Archiv: ionosphere


02.01.2020 - 10:23 [ American Geophysical Union / Youtube ]

Press Conference: Postcards from the edge of space: New images, new phenomena, and new insights

Tuesday, 10 December, 2:30 p.m. │ Presentations SA11A-01, SM51G-3219

In this briefing, scientists will present new images from Earth’s ionosphere, bringing color to processes that have widespread implications for the part of space closest to home. This collection of photos will span the first images ever captured by NASA’s ICON spacecraft — just launched in October 2019 — and the first science discoveries from NASA’s GOLD mission, along with observations of a never-before-studied type of aurora.

Participants:

Jennifer Briggs, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, United States;

Richard Eastes, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States;

Thomas Immel, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States.

02.01.2020 - 10:12 [ businessinsider.com ]

A mysterious crunch in Earth‘s magnetic field created a new type of aurora borealis. A NASA intern discovered it.

(26.12.2019)

A NASA intern discovered a new type of aurora in 3-year-old video footage of the Arctic sky.

01.10.2018 - 19:05 [ Nature.com ]

Declining solar activity linked to recent warming

(6.10.2010) An analysis of satellite data challenges the intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth, and vice versa. In fact, solar forcing of Earth’s surface climate seems to work the opposite way around — at least during the current Sun cycle. (…)

Contrary to expectations, the net amount of solar energy reaching Earth’s troposphere — the lowest part of the atmosphere — seems to have been larger in 2007 than in 2004, despite the decline in solar activity over that period.

The spectral changes seem to have altered the distribution of ozone molecules above the troposphere.

19.08.2018 - 20:50 [ National Center for Biotechnology Information / National Institutes of Health ]

Cosmic Influence on the Sun-Earth Environment

(Dezember 2008) Since the early days of human civilization we have looked at the sky and tried to understand the environment of the Earth and the Universe [1, 2, 3, 4, and 5]. We are continuously collecting data for different environmental parameters. Sudden heat or cold waves, tornados, erratic rainfall and snowfall are being observed and their forewarning has been attempted. Efforts have been made to understand the influence of stars and the Sun, which, although they are distant objects in space, can influence the environment of the Earth. Extragalactic cosmic rays measured as neutron counting rate, represent an energy spectrum, which is being received by the solar system from the distant stars; the particles of cosmic rays are atom –nuclei with almost light velocity [6, 7]. The effects of the Sun on the environment of the Earth were found to be modulated by the geomagnetic field and the ionizing potential of the cosmic rays [8]. Earth directed Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) and its effects on the thermosphere, ionosphere and atmosphere have been studied. During Earth directed CME a beam of electrons (plasma) is pumped towards the Earth [9]. This beam of electrons is highly conductive and generates an electric field that is transmitted to Earth‘s natural plasmosphere and ionosphere. This thin layer of changed electric field further influences the ionosphere and atmosphere of the earth [24]. Since a beam of electrons is carried by an electric current, a magnetic disturbance would be produced. Starbursts are caused by a special variety of neutron star known as a magnetar. These fast-spinning, compact stellar bodies create intense magnetic fields that trigger explosions, which are known as starbursts. Starbursts cause the Sun to develop low Planetary Indices (Kp) and low Electron flux (E-flux) conditions for the Sun-Earth Environment.
(…)
If the electron flux from the sun is low, with the subsequent rise in cosmic rays simultaneously anomalous snowfall and lowering of the atmospheric temperature has been observed. It would be possible to understand the movement of clouds and snowfall, as well as atmospheric moisture, if we could efficiently calculate the influence of space weather and cosmic influence on the thermosphere and atmosphere of the Earth [12]. Based on the same hypothesis it was found that an abnormal rise and sudden fall in E-flux, Kp index and atmospheric temperature has the possibility of triggering earthquakes in active fault areas of the Earth due to temporary changes in the magnetic field of the Earth. The whole process was expressed as a precursor of earthquakes in active fault areas.

19.08.2018 - 19:23 [ Nature.com ]

Declining solar activity linked to recent warming

(6.10.2010) An analysis of satellite data challenges the intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth, and vice versa. In fact, solar forcing of Earth‘s surface climate seems to work the opposite way around — at least during the current Sun cycle. (…)

Contrary to expectations, the net amount of solar energy reaching Earth‘s troposphere — the lowest part of the atmosphere — seems to have been larger in 2007 than in 2004, despite the decline in solar activity over that period.

The spectral changes seem to have altered the distribution of ozone molecules above the troposphere.

19.08.2018 - 19:08 [ ann-geophys.net ]

On the solar cycle dependence of winds and planetary waves as seen from mid-latitude D1 LF mesopause region wind measurements

(März 1998)

Two mechanisms of the development of the wave are discussed: Salby (1981a,b) proposes that the quasi-2-day wave is a resonant ampliÆcation of the antisymmetric (3,3)-normal mode. Plumb (1983), however, suggests that the wave appears due to baroclinic instability near the summer stratospheric wind jet. The climatology of the quasi-2-day wave at Collm was described in detail by Jacobi et al. (1997c), who also pointed out that an influence of the 11-year solar cycle on its amplitude could be seen.

In the following, mesopause wind data measured at the Collm Observatory of the University of Leipzig are investigated with respect to a possible solar cycle dependence.

19.08.2018 - 15:51 [ Massachusetts Insitute of Technology ]

Study: Hole in ionosphere is caused by sudden stratospheric warming

(6.8.2018) Geospace research has long established that certain changes in the atmosphere are caused by the sun’s radiation, through mechanisms including solar wind, geomagnetic storms, and solar flares. (…)

One of the more scientifically interesting large-scale atmospheric events is called a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), in which enormous waves in the troposphere — the lowermost layer of the atmosphere in which we live — propagate upward into the stratosphere. These planetary waves are generated by air moving over geological structures such as large mountain ranges; once in the stratosphere, they interact with the polar jet streams.