{"id":250,"date":"2006-01-21T11:09:43","date_gmt":"2006-01-21T19:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/?p=250"},"modified":"2006-02-28T18:10:52","modified_gmt":"2006-03-01T02:10:52","slug":"solar-x-flares-and-hurricanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/2006\/01\/21\/solar-x-flares-and-hurricanes\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar X-Flares and Hurricanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of course, the left will ignore the hard science and embrace the “blame US industry” and “blame Bush” for not signing up for the flawed Kyoto Accord. <\/p>\n

Unusually high solar “X-flare” activity may explain the unusually intense 2005 hurricane season. The numbers and intensity of the flares since the last solar maximum have relentlessly bombarded the Earth with high-energy particles and magnetic flux. The effect of these flares includes a high number of hurricanes, and lightning in the eyewalls of the most intense storms.<\/p>\n

First, the cause:<\/p>\n

\nNASA – Solar Minimum Explodes<\/a><\/p>\n

[On September 7, 2005] a huge sunspot rounded the sun’s eastern limb. As soon as it appeared, it exploded, producing one of the brightest x-ray solar flares of the Space Age. In the days that followed, the growing spot exploded eight more times. Each powerful “X-flare” caused a shortwave radio blackout on Earth and pumped new energy into a radiation storm around our planet. The blasts hurled magnetic clouds toward Earth, and when they hit, on Sept 10th and 11th, ruby-red auroras were seen as far south as Arizona. (Photo: the skies above Payson AZ on Sept. 11, 2005. Photo credit: Chris Schur<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

“That’s a lot of activity,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama.<\/p>\n

Compare 2005 to the most recent Solar Max: “In the year 2000,” he recalls, “there were 3 severe geomagnetic storms and 17 X-flares.” 2005 registers about the same in both categories. Solar minimum is looking strangely like Solar Max.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One unusual effect:<\/p>\n

\nNASA – Electric Hurricanes<\/a><\/p>\n

January 9, 2006: The boom of thunder and crackle of lightning generally mean one thing: a storm is coming. Curiously, though, the biggest storms of all, hurricanes, are notoriously lacking in lightning. Hurricanes blow, they rain, they flood, but seldom do they crackle.<\/p>\n

Surprise: During the record-setting hurricane season of 2005 three of the most powerful storms–Rita, Katrina, and Emily–did have lightning, lots of it. And researchers would like to know why.<\/p>\n

Right: An infrared GOES 11 satellite image of Hurricane Emily. Yellow + and – symbols mark lightning bolts detected by the North American Lightning Detection Network. The green line traces the path of the ER-2 surveillance aircraft<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lightning has been seen in hurricanes before. During a field campaign in 1998 called CAMEX-3, scientists detected lightning in the eye of hurricane Georges as it plowed over the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The lightning probably was due to air forced upward — called “orographic forcing” — when the hurricane hit the mountains.<\/p>\n

“Hurricanes are most likely to produce lightning when they’re making landfall,” says Blakeslee. But there were no mountains beneath the “electric hurricanes” of 2005\u00e2\u20ac\u201donly flat water.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For more about our opinions on global warming and for more reference articles, see this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of course, the left will ignore the hard science and embrace the “blame US industry” and “blame Bush” for not signing up for the flawed Kyoto...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,42,30,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-global-warming","category-science","category-whacko-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}