“The Sun Wakes”… A “Cannibal” Storm Indicates a New Cycle in Space Weather

Earth was subjected to a major geomagnetic storm on November 3 and 4, as a result of a series of explosions that occurred on the Sun on November 1 and 2.

the sun is getting up

Such eruptions are associated with sunspots, which are magnetic storms on the surface of the Sun. Both sunspots and solar activity ebb and flow in a cycle spanning about 11 years, and this week’s storms are symptomatic of the sun’s current phase in that cycle.

“For the past several years, we’ve had very little activity, such as during solar minimums, but now we’re increasing and transitioning,” said Bill Murtag, program coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). Very quickly to the maximum for the next solar cycle, which we expect in 2025.”

“We are seeing an increase in the activity that one would expect with this rise in the solar cycle. It is similar to our waking phase,” he added.

As this week’s storms have shown, solar activity affects much more than just the sun. When it reaches the vicinity of the Earth, solar eruptions, or as scientists define them as “cannibals”, can cause a group of phenomena called space weather with effects ranging from auroral displays. Fine to satellite damage.

Storm “Cannibal CME”

This week’s geomagnetic storm originated in a series of coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, bubbles of solar material that the sun sometimes burps from.

“The CME is basically a billion-ton cloud of plasma gas with magnetic fields, so the sun launched a magnet into space and made that magnet cross 93 million miles from the sun to Earth,” Murtagh said. (150 million km).

But Earth has its own magnetic field, and magnetic fields that mix in space don’t always work well together, Murtagh said of the CME’s arrival on Earth: “The two magnets will come together and this will create this geomagnetic storm.”

Sometimes a CME can grow its way through space. This week’s geomagnetic storm arose from a series of eruptions that merged as the later CME moved faster than its predecessor.

“The first CME is basically making its way through 93 million miles and almost paving the way for other waves to come in behind,” Murtagh said. We sometimes use the term ‘dismantling’ the person in front of us.

How strong such a storm is depends on both the size of the CME and how the two magnetic fields align. The CME is going to be big enough and a bad geomagnetic storm no matter what happens. But for mid-size CMEs like the one that came out this week, the picture is more complicated.

space weather on earth

Geomagnetic storms are not just an interesting phenomenon. These events can interfere with critical infrastructure, including power networks, navigation satellites, and aircraft radio communications in remote areas. That’s why the Space Weather Prediction Center exists where Murtag and his colleagues monitor space weather to alert operators of this infrastructure to potential problems.

For a storm like this week, the center automatically notifies all power grid operators in the US and Canada, although the risk of anything skewed is really low.

“They want an alert for this to happen so they know to be prepared,” Murtagg said.

 

This may not always be the case, and if the same CME occurs with a larger outbreak, the effects could be more serious.

'Cannibal CME' sun storm marks rise of new solar cycle in space weather https://t.co/AyDfmqe2rl pic.twitter.com/4NqwUHtDU8

— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) November 6, 2021

“We’ve decided for all practical purposes that the worst-case scenario for an extreme geomagnetic storm event would actually be this,” Murtag said. “It’s just that these storms weren’t that big – but this process happened here, where we’ve had two back-to-back, three different types of magnetic storms.” Continuous sweep together.”

In 1989, for example, a solar storm caused a 12-hour power outage across the Canadian province of Quebec as the United States dealt with a range of energy losses, according to NASA. One of the largest known solar storms, Carrington in 1859 caused the removal of telegraph systems and brought the aurora borealis to Hawaii, according to NASA.

“When we look back at severe geomagnetic storms back to the famous Carrington event of 1859, what we find for practical purposes is that they are all associated with many coronal mass ejections,” Murtagh said.

Unfortunately, “space weather” is much more difficult to predict than the weather on Earth.

Much of that is because scientists are still working to understand how the sun actually works. Murtagh noted that NASA’s “Parker Solar” probe and the European-American Solar Orbital Missions are producing data that will help scientists address these unknowns, but they do not make prediction easier at the moment.

“We have some ability to predict the solar cycle, but we haven’t been successful with that yet, so it could easily get stronger,” Murtag said. “There are a lot of unknowns about space weather.”