Deep Space Climate Observatory to provide 'EPIC' views of Earth

NASA has contributed two Earth science instruments for NOAA's space weather observing satellite called the Deep Space Climate Observatory or DSCOVR, set to launch in January 2015. One of the instruments called EPIC or Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera will image the Earth in one picture, something that hasn't been done before from a satellite. EPIC will also provide valuable atmospheric data.

Currently, to get an entire Earth view, scientists have to piece together images from satellites in orbit. With the launch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) DSCOVR and the EPIC instrument, scientists will get pictures of the entire sunlit side of Earth. To get that view, EPIC will orbit the first sun-Earth Lagrange point (L1), 1 million miles from Earth. At this location, four times further than the orbit of the Moon, the gravitational pull of the sun and Earth cancel out providing a stable orbit for DSCOVR. Most other Earth-observing satellites circle the planet within 22,300 miles.

"Unlike personal cameras, EPIC will take images in 10 very narrow wavelength ranges," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. "Combining these different wavelength images allows the determination of physical quantities like ozone, aerosols, dust and volcanic ash, cloud height, or vegetation cover. These results will be distributed as different publicly available data products allowing their combination with results from other missions."

These data products are of interest to climate science, as well as hydrology, biogeochemistry, and ecology. Data will also provide insight into Earth's energy balance.

EPIC was built by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center, in Palo Alto, California. It is a 30 centimeter (11.8 inch) telescope that measures in the ultraviolet, and visible areas of the spectrum. EPIC images will have a resolution of between 25 and 35 kilometers (15.5 to 21.7 miles).

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Plasma plumes help shield Earth from harmful photo voltaic storms

Earth's magnetic area, or magnetosphere, stretches in the planet's core out into space, where it meets the photo voltaic wind, a stream of billed contaminants released through the sun. Typically, the magnetosphere functions like a shield to safeguard Earth out of this high-energy photo voltaic activity.

However when this area makes connection with the sun's magnetic area -- a procedure known as "magnetic reconnection" -- effective electrical power in the sun can stream into Earth's atmosphere, whipping up geomagnetic storms and space weather phenomena that may affect high-altitude aircraft, in addition to astronauts around the Worldwide Space Station.

Now researchers at Durch and NASA have recognized a procedure in Earth's magnetosphere that stands for its shielding effect, keeping incoming solar power away.

By mixing findings in the ground as well as in space, they observed a plume of low-energy plasma contaminants that basically hitches a ride along magnetic area lines -- streaming from Earth's lower atmosphere up to the stage, hundreds of 1000's of kilometers over the surface, in which the planet's magnetic area connects with this from the sun. In this area, that the researchers call the "merging point," the existence of cold, dense plasma slows magnetic reconnection, blunting the sun's effects on the planet.

"Our Planet's magnetic area safeguards existence at first glance in the full impact of those photo voltaic reactions," states John Promote, connect director of MIT's Haystack Observatory. "Reconnection strips away a lot of our magnetic shield and allows energy leak in, giving us large, violent storms. These plasmas get drawn into space and decelerate the reconnection process, therefore the impact from the sun on earth is less violent."

Promote and the co-workers publish their leads to this week's problem of Science. They includes Philip Erickson, principal research researcher at Haystack Observatory, in addition to John Walsh and David Sibeck at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Mapping Earth's magnetic shield

For over a decade, researchers at Haystack Observatory have analyzed plasma plume phenomena utilizing a ground-based technique known as Gps navigation-TEC, by which researchers evaluate radio signals sent from Gps navigation satellites to greater than 1,000 devices on the floor. Large space-weather occasions, for example geomagnetic storms, can transform the incoming radio waves -- a distortion that researchers may use to look for the power of plasma contaminants within the upper atmosphere. By using this data, they are able to produce two-dimensional global maps of atmospheric phenomena, for example plasma plumes.

These ground-based findings have assisted reveal key qualities of those plumes, for example how frequently they occur, and just what makes some plumes more powerful than the others. But because Promote notes, this two-dimensional mapping technique gives a quote only of the items space weather might seem like within the low-altitude parts of the magnetosphere. To obtain a more precise, three-dimensional picture from the entire magnetosphere would require findings from space.

Toward this finish, Promote contacted Walsh with data showing a plasma plume coming from Earth's surface, and stretching up in to the lower layers from the magnetosphere, throughout an average photo voltaic storm in The month of january 2013. Walsh checked the date from the orbital trajectories of three spacecraft which have been circling our planet to review auroras within the atmosphere.

Because it works out, the 3 spacecraft entered the purpose within the magnetosphere where Promote had detected a plasma plume in the ground. They examined data from each spacecraft, and located the same cold, dense plasma plume extended completely as much as in which the photo voltaic storm made connection with Earth's magnetic area.

A river of plasma

Promote states the findings from space validate dimensions in the ground. In addition, the mixture of space- and ground-based data provide a highly detailed picture of the natural defensive mechanism in Earth's magnetosphere.

"This greater-density, cold plasma changes about every plasma physics process it is available in connection with,Inch Promote states. "It slows lower reconnection, also it can lead towards the generation of waves that, consequently, accelerate contaminants in other areas from the magnetosphere. Therefore it is a recirculation process, and extremely fascinating."

Promote likens this plume phenomenon to some "river of contaminants," and states it's not unlike the Gulf Stream, a effective sea current that influences the temperature along with other qualities of surrounding waters. With an atmospheric scale, he states, plasma contaminants can behave similarly, redistributing through the atmosphere to create plumes that "flow via a huge circulatory, with many different different effects."

"What these kinds of research is showing is the way dynamic this whole product is,Inch Promote adds.

Journal Reference:

B. M. Walsh, J. C. Promote, P. J. Erickson, D. G. Sibeck. Synchronised Ground- and Space-Based Findings from the Plasmaspheric Plume and Reconnection. Science, 2014 DOI: 10.1126/science.1247212

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Fierce 2012 magnetic storm just skipped us: Earth dodged huge magnetic bullet in the sun

Earth dodged an enormous magnetic bullet in the sun on This summer 23, 2012.

Based on College of California, Berkeley, and Chinese scientists, an immediate succession of coronal mass ejections -- probably the most intense eruptions around the sun -- sent a pulse of magnetized plasma barreling into space and thru Earth's orbit. Had the eruption come nine days earlier, it might have hit Earth, potentially causing havoc using the electrical power grid, crippling satellites and Gps navigation, and interfering with our progressively electronic lives.

The photo voltaic bursts might have surrounded Earth in magnetic fireworks matching the biggest magnetic storm ever reported on the planet, the so-known as Carrington event of 1859. The dominant mode of communication in those days, the telegraph system, was bumped out over the U . s . States, literally shocking telegraph operators. Meanwhile, the Northern Lights illuminated the evening sky as far south as Hawaii.

Inside a paper showing up today (Tuesday, March 18) within the journal Character Communications, former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow and research physicist Ying D. Liu, now a professor at China's Condition Key Laboratory of Space Weather, UC Berkeley research physicist Jesse G. Luhmann as well as their co-workers report their research into the magnetic storm, that was detected by NASA's Stereo system A spacecraft.

"Been with them hit Earth, it most likely could have been such as the large one out of 1859, however the effect today, with this modern technologies, could have been tremendous," stated Luhmann, who belongs to the Stereo system (Photo voltaic Terrestrial Observatory) team and based at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory.

Research this past year believed that the price of a photo voltaic storm such as the Carrington Event could achieve $2.6 trillion worldwide. A substantially more compact event on March 13, 1989, brought towards the collapse of Canada's Hydro-Quebec energy power grid along with a resulting lack of electricity to 6 million people for approximately nine hrs.

"A serious space weather storm -- a photo voltaic superstorm -- is really a low-probability, high-consequence event that poses severe risks to critical infrastructures from the society,Inch cautioned Liu, who's using the National Space Science Core Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. "To buy a extreme space weather event, whether it hits Earth, could achieve billions of dollars having a potential time to recover of four-ten years. Therefore, it's vital towards the security and economic interest from the society to know photo voltaic superstorms."

According to their research into the 2012 event, Liu, Luhmann as well as their Stereo system co-workers came to the conclusion that an enormous episode around the sun on This summer 22 powered a magnetic cloud with the photo voltaic wind in a peak speed in excess of 2,000 kilometers per second -- four occasions the normal speed of the magnetic storm. It tore through Earth's orbit but, fortunately, Earth and also the other planets were on the other hand from the sun at that time. Any planets within the type of sight might have experienced severe magnetic storms because the magnetic area from the episode twisted using the planets' own magnetic fields.

The scientists determined the huge episode resulted from a minimum of two nearly synchronised coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which usually release powers equal to those of in regards to a billion hydrogen tanks. How quickly the magnetic cloud plowed with the photo voltaic wind am high, they came to the conclusion, because another mass ejection four days earlier had removed the road of fabric that will have slowed down it lower.

"The authors believe this extreme event was because of the interaction of two CMEs separated by only ten to fifteen minutes," stated Joe Gurman, the work researcher for Stereo system at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

One good reason the big event was potentially so harmful, apart from its high-speed, is it created a really lengthy-duration, southward-oriented magnetic area, Luhmann stated. This orientation drives the biggest magnetic storms once they hit Earth since the southward area merges strongly with Earth's northward area inside a process known as reconnection. Storms that normally might dump their energy limited to the rods rather dump it in to the radiation devices, ionosphere and upper atmosphere and make auroras lower towards the tropics.

"These gnarly, twisty ropes of magnetic area from coronal mass ejections come raging in the sun with the ambient photo voltaic system, mounting up material before them, so when this double whammy hits Earth, it skews our planet's magnetic area to odd directions, dumping energy all over the planet," she stated. "Some people wish Earth have been in the manner how much of an experiment that could have been.Inch

"People continue to say these are rare natural hazards, but they're happening within the photo voltaic system despite the fact that we do not always discover their whereabouts,Inch she added. "It's as with earthquakes -- it's difficult to impress upon people the significance of planning unless of course a person suffers a magnitude 9 earthquake."

All of this activity could have been skipped if Stereo system A -- the Stereo system spacecraft in front of us in Earth's orbit and also the twin to Stereo system B, which trails within our orbit -- was not there to record the blast.

The aim of Stereo system along with other satellites probing the magnetic fields from the sun and Earth would be to understand why and how the sun's rays transmits out these large photo voltaic storms and also to have the ability to predict them throughout the sun's 11-year photo voltaic cycle. The wedding was particularly unusual since it happened throughout a really calm photo voltaic period.

"Findings of photo voltaic superstorms happen to be very missing and limited, and our current knowledge of photo voltaic superstorms is extremely poor," Liu stated. "Questions fundamental to photo voltaic physics and space weather, for example how extreme occasions form and evolve and just how severe it may be in the Earth, aren't addressed due to the ultimate insufficient findings."

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Warming climate may spread drying out to some third of earth: Warmth, not only rain fall, plays into new forecasts

Growing warmth is anticipated to increase dry conditions to much more farmland and metropolitan areas through the finish from the century than alterations in rain fall alone, states new research. A lot of the priority about future drought under climatic change has centered on rain fall forecasts, but greater evaporation rates might also play a huge role as warmer temps wring more moisture in the soil, even occasionally where rain fall is forecasted to improve, the scientists.

The research is among the first to make use of the most recent climate simulations to model the results of both altering rain fall and evaporation rates on future drought. Released this month within the journal Climate Dynamics, the research estimations that 12 % of land is going to be susceptible to drought by 2100 through rain fall changes alone however the drying out will spread to 30 % of land if greater evaporation rates in the added energy and humidity within the atmosphere is recognized as. A rise in evaporative drying out implies that even regions expected to obtain more rain, including important wheat, corn and grain devices within the western U . s . States and southeastern China, is going to be vulnerable to drought. The research excludes Antarctica.

"We all know from fundamental physics that warmer temps will assist you to dry things out," stated the study's lead author, Benjamin Prepare, an environment researcher with joint visits at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and also the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "Even when precipitation changes later on are uncertain, you will find top reasons to stress about water assets."

In the latest climate report, the Worldwide Panel on Global Warming (IPCC) alerts that soil moisture is anticipated to say no globally which already dry regions is going to be at and the higher chances of farming drought. The IPCC also forecasts a powerful possibility of soil moisture drying out within the Mediterranean, north western U . s . States and southern African regions, in conjuction with the Climate Dynamics study.

Using two drought metric formulations, the research authors evaluate forecasts of both rain fall and evaporative demand in the assortment of climate model simulations completed for that IPCC's 2013 climate report. Both metrics agree that elevated evaporative drying out will most likely tip marginally wet regions at mid-latitudes such as the U.S. Great Flatlands along with a swath of southeastern China into aridity. If precipitation were the only real consideration, these great farming centers wouldn't be considered vulnerable to drought. The scientists also state that dry zones in Guatemala, the Amazon . com and southern Africa will grow bigger. In Europe, the summer time aridity of A holiday in greece, Poultry, Italia and The country is anticipated to increase farther north into continental Europe.

"For agriculture, the moisture balance within the soil is exactly what really matters," stated study coauthor Jason Smerdon, an environment researcher at Lamont-Doherty. "If rain increases slightly but temps may also increase, drought is really a potential consequence."

Today, while rainwater periodically reduces crop yields occasionally, other regions are usually in a position to compensate to avert food shortages. Within the warmer weather for the future, however, crops in multiple regions could wither concurrently, the authors suggest. "Food-cost shocks turn into much more common," stated study coauthor Richard Seager, an environment researcher at Lamont-Doherty. Large metropolitan areas, particularly in arid regions, will have to carefully manage their water supplies, he added.

The research develops a growing body of research searching at just how evaporative demand influences hydroclimate. "It verifies something we have suspected for any very long time," stated Toby Ault, an environment researcher at Cornell College, who had been not active in the study. "Temperature alone could make drought more common. Studies such as this provide us with a couple of new effective tools to organize for and adjust to global warming."

Rain fall changes don't tell the entire story, concurs College of Nsw investigator Steven Sherwood, inside a recent Perspectives piece within the leading journal Science. "Many regions can get more rain, however it seems that couple of can get enough to help keep pace using the growing evaporative demand."

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World temperature records available via Google Earth

Climate scientists in the College of East Anglia make the earth's temperature records available via Google Earth.

The Weather Research Unit Temperature Version 4 (CRUTEM4) land-surface air temperature dataset is among the most broadly used records from the climate system.

The brand new Google Earth format enables customers to scroll all over the world, focus on 6,000 weather stations, and examine monthly, periodic and annual temperature data easier than in the past.

Customers can drill lower to determine some 20,000 graphs -- most of which show temperature records dating back 1850.

The move belongs to a continuing effort to create data about past climate and global warming as accessible and transparent as you possibly can.

Dr Tim Osborn from UEA's Weather Research Unit stated: "The good thing about using Google Earth is you can instantly see in which the weather stations are, focus on specific nations, and find out station datasets a lot more clearly.

"The information itself originates from the most recent CRUTEM4 figures, that have been freely on our website and through the Met Office. But we would have liked to create this key temperature dataset as interactive and user-friendly as you possibly can.Inch

Google's Earth interface shows the way the globe continues to be split up into 5? latitude and longitude power grid boxes. The boxes are about 550km wide across the Equator, thinning for the South and north rods. This red-colored and eco-friendly checkerboard covers the majority of Earth and signifies regions of land where station data can be found. Hitting a power grid box discloses the area's annual temps, in addition to links to more in depth downloadable station data.

But as the new initiative does allow greater ease of access, the study team do anticipate finding errors.

Dr Osborn stated: "This dataset combines monthly records from 6,000 weather stations all over the world -- most of which go as far back greater than 150 years. That's lots of data, therefore we would anticipate seeing a couple of errors. We greatly persuade folks to alert us to the records that appear unusual.

"You will find some gaps within the power grid -- it is because you will find no weather stations in remote areas like the Sahara. Customers could also place the location of some weather stations isn't exact. It is because the data we've concerning the latitude and longitude of every station is restricted to at least one decimal place, therefore the station markers might be a couple of kms in the actual location.

"This is not an issue scientifically since the temperature records don't rely on the actual location of every station. But it's a thing that will improve with time weight loss detailed location information opens up.Inch

This new initiative is referred to inside a new information paper released on Feb 4 within the journal Earth System Science Data (Osborn T.J. and Johnson P.D., 2014: The CRUTEM4 land-surface air temperature dataset: construction, previous versions and distribution via Google Earth).

The CRUTEM4 data set can be obtained from doi:10.5285/EECBA94F-62F9-4B7C-88D3-482F2C93C468.

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'Monster' sunspot could hurl flares at Earth

A "monster sunspot" more than 60,000 miles wide could send some powerful solar flares toward Earth on Wednesday, NASA says.

The sunspot -- actually a group of four spots, each larger than Earth, and smaller spots -- emerged over the weekend and was spotted by the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory and amateur astronomers, Spaceweather.com reported (via Space.com). It tossed off a moderately strong M-class flare today, and is expected to follow up with even stronger flares, possibly even X class.

Sunspot AR 1476 is so big that a photographer in the Philippines captured it at sunset, without a solar telescope.

But Spaceweather offers potential sungazers this crucial warning:

Even when the sun is dimmed by clouds and haze, looking into the glare can damage your eyes. Looking through unfiltered optics is even worse. If you chose to photograph the low sun, use the camera's LCD screen for viewfinding.

Sunspots don't excite you? How about a pair of coronal mass ejections, or a dark, coronal hole that has opened in the sun's atmosphere and is hurling solar winds toward us? Good chance of strong geomagnetic activity, including auroras.

Want to know the space weather now? NOAA has it.

The latest sun show comes three weeks after the spectacular eruption captured by the solar orbiter.

BLOG:  Satellite captures giant eruption from sun today

NASA has a primer on the solar cycle.

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Strong space weather storm hits Earth

The strongest space weather storm in five years struck Earth on Thursday, causing some airlines to reroute their flights, threatening power disruptions and sparking a show of the northern lights.

NASA and other agencies warned that the storm had the potential to disrupt global positioning systems, satellites and power grids, and had already caused some air carriers to change their planes' polar flight paths.

However, the Earth's magnetic field appeared to be absorbing the brunt of the shock and it was unlikely to reach the most severe levels, US experts said.

The leading edge of the coronal mass ejection -- a burst of hot plasma and charged particles -- that erupted from the Sun early Wednesday reached Earth on Thursday at 1045 GMT (5:45 am Eastern time in the United States), said an update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Predictions that the storm would reach a level three on a scale of five, or a "strong" level of solar radiation and geomagnetic storming, continue to "look justified," NOAA said.

"So far the orientation of the magnetic field has been opposite of what is needed to cause the strongest storming. As the event progresses, that field will continue to change."

NASA had forecast late Wednesday that the storm could reach "severe" levels, and its effects were expected to last through Friday.

The storm is likely "the strongest one since December 2006," NOAA scientist Joseph Kunches said on Wednesday.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station were not expected to be affected by the radiation storm, NASA said.

A vivid display of the northern lights -- aurora borealis -- created when highly charged particles interact with the Earth's magnetic field, causing a colorful glow, was expected to be visible over central Asia at nightfall Thursday.

Geomagnetic and radiation storms are growing more frequent as the Sun leaves its solar minimum period and moves into a solar maximum over the coming years, but people are generally protected by Earth's magnetic field.

However, some experts are concerned that because the world is more reliant on GPS and satellite technology now than it was during the last solar maximum, more disruptions to modern life are likely.

The fuss began late Sunday at an active region on the Sun known as 1429, with a big solar flare that was associated with a coronal mass ejection that thrust toward the Earth at some four million miles per hour (6.4 million kilometers per hour).

A pair of solar flares and a CME followed overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, setting off a strong geomagnetic and solar radiation storm registering at level three on a five-step scale.

NASA said the first of the two flares on March 6-7 -- classified in the potent X class and facing directly at the Earth -- was the biggest this year and one of the largest of this cycle known as the solar minimum, which began in early 2007.

In fact, it was second only to a stronger one that erupted in August.

The solar flares alone caused brief high frequency radio blackouts that have already passed, according to NOAA.

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Why Early Earth Didn't Freeze Over Still a Mystery

Global warming gases cannot explain why Earth was not frozen billions of years ago when the sun was cooler, researchers say.

In the Archean Eon about 2.5 billion to 4 billion years ago, before the first advanced life appeared on the planet, the sun was only about 70 percent as bright as it is today. This means the amount of heat felt on Earth was much less, and Earth's surface should have been frozen.

However, ancient rocks at Isua near the southwest coast of Greenland indicate liquid water and even life was present on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago. "So Earth's climate had to be somewhere between the freezing point and boiling point of water, and probably pretty close to the temperature we have today, which sustains life," said researcher Emily Pope, an isotope geochemist at the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.

The contradiction between the cold Earth that apparently should have existed and the temperate Earth that apparently did exist is known as the "faint young sun paradox." Until now, the most popular explanation for this enigma was that there was a higher concentration of "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than today. These gases absorb heat from the sun, helping warm the planet.

"Just like the average temperature of Earth is getting higher today because there are more greenhouse gases than there were before the Industrial Revolution, or even before the invention of agriculture, the presence of high concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane should have kept the early Earth warm," Pope said. [Early Earth Was Purple]

For greenhouse gases to explain the faint young sun paradox, their concentrations would need to have been extremely high, hundreds to thousands of times as much as today.

"If levels of carbon dioxide were that high, they would be recorded in ancient soils and sediments in the rock record," Pope said. "If levels of methane were that high, they would actually form a kind of organic haze in the atmosphere that blocks the sun's rays and would counteract its properties as a greenhouse gas."

Now scientists analyzing relatively pristine 3.8-billion-year-old rocks from Isua find no evidence that greenhouse gas levels were high enough to explain the faint young sun paradox, further deepening the mystery, Pope told LiveScience.

Specifically, researchers looked at serpentine mineral deposits, which form when ancient seawater interacts with deep ocean crust (the outer layer of Earth). These deposits record details of the water such as the hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios found within, which rely in part on ocean size. Isotopes are atoms of the same element, like hydrogen, with differing numbers of neutrons. Light hydrogen isotopes are more likely to be found in the air and escape into space than heavier ones; the smaller the oceans, the more their waters will have slightly lower concentrations of light isotopes.

The rocks suggest that the oceans were up to 26 percent larger in the past. These shrunk over time to present-day volumes — seawater became trapped in newly formed continental rocks, and hydrogen that is one of the key ingredients of water instead escaped to outer space.

The rate of hydrogen loss to space is linked to atmospheric levels of methane and carbon dioxide; both these greenhouse gases can interact with hydrogen and other gases such as oxygen in complex ways. The hydrogen loss rate the researchers estimated based on these findings suggests that concentrations of these greenhouse gases were nowhere near high enough to reconcile the faint young sun paradox. [Stunning Images of the Sun]

"We have new concrete data that characterizes the early oceans," Pope said. "This will hugely help our ability to put realistic constraints on our models of how Earth's oceans and atmosphere first evolved."

An alternative explanation for the faint young sun paradox is that early in Earth history, there were fewer continents because a number had not formed yet; less land mass would have meant less cloud cover, because there weren't biologically generated particles such as pollen and spores that could behave as seeds around which the clouds could form. 

"The result was that the planet, covered mostly by oceans, was darker, and like an asphalt road on a hot day, could absorb a lot more heat, enough to keep the Earth clement," Pope told LiveScience.

The scientists detailed their findings online March 5 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Sun hurls strong geomagnetic storm toward Earth (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The strongest geomagnetic storm in more than six years was forecast to hit Earth's magnetic field on Tuesday, and it could affect airline routes, power grids and satellites, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center said.

A coronal mass ejection - a big chunk of the Sun's atmosphere - was hurled toward Earth on Sunday, driving energized solar particles at about 5 million miles an hour (2,000 km per second), about five times faster than solar particles normally travel, the center's Terry Onsager said.

"When it hits us, it's like a big battering ram that pushes into Earth's magnetic field," Onsager said from Boulder, Colorado. "That energy causes Earth's magnetic field to fluctuate."

This energy can interfere with high frequency radio communications used by airlines to navigate close to the North Pole in flights between North America, Europe and Asia, so some routes may need to be shifted, Onsager said.

It could also affect power grids and satellite operations, the center said in a statement. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station may be advised to shield themselves in specific parts of the spacecraft to avoid a heightened dose of solar radiation, Onsager said.

The space weather center said the geomagnetic storm's intensity would probably be moderate or strong, levels two and three on a five-level scale, five being the most extreme.

(Reporting By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Power companies prepare as solar storms set to hit Earth (Reuters)

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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On Fourth of July, Earth Is Farthest from the Sun (SPACE.com)

The weather forecast for this year's Fourth of July holiday in the United States calls for high temperatures across much of the country's central and southern states, with some places expected to surpass 100 degrees for the American holiday. So it may come as a surprise that despite this heat, the planet is actually about as far away from the sun as it ever gets.

At about 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on the Fourth of July, the Earth will reach that point in its orbit where it is farthest from the sun. Called aphelion, this location in Earth's orbit puts the planet about 94.5 million miles (152 million kilometers) from the sun. That's about 3.1 million miles (4.9 million km) more than the Earth's closest distance to the sun (called perihelion), which occurred on Jan. 3. 

The exact difference in the distance between Earth's closest and farthest points from the sun is 3,104,641 miles (4 996 435 km), or 3.28 percent, which makes a difference in radiant heat received by the planet of nearly 7 percent. The average distance between the Earth and sun is about 93 million miles (150 million km). [10 Extreme Planet Facts]

Closer doesn't necessarily mean hotter

If you ask most people in the Northern Hemisphere which month of the year they think the Earth is closest to the sun, they may likely say it happens in June, July or August, some of the hottest months of the year.  

But our warm weather doesn’t relate to our distance from the sun. It's because of the 23.5-degree tilt of the Earth's axis that the sun is above the horizon for different lengths of time at different seasons. The tilt determines whether the sun's rays strike us at a low angle or more directly. 

At New York's latitude, the more nearly direct rays at the summer solstice of June 21 bring about three times as much heat as the more slanting rays at the winter solstice on Dec. 21. Heat received by any region is dependent on the length of daylight and the angle of the sun above the horizon.

So there are noticeable differences in temperatures that are registered over different parts of the world, including the Southern Hemisphere, where it is winter right now.

A climate fallacy

When I attended Henry Bruckner Junior High School in The Bronx, my earth science teacher, Mr. Shenberg, told all of us that because Earth is farthest from the sun in July and closest in December, that such a difference would tend to warm the winters and cool the summers … at least in the Northern Hemisphere. 

And yet the truth of the matter is that the preponderance of large land masses in the Northern Hemisphere works the other way, and actually tends to make the winters colder and the summers hotter.   

Interestingly, the times when the Earth lies at its closest and farthest points from the sun roughly coincide with two significant holidays. When Earth is closest to the sun around New Year's Day and farthest from the sun around Independence Day.

Depending on the year, the date of perihelion can vary from Jan. 1 to 5, while the date of aphelion can vary from July 2 to July 6.

So while you're out in the Fourth of July sun this holiday, take a moment to appreciate the celestial dance the Earth is making at the exact same time and enjoy the sunshine.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y.

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