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Title: Solar Storm Spurs Awesome Auroras, Goofs Up GPS
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Published: Mar 17, 2015
Author: erik mack
Post Date: 2015-03-17 22:58:30 by tpaine
Keywords: None
Views: 1110
Comments: 7
www.forbes.com Solar Storm Spurs Awesome Auroras, Goofs Up GPS A geomagnetic storm is currently lashing the Earth’s atmosphere, creating the potential for brilliant auroras over the top and bottom of the planet, including large sections of Northern Europe, and even dipping as far south into the United States as Tennessee, New Mexico and Oklahoma. The cause of the increase in auroral activity is a pair of coronal mass ejections from the sun that started heading our way on Sunday and arrived early Monday evening, resulting in what the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder, Colorado described as a level G4 geomagnetic storm, the most intense seen in the current solar cycle. A G4 storm is considered severe and has the potential to disrupt some communications infrastructure and parts of the power grid, but is generally not considered dangerous to people on the surface of the Earth (a G5 storm is the highest on the scale). The last G4 storm hit Earth in 2013, whereas a G5 has not been seen in about a decade. An aurora observed from Fairbanks (Credit: NOAA) The burst of gas and magnetic field lines from the sun has already resulted in some spectacular aurora sightings early Tuesday morning in Alaska, Canada and Europe, and as far south in the lower 48 states as South Dakota. So far there have been few reports of disruptions to communications or power service, as the level of intensity as been oscillating between G3 and G4. The magnetic field lines have not been accompanied by any major amount of radiation that could wreak havoc with satellite communications, but the potential still remains for the blasts from the sun to mess with global positioning systems in particular. You may expect to see problems with GPS signal strength and positioning accuracy over the next day or so as a result of the storm, according to NOAA. In the meantime, up-to-date aurora forecasts are available at NOAA’s Space Weather site. If you grab any spectacular photos, please tweet them to me @ericcmack and I’ll share them around.
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#1. To: tpaine (#0)
Nice shot.. Taken where, and when?
Northern Lights
Don't know.
Undoubtedly caused by global warming.
ABC: Space Weather branch chief Brent Gordon said if the storm effects continued through Tuesday evening, there was a "very strong possibility" that the northern lights could be seen as far south as the middle United States, even Tennessee and Oklahoma. That also means much of Russia and northern Europe, as far south as central Germany and Poland, had the potential for the sky show. I can't find reports on how far south they actually saw the aurora effect. NOAA has a site for various info. It shows a map indicating the auroras were visible down to mid-Canada. They solicit user photos that they upload to Flickr. This link is for the aurora watchers' Flickr page. If you go there and click Map in the top menu, you'll see nearly all the photos submitted came from the Edmonton area in Canada. So this solar storm was a bust for America because Canada hogged it all. Much as the big upcoming solar eclipse on Friday is a bust for us Yanks. It will be visible from Greenland across the EU and a few spots in northern Africa.
And there's absolutely no truth to the rumor that Zero called an emergency session of the security council because his motorcade got lost on the way to the golf course.
#2. To: Chuck_Wagon (#1)
#3. To: tpaine (#2)
Bruce Cockburn
#4. To: tpaine (#2)
Taken where, and when?
Canada I think.
#5. To: tpaine (#0)
Solar Storm Spurs Awesome Auroras, Goofs Up GPS
#6. To: tpaine (#2)
Forecasters said early Tuesday, before sunrise, auroras were already seen in the northern tier of the U.S., such as Washington state, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
#7. To: tpaine (#0)
Goofs Up GPS
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