If Wacky Weather Is Bad Now, Wait A Minute

This is regarding weather, CMEs, solar events, volcanoes, and our dependence on “other” for everything we need.

Solar eruptions. Coronal mass ejections a/k/a CMEs. These are damaging and dangerous events that have occurred with our central star in the past. Could this happen again?  Considering that when the Sun went dormant in 2006, and has had little to no sunspot activity since then, it’s not impossible but seems unlikely at present. Or the Sun could appear to be dormant when it’s gathering energy and particulates for a massive solar storm.

An extensive  CME and gigantic sunspot appeared on the Sun’s surface in May 1921, which set off three fires at telegraph stations, one in Sweden and two in the USA,  and occurred with no warning, even though physicists were monitoring the Sun.

https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2020/05/12/the-great-geomagnetic-storm-of-may-1921/

Prior to that was the Carrington Event in 1859, which set telegraph wires (and stations) on fire, among other things. Auroral displays were widespread and seen everywhere in both hemispheres.

The estimation of damage if something like that 1859 event were to happen now is in the trillions of dollars, and I think that’s a low estimate. What we all take for granted now, in the line of electronic this and that, would cease to function, and that includes your vehicles, phones, computers, TVs, household appliances (unless they’re as old as my stove). Internet service, ATMs, any remaining landlines, the entire electric grids everywhere, HVAC systems – the list of what we take for granted is literally endless. The potential cost for massive disruptions is high, in the trillions of dollars, although considering that it would be worldwide, not local, trillions seems like an underestimate.

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/244120/20190603/a-solar-storm-of-similar-magnitude-to-1859-carrington-event-could-cause-trillions-worth-of-damage.htm

Prior to that, there was the severe cold event in 1816, which followed the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora, a South Pacific volcano which erupted so violently that 4,646 feet of its top collapsed into a caldera, with particulates loaded into the upper atmosphere (as happened with the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo more recently), resulting in the “year without a summer”.  And earlier than Tambora’s contribution to bad climate/weather was the Dalton Minimum, during which there were frost fairs on the Thames and the canals in the Low Countries (Netherlands) froze over.

The solar physicist interviewed in the linked article in the New York Post does not say that the Sun has “gone into lockdown”, a rather gross exaggeration in describing the current lack of solar activity. That comes from the reporter who interviewed him.  Dr. Phillips does say that the cold period in 1816 was due to solar physics, when in fact, at that time he refers to, the responsible agent was the violent eruption of Tambora.    https://nypost.com/2020/05/14/the-sun-has-entered-a-lockdown-period-which-could-cause-freezing-weather-famine/

What he and the reporter both forget is that the flare/CME has to actually hit Earth to do that kind of damage, and the Sun, fortunately, is taking a prolonged nap that has lasted 14 years so far. I’d be far more concerned about a prolonged loss of solar activity than the possibility of a solar flare or a CME. The difference between those events and a quiet Sun is that the Sun’s activity level is very, very low.

We’ve had several solar flare “attacks” on a recurring basis in the last few decades. Fortunately, none of those more recent events hit the Earth. The valid concerns when these flares occurred were that they would disrupt power grids and impede air traffic and mass communications, among other things. There was also speculation about what might happen to the weather if those flares hit the Earth. The last one I recall reading about as a threat was in 1991, or thereabouts, but there have been many since then up until the Sun went quiet in 2006.

This solar minimum we are in now has been going on since mid-2006, and the sunspot count has been in the low-to-none range, indicating a very dormant central star.   The daily list of solar images is here:  https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/synoptic/sunspots_earth/

No sunspots means low or no activity by the sun. Low to no solar activity means less output, and that has an influence on our weather. If you watch the meteorologists giving us the latest weather forecasts, they are now referring to huge loops and buckling (Rossby waves) in the jet stream, which is driving cold Arctic air south into my turf and pushing all that warm summer air south.

How does this affect the weather? Well, when the jet stream is now so loopy that it is dragging arctic cold down into the lower 48 in early summer, and the first really warm day we’ve had so far will be (maybe) Tuesday next week, and I’m still running the furnace in mid-May – which I have never had to do before now – then we need to rethink how we do things and what we take for granted.

I know the press goes into spasms when something happens like an Icelandic volcano erupting and shutting down air traffic from Europe to the USA and Canada, and they go in to absolute hysterics when a massive earthquake hits a Pacific island nation and causes enormous damage and loss of life, but they’re a bunch of little kids who live for this kind of thing. And they mostly get about 8% of the info correct; the rest, they just make up.

If our growing/farming seasons planetwide are going to be shortened, we should be thinking ahead in that regard. If we haven’t learned from this CV19 pandemic lockdown that we have to be much more self-reliant, and stop depending on “the store” to provide everything for us, then we have a problem.

Category: Historical, NASA, Science and Technology