Nobody Controls the Sun

Our sun has been busy lately.  On Thursday, July 12, an X class flare from sunspot group 1520 sent a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward earth.  Anyone lucky enough to have clear night skies for the next 24 hours could see an amazing display of aurora borealis (Northern Lights).  Of course that is just the sugar.  The vinegar comes in the form of ionic disruption capable of affecting power grids and satellite communication.  Nor is the sunspot cluster that produced this pumped up solar wind done.  There is every chance that the sunspots (which are abounding on the sun right now) will produce another huge X class flare.

            Sunspots are areas on the sun’s surface where magnetic energy is particularly high.  When two of these spots bring opposite magnetic poles together they create unfathomable ejections of energy.  These storms arc far into space and then rush outward like tsunami waves.  The earth is like an island caught in the path of these waves.  Our magnetic field interacts with these solar flares and all things electrical are targets for mayhem. 

            The 1859 Carrington Event was the first recorded instance of a solar flare and subsequent storm.  It was named after Richard Carrington, the solar astronomer who witnessed the event in his home made observatory and sketched out the position and form of the sun spots.  Solar flares, of course, have been happening on the sun as long as it has been a sun.  Our cognizance of them is a recent phenomenon.  Their disruption of our daily lives is a result of our current, world circling communications.  A 1972 blast so badly affected AT&T that they redesigned their power systems for trans-Atlantic cables.  In March of 1989 a solar flare left 6 million Canadians without power.  On Bastille Day, July 14, 2000 an X5 solar flare caused some satellites to short circuit and led to radio black outs.  But even these were dwarfed by the October 28, 2003 mega flare that was so strong it overpowered the spacecraft sensor monitoring it.   NASA gave that, “mother-of-all-flares” an X45 rating.  What is more, it was one of a string of nine major flares over a two week period.  In March and again in June of this year we experienced a series of M class flares (which seldom hold the potential for electronic dysfunction).  There have been many major flares since and will be more.  Why?

            We are in a solar maximum period.  The sun has seasons of high and low activity.  They are predictable because they have been observed.  Right now the sun is at a high level of sunspots and they are up to their usual hijinks.  So it has been; so it shall always be.  Periods of extremely low sunspot and sunspot activity, like the Maunder Minimum have also been observed.  They, coincidentally, are also associated with cooler than normal temperature on earth.  Indeed, four incidents of solar minimums are documented during the period of extremely cold temperatures that stretched from roughly the Middle Ages to the 1800’s, the period referred to as the, “Little Ice Age.”  Our current period of solar surface activity is associated with higher than normal temperatures.  Makes you think doesn’t it?

            The earth has been much warmer than it is today.  We currently are no where near as warm as we were in the last interglacial period, but we are warming much faster than in our recorded paleoclimate history.  If the sun is responsible for this, stop complaining and start planning for it.  If humans have some hand in it---same message. 

            Respect Mother Nature, and keep the faith.