Transcript Extreme Magnetic Storms: Solar and Interplanetary Causes

CARRINGTON, CHAPMAN AND OTHER GIANTS (Von
HUMBOLDT, MAUNDER, CHREE AND BARTELS): HAVE
WE ASSIMALATED ALL THEY TOLD US ABOUT SPACE
WEATHER?
Bruce T. Tsurutani*
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of technology
Pasadena, California 91109
*Collaborators: W.D. Gonzalez, G.S. Lakhina, E. Echer and O.P.
Verkhoglyadova
Carrington MNRS, 1859
Carrington, 1859
“Description of a Singular Appearance seen in
the Sun on September 1, 1859”
By R.C. Carrington, Esq. (MNRA, 20, 13, 1859)
“Mr.
Carrington exhibited at the November
meeting of the Society and pointed out that a
moderate but very marked disturbance took
place at about 11:20 AM, September 1st, of short
duration; and that towards four hours after
midnight there commenced a great magnetic
storm, ……….”
“While contemporary occurrence may deserve
nothing, he would not have it supposed that he
even leans towards hastily connecting them.
“One swallow does not make a summer”. “
Carrington gave us gave us information to determine the average speed of the CME. It was not
“politically correct” to relate solar and geomagnetic phenomena at the time (due to Lord Kelvin) .
.
The October 28 , 2003 “Halloween” AR
The 1972 Event
Big Solar Events
• Some “big solar and interplanetary events” are
the Carrington 1859 flare, the August 1972
event and the Halloween 2003 events. What
do they have in common?
• All flares were associated with magnetic ARs.
• All took place after solar maximum.
• See Svestka ASR, 1995
> X10 flares
N. Gopalswamy, personal comm., 2009
• Large flares tend to occur late in a solar cycle (Svestka ASR
1995; Gopalswamy, personal comm., 2009).
• How to explain the above: there might be more beta-gammadelta regions (Kuenzel, AN, 1960; Sammis, Tang and Zirin,
ApJ 2000) in this phase? (M. Wheatland, personal comm.,
2009)
• A plus: the ARs would be closest to the equator (J. Harvey,
personal comm., 2009).
Total Energy from Solar/Stellar Flares
September 1, 1859 Flare
E = possibly 1032 ergs
(K. Harvey, personal comm., 2001)
Is This The Most Energetic Flare?
August 1972 Flare
E ≈ 1032 – 1033 ergs
(Lin and Hudson, Sol. Phys., 50, 153, 1976)
June 1, 1991 Flare
E ≈ 1034 ergs
(Kane, et al., Astro. J., 446, L47, 1995)
What is the Maximum Flare energy?
E = 1035 ergs?
(See Schrijver, ASR, 2009)
Is Solar Flare Energy the Most Important
Parameter (for magnetic storms)?
• Answer: not necessarily
Gonzalez et al., GRL 1998
The most important quantity is the interplanetary electric field: E =V x B ~ V2
Max Vsw = 3000 km/s? Gopalswamy et al. JGR 2005
The Sept 1-2 1859 Carrington Storm
Low-latitude Auroras: The Magnetic Storm of 1-2
September 1859
D.S. Kimball (University of Alaska), 1960
“Red glows were reported as visible from within 23° of the geomagnetic
equator in both north and south hemispheres during the display of
September 1-2”
D.S. Kimball, a colleague of S. Chapman wrote a comprehensive detailed report
of the aurora during the Carrington storm (it is a GI/Univ. Alaska “internal report”).
“Hand” measurements taken from a Grubb magnetometer. The magnetometer was “high
technology” at the time and the manual for calibration does not have a sketch of it.
From a plasmapause location of L=1.3 (auroral data: Kimball, 1960),
we can estimate the magnetospheric electric field.
The electric potential (Volland, 1973; Stern, 1975; Nishida, 1978) for
charged particles is:






kR
/
r

A
r
/
R
sin



M
/
qr
2
E
Where and
2
E
3
are radial distance and azimuthal angle measured
counterclockwise from solar direction
M – dipole moment
- particle charge and magnetic moment
qTherefore:
,
E
~20
mV
/m
mag
Modern day knowledge plus older observations allowed us to estimate the storm E field
Extreme Magnetic Storm of September 1-2, 1859
• The storm was the most intense in recorded history. Auroras were
seen from Hawaii and Santiago.
• SYM-H is estimated to be ~ -1760 nT, consistent with the Colaba
local noon response of ΔH = 1600 ± 10 nT
(In recent years we have only had the 1989 storm : Dst = -589 nT)
Is this the most intense storm that has taken place?
Ans: Most probably not.
Maximum Magnetic Storm Intensity?
• Dst ~ -2500 nT (Vasyliunas, 2008)
• Have there been other recent events that might
have surpassed the 1859 event under different
conditions?
Ans: Yes
THE AUGUST 1972 SUPER FLARE/ICME
• The ICME took only 14 hours to reach the Earth (Vsw = 2850
km/s. Vaisberg and Zastenker, 1976; Zastenker et al., 1978). The
1859 ICME took 17 hrs to reach 1 AU.
MC: R. Lepping, private
comm., 2005
4 major Bs intervals
Tsurutani et al. JGR 1992
3 storm main phases
Geomagnetic Quiet
Storm main phase
Removal of the radial and corotational delays indicate that the Pioneer 10
Bz features and geomagnetic activity at Earth line up.
INTERPLANETARY EVENT OF 7-8 NOVEMBER, 2004: AR
ASSOCIATION
Two reverse waves
3 Forward Shocks
Tsurutani et al., GRL, 2008
CAN WE PREDICT WHEN THE NEXT ONE
WILL OCCUR IN A STATISTICAL SENSE?
Predictions of greater intensity magnetic storms
requires either: 1) full understanding of the physical
processes involved, or 2) good empirical statistics of
the tail of the energy distributions.
• The statistics for extreme events are poor. We are
making progress on understanding physical
limitations.
Cannot predict tail distributions
What Would the
Consequences Be if a
1859-type ICME Hit Today?
1989 Storm Consequence
Prompt Penetration Electric Fields(PPEFs)
and Their Effects: A Global Scenario
ESW
Positive Ionospheric Storm
B
VSW
 
EB
  
V  EB
Plasmasheet


EB
Negative Ionospheric Storm
Initiation of the Magnetic Storm RC
Tsurutani et al., JGR, 2004
h
(km)
Quiet
300
106
Log N (cm3)
h
(km)
Creation of a new ionosphere: TEC enhancement
Uplifted plasma moved to region
of lower recombination time scales
300
Solar photoionization creates a new ionosphere
106
Log N (cm3)
The Oct 30-31, 2003 Superstorm
CHAMP GPS
Dayside Ionospheric
Superfountain
Mannucci et al. GRL 2005
Mannucci et al. GRL, 2005
Mannucci et al. GRL 2005
Satellite Drag
With O+ ions being rapidly uplifted, one can expect corresponding uplift
of neutrals by drag forces (ion-neutral drag).
For the October 30-31 superstorm neutral densities at ~370 km altitude
could be increased by up to 60% of the quiet time values and that at ~600
km by up to a factor of 7.
Precipitation in the auroral zones lead to enhanced ionospheric heating
and increased satellite drag (Thayer et al., GRL, 2008).
These two effects should be modeled for an 1859
type storm.
Effects During the Carrington Storm
• Arcing from exposed wires set fires.
• Unpowered telegraph lines carried signals (Loomis, Am. J. Sci.,
1861)
• Everything was “low tech” at the time.
Effects Today?
• Today one could certainly expect outages of major power grids
(Severe Space Weather Events, NRC Workshop report, Nat. Acad.
Press, 2008).
• MEO and GEO Satellites disabled, LEO satellites deorbited
(Odenwald et al., ASR 2006).
Loomis, Am. J. Sci., 1861
Thank you very much for your attention.
Some Reflection on Works Done by Von Humboldt,
Maunder, Chree and Bartels
• Recurrent (~27 day) geomagnetic activity: Maunder (1904)
• Put on a sound mathematical basis: Chree (1912)
• “Invisible” magnetically active regions, “M-regions”: Bartels (1934)
• “Magnetisches Ungewitter”, Von Humboldt (1810)
DECLINING PHASE OF SOLAR CYCLE
Coronal hole
THE SOLAR WIND DURING THE DECLINING PHASE OF THE SOLAR CYCLE
HSSs
Large polar coronal
holes
McComas et al. GRL 2003
Nonlinear( ΔB/B ~ 1-2)
Alfvén waves
Tsurutani et al., Nonl.Proc. Geophys., 2005
Bs
BS
HILDCAA
Tsurutani and Gonzalez, PSS, 1987
Chorus due to Injection of T┴/T|| > 1 Anisotropic 10-100 keV Electrons
Tsurutani et al., Wave Inst. Spa Plas., 1979
Chorus “element”
duration ~ 0.1 to 0.5 s
Burton and Holzer JGR 1968
High-speed
stream
HILDCAA
Tsurutani et al., JGR, 2006
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
10
8
6
4
2
Chorus
25
20
15
10
5
0
20
10
0
-10
-20
15
10
5
0
1500
1000
500
0
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
PC5s
Dst (nT)
AE (nT)
Pram (nPa)
Bz (nT)
Pc5 Amplit.
5
(x 10 )
Lshell
MCA Amplitude
1000 - 10000 Hz
Lshell
Relativistic ~400 keV electrons
Tsurutani et al., JGR 2006
20
21
22
23
24
25
July
26
27
28
29
>30 keV electrons
2.5 Mev
electrons
Chorus
Kasahara et al. GRL 2008
2-6 MeV electron peak occurrence
occurs in solar cycle declining phase when
HSSs dominate
D. Baker, 2006
The energy input into the magnetosphere can be higher during the
declining phase of the solar cycle than during solar maximum
~25 day HILDCAAs
CIR storm “recovery”
phases can last ~25 days
Tsurutani et al., JGR, 1995
Kozyra et al. 2006
• Our scientific “giants” could not have
envisaged the long chain of physical
connections: M-regions, high speed solar
wind streams, embedded Alfvén waves,
magnetic reconnection at Earth, nightside
plasma injections, chorus and PC5 wave
generation,
relativistic
electron
acceleration, NOx production, and Ozone
destruction.
THE END