Power companies prepare as solar storms set to hit Earth

NEW YORK | Sat Aug 6, 2011 1:04pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three large explosions from the Sun over the past few days have prompted U.S. government scientists to caution users of satellite, telecommunications and electric equipment to prepare for possible disruptions over the next few days.

"The magnetic storm that is soon to develop probably will be in the moderate to strong level," said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

He said solar storms this week could affect communications and global positioning system (GPS) satellites and might even produce an aurora visible as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin.

An aurora, called aurora borealis or the northern lights in northern latitudes, is a natural light display in the sky in the Arctic and Antarctic regions caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere.

Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past.

In 1989, a solar storm took down the power grid in Quebec, Canada, leaving about six million people without power for several hours.

The largest solar storm ever recorded was in 1859 when communications infrastructure was limited to telegraphs.

The 1859 solar storm hit telegraph offices around the world and caused a giant aurora visible as far south as the Caribbean Islands.

Some telegraph operators reported electric shocks. Papers caught fire. And many telegraph systems continued to send and receive signals even after operators disconnected batteries, NOAA said on its website.

A storm of similar magnitude today could cause up to $2 trillion in damage globally, according to a 2008 report by the National Research Council.

"I don't think this week's solar storms will be anywhere near that. This will be a two or three out of five on the NOAA Space Weather Scale," said Kunches.

SOLAR SCALE

The NOAA Space Weather Scale measures the intensity of a solar storm from one being the lowest intensity to five being the highest, similar to scales that measure the severity of hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.

The first of the three solar explosions from the sun this week already passed the Earth on Thursday with little impact, Kunches said, noting, the second was passing the Earth now and "seems to be stronger."

And the third, he said, "We'll have to see what happens over the next few days. It could exacerbate the disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field caused by the second (storm) or do nothing at all."

Power grid managers receive alerts from the Space Weather Prediction Center to tell them to prepare for solar events, which peak about every 12 years, Tom Bogdan, director of the center said.

He said the next peak, called a solar maximum, was expected in 2013.

"We're coming up to the next solar maximum, so we expect to see more of these storms coming from the sun over the next three to five years," Bogdan said.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Alden Bentley)

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Riots, wild markets: Did space storms drive us mad?

This aurora australis image was taken during a geomagnetic storm that was most likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the Sun on May 29, 2010 from The International Space Station located over the Southern Indian Ocean at an altitude of 350 kilometers (220 miles) and posted on NASA website June 21, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center/Handout

By Rosalba O'Brien

LONDON | Fri Aug 12, 2011 11:02am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Rollercoaster financial markets and the worst riots Britain has seen in decades have made it quite a week for a time of year that is usually so dead the newspapers are filled with "silly season" tales of amusing pet antics.

Everyone is pointing fingers -- at blundering politicians, hooded thugs, disaffected youths, bumbling police and greedy bankers -- but could the cause for all the madness really be the star at the center of our solar system?

There isn't a lot of evidence pointing to little green men involving themselves in Earthly affairs, but the sun has been throwing bursts of highly charged particles into space in a phenomenon known as coronal mass ejections or CMEs.

Three large CMEs prompted U.S. government scientists to warn of solar storms that can cause power blackouts and the aurora borealis, or northern lights, caused by disturbances in the Earth's atmosphere, have been spotted as far south as England and Colorado, NASA said.

"Earth's magnetic field is still reverberating from a CME strike on August 5th that sparked one of the strongest geomagnetic storms in years", website SpaceWeather said.

Some academics have claimed that such geomagnetic storms can affect humans, altering moods and leading people into negative behavior through effects on their biochemistry.

Some studies have found evidence that hospital admissions for depression rise during geomagnetic storms and that incidents of suicide increase.

A 2003 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that such storms could affect the stock market, as traders were more likely to make pessimistic choices.

"Unusually high levels of geomagnetic activity have a negative, statistically and economically significant effect on the following week's stock returns for all US stock market indices," the authors found in their report.

It could of course be mere coincidence that this has been a rollercoaster week on the markets, and that Britain was rocked by a wave of ferocious rioting and looting.

But market watchers may take comfort from the fact that the space weather forecast for Friday has gone quiet again.

They shouldn't be too complacent though. The solar cycle is on an upswing due to peak in 2013 and there are likely to be more geomagnetic storms heading Earth's way in the months to come.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Solar Storms Sparked By Giant 'Magnetic Rope,' Study Finds (SPACE.com)

A giant "magnetic rope" made up of twisting magnetic field lines could produce the strong electric currents that trigger solar storms, a new study finds.

Researchers at George Mason University sifted through data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to study the magnetic rope phenomenon. Scientists have predicted that this rope is the cause of violent eruptions on the sun, but have previously struggled to prove its existence because of how quickly it moves.

Confirming the magnetic rope's existence would not only help astronomers understand the formation of solar storms, but would also be a key first step toward mitigating the adverse effects these eruptions can have on satellite communications on Earth. [Amazing New Sun Photos from Space]

Jie Zhang, an associate professor in the department of physics and astronomy at George Mason University, and graduate student Xin Cheng closely examined images taken by SDO's Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) telescope.

The researchers were able to pinpoint an area on the sun where a magnetic rope was forming. The AIA telescope captures images of the sun every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day.

"The magnetic rope triggers a solar eruption," Zhang said in a statement. "Scientists have been debating whether or not this magnetic rope exists before a solar eruption. I believe that the result of this excellent observation helps finally solve this controversial issue."

Powering solar storms

It is widely believed that magnetic fields in the sun play an essential role in storing energy and powering solar storms. Yet, the exact form that magnetic field lines take prior to eruptions is not well understood. Most field lines are semicircular loops with their foot-points rooted on the surface of the sun. As a result, they cannot erupt easily, and in fact, they often can prevent eruptions.

Scientists suspected that the magnetic rope, if it indeed exists, is the phenomenon that powers eruptions. A magnetic rope contains many magnetic field lines wrapping around a center axis and possibly twisting around each other.

Because of the twisting, a strong electric current can be carried by the magnetic rope. Theoretically, the electric current could produce enough electromagnetic force to overcome the overlying constraining force from other field lines and power the magnetic rope to move outward. [Photos: Sunspots on Earth's Star]

Images from the AIA telescope now reveal that, prior to eruption, there is a long and low-lying channel running through the entire active region, which heats to a scorching-hot temperature and slowly rises. When it reaches a critical point, it starts to erupt quickly.

This feature is distinctly different from the surrounding magnetic field lines, and the intensely hot channel is now believed to be the magnetic rope that scientists have been looking for.

More than just a pretty picture

Solar storms are violent eruptions on the sun that send a wave of charged particles, called plasma, into space at the speed of more than one million miles per hour. The cloud of plasma carries with it a strong magnetic field.

Sometimes these plasma clouds are directed at Earth, and can deposit a large amount of energy into the planet's magnetosphere.

Normally, the Earth's magnetosphere acts as a shield from these harmful particles and protects the environment. But a solar storm has the potential to disrupt the shielding effect, and severe space weather can have harmful effects on a wide array of technological systems, including satellite operations, communications, navigation and electric power grids.

Studies of space weather aid in the development of early warning systems for solar storms and help to minimize the damage from turbulent solar activity, researchers said.

"Understanding the eruption process of these storms will definitely help us better predict them," Zhang said. "We cannot prevent solar storms, just like we cannot prevent earthquakes or volcanoes. But the development of prediction capacity can help mitigate adverse effects. For instance, satellite operators can power-down key systems to prevent the possible damage to the systems."

The results of the study were reported at the American Astronomical Society Solar Physics Division Meeting, which is being held from June 12 to 16 at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

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