his earthquake predictions after years of watching quakes he has honed the methodology. Dutch bases his analysis on VLF wave propagation in the plate boundary zones. He understands the Deep earthquakes as the terminus ad quo of the much shallower quakes. The Suspicious Observers (SO) also have and earthquake prediction methodology which is becoming increasingly accurate and refined. It would be nice to combine both methods to work in unison. Ben bases his method on blot echoes which he describes in his book Weatherman’s Guide to the Sun (3rdEdition 2020 p.216) as follows:
Key Points:
1) Global magnetic fields, storm systems, current flows and large atmospheric structures are similar on the Earth and sun.
2) Strong Earthspot lows (like hurricanes) demonstrate a remarkably similar structure in the visible clouds to what we see in sunspots.
3) The small and large-scale electromagnetic emissions of the storm systems are similar in pattern and energy range on both Earth and sun.
4) When sunspots get active, similar storms get active on a planet electromagnetically connected to the sun (Chapter 5). This is more than temporal coincidence, it is electromagnetically crying out to be noticed.
Some of the energy coming down in the GEC (high pressure) goes into the ground where it can trigger an earthquake or a volcano eruption immediately, or it can build up charge and then release later as an earthquake or volcano eruption. If a thunderstorm is a GEC electric storm in the atmosphere, there is certainly a GEC electric storm component to earthquakes. The science behind this claim and its proof by application follow in this section.
The electrical signals of the global electric circuit are used to determine when/where this energy might interact with a fault zone. In the middle and early part of the last decade, there was a developing precedent for this pursuit in published work looking at pressure, storms, electrical changes in the atmosphere, and thermal radiation escape before large earthquakes (Lu et al. 2016; Oyama et al. 2016; Kong et al. 2015; Chen et al. 2010; Jing et al. 2010).
However, whereas each study was focusing retroactively on one signal, like GPS disruptions or electron content changes in the atmosphere, analyzed after an earthquake had already occurred, we sought to combine the total body of work to proactively predict the location of large earthquakes. In the time since our real-world forecasting began there has been confident scientific evidence that the fault structure and activity play a significant role in the GEC, lightning and Earth’s pulse-electromagnetic field structure (Kappler et al. 2019; Argunov 2017; Malyshkov et al. 2017; Parrot 2017; Straser 2016) and that an electromagnetic pre-earthquake process helps release excess Radon and other ionized gases from the ground prior to large events (Tareen et al. 2019; Zoran et al. 2019; Karastathis et al. 2017).
Here are some notes to help understand the current state of the field. The electromagnetic pre-earthquake process shows itself in various ways:
1) A number of studies confirm outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) anomalies (including thosetied directly to land surface temperature anomalies and surface latent heat flux) in relation to pre-seismic processes at the eventual epicenter. It is notable that land surface temperature/OLR anomalies require an extended period of high pressure and sunlight, which is the opposite (GEC) Earthspot from the powerful storms, and which causes a build-up of charge.(Hazra et al. 2020; Akhoondzadeh et al. 2019; Jing et al. 2019; Lin et al. 2019; Pavlidou et al. 2019; Zoran et al. 2019;Akhoondzadeh et al. 2018; Barkat et al. 2018; Chakraborty et al. 2018; Huang et al. 2018; Mahmood et al. 2018;Ouzounov et al. 2018; Velichkova and Kilifarska 2018; Zhang et al. 2018; Bellaoui et al. 2017; Bhardwaj et al. 2017;Freund et al. 2017; Jiao et al. 2017; Joshi et al. 2017; Mahmood et al. 2017; Venkatanathan et al. 2017; Xiong and Shen2017; Yan et al. 2017; Zhou et al. 2017; Zoran et al. 2017).
2) GEC and ionospheric/magnetosphere pre-earthquake anomalies have been confirmed, including those involving ionospheric critical frequency, total electron content (TEC), GPS disruptions, atmospheric ionization “earthquake lights” and various electromagnetic phenomena from the ground to the top of the atmosphere. (Sekertekin et al. 2020; Shah et al. 2020; Sharma et al. 2020; Marchetti et al. 2020; Ahmad et al. 2019; Akhoondzadeh et al. 2019; De Santis et al. 2019; Lin et al. 2019; Sotomayor-Beltran 2019; Zhu et al. 2019 [1]; Devi et al. 2018; Karaboga et al. 2018; Namgaladze et al. 2018; Ouzounov et al. 2018; Perrone et al. 2018; Enomoto et al. 2017; Freund et al. 2017; Iwata and Umeno 2017; Jansky and Pasko 2017; Kelley et al. 2017; Kim et al. 2017; Krankowski et al. 2017; Ouzounov et al. 2017; Parrot 2017; Sharma et al. 2017; Sheshpari 2017; Xu et al. 2017).
3) Magnetic pulses/anomalies in the VHF/ULF/VLF/ELF ranges have been found to appear before large earthquakes at or above the epicenters. (Sharma et al. 2020; Straser et al. 2019; Venegas-Aravena et al. 2019; Phanikumar et al. 2018; Potirakis et al. 2018;Takla et al. 2018; Cataldi et al. 2017; De Santis et al. 2017; Heraud et al. 2017; Naidu et al. 2017; Shen et al. 2017).
4) The most powerful Earthspots (hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, tropical & extratropical storms) have been associated with electromagnetic processes before large earthquakes.(Parrot 2017; Lin 2013; Liu et al. 2009).
5) Recently, abnormal gravity waves in the stratosphere have been detected prior to large earthquakes. Other atmospheric parameters like pressure, wind speed and temperature are also seen to fluctuate before seismic events in the same way as electromagnetic forcing from solar activity.(Hazra et al. 2020; Yang et al. 2019 [2]).
Many of the 2019 and 2020 studies on electromagnetic anomalies preceding earthquakes listed in this section used data from this satellite.
Data for blot echoes earthquake prediction comes from here:
It was our goal to combine the various factors and engage a real-world forecasting model from the total volume of published work. The studies were easy to find, but difficult to track, and most data (critical frequency, TEC, GPS data, and similar ionospheric data points) is not available in real-time, or at least in any processed form that would be useful. Even in the exceptions, most are not able to deliver localized information, and there are various terrestrial phenomena that can produce similar signals (like cyclones, volcanoes, geomagnetic storms) to those before earthquakes- which leads to many false positive alerts.
Luckily, there is one way to monitor every super-lithospheric (above ground) risk factor at the exact same time, and this data is not only readily available in usable format, but there are active forecasts of them at all times- Earthspots, the pressure cells of Earth. At these locations we know the GEC is strongest, connecting all vertical sectors of the atmosphere, telling us where any excess current is most likely to be found. Just like sunspots and the bright umbral magnetic fields on the Sun, Earthspots tell us where the current is flowing in Earth’s atmosphere, and potentially the ground as well.
The atmospheric half of our location model uses Earthspots, with the only addition being recognized OLR anomalies from the papers listed earlier. The second half of the location model is sub-lithospheric (below ground). After studying the foreshock patterns to large earthquakes, it was determined (by community member Scott Windbiel) that deep earthquake foreshocks are, in general, present far more often before large earthquakes than shallow foreshocks. Since that time, we have further constrained the magnitude and depth requirements for many different regions across the globe. We call these deep events “Blot Echoes” to honor Claude Blot, who long-ago envisioned using deep earthquakes to forecast volcanoes.
The combination of these sub-lithospheric and atmospheric factors is used by our model every day to determine places where large earthquakes are more likely to occur. The 10 - 15% of Earth’s fault system most at risk on a given day in our model is based on the regions that are showing the strongest signals above and below the ground.
Here follow some short SO videos (without the notes click view on YT if you want the articles)
Sun Erupts, Magnetic Pole Shift meets Climate Science | S0 News July.24.2021
Here We Go Again, EFSQ, Mars Quakes | S0 News July.23.2021
Magnetic Health Effects, Sunspot Cycle Activated, Electroquakes, | S0 News July.21.2021
Here is an interesting video by Sky Watch. That shows a decrease in Cosmic Radiation as the Solar output increases. This suggests that our sun is becoming more active (not less?) and giving more solar radiation and blocking the cosmic radiation somewhat. This S.O. video from April 2021 explains the Forbush phenomenon (paste in your browser: https://youtu.be/8mRFPY1WTwk?t=131). Cosmic rays are modulated by solar activity but the increased solar activity comes with its own charged particles. It is complicated. I do not think it is fully understood. Think of it this way…our solar system is encountering the galactic sheet which effects our star, which in turn will effect our electromagnetic circuit. I think of it as one huge thing pushing and distorting another big thing, which in turn pushes our little rock. We are fortunate that the big eruptions on the sun were not earth facing. Is there a reason for this? Is something triggering it? (the approaching galactic shock wave?) In any case there is still so much that we just do not know. Interesting times indeed.
Huge Explosion on the Far Side of the Sun is Felt on Earth