Officials confirm multiple geomagnetic storms are hitting Earth this week

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Officials confirm multiple geomagnetic storms are hitting Earth this week

Officials confirm multiple geomagnetic storms are hitting Earth this week

The Sun continues its rowdy behavior, with flares and coronal mass ejections almost every day since mid-January. This means the inevitable has happened: some of these flares have exploded in the general direction of Earth, which means we are going to have solar storms.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center and the UK Met Office have both issued advisories for light and moderate geomagnetic storms over the next two days.

That doesn’t mean we have anything to worry about; in fact, we’ve already been hit with light and moderate geomagnetic storms over the past two days, ranking at G1 and G2 on the five-level solar storm scale.

This level indicates that there may be some degradation of high frequency radio signals at high latitudes, and corrective actions may need to be taken for satellites due to changes in drag. There may be fluctuations in the power grid and some disturbances in the activity of migratory animals. And, if the conditions are right, the satellites can be driven out of the sky.

We may also see a slight increase in Northern Lights and Northern Lights.

“There is a chance for enhancements to the auroral oval at times on March 13-14 as a result of two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and a high velocity coronal hole stream arriving at Earth,” said the UK Met Office. These light shows can be seen as low as 55 degrees latitude, at each pole.

(NOAA SWPC)

Solar storms are fairly normal space weather, occurring whenever our Sun becomes more active. As a result, CMEs and solar winds disturb the Earth’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere. Currently, both are happening.

CMEs are pretty much exactly what they sound like. The Sun’s corona – the outermost region of its atmosphere – erupts, ejecting plasma and magnetic fields into space. If the CME is pointed towards Earth, the collision of solar ejecta with the Earth’s magnetic field can cause a geomagnetic storm, also known as a solar storm.

Solar winds emerge from “holes” in the solar corona. These are cooler, less dense regions of plasma in the Sun’s atmosphere, with more open magnetic fields. Such open regions allow solar winds to escape more easily, blowing electromagnetic radiation out into space at high speed; if the hole faces the Earth, these winds can blow right at us.

When charged particles from the Sun strike Earth’s atmosphere, they are funneled along Earth’s magnetic field lines toward the poles, where they rain down into the upper atmosphere and interact with molecules within it. This interaction ionizes the molecules and makes them glow; it is the dawn.

According to Space Weather aurora forecasts, March 14 and 15 have peak levels of Kp 6 and Kp 5 respectively on the ten-point Kp index of geomagnetic activity. This means a strong possibility of bright and vibrant auroras with the likelihood of aurora coronas, so it’s a good time to go chasing lights in the sky.

If it seems like the Sun is a little more active lately, that’s because it is. Our star goes through 11-year cycles of activity, with a marked peak and trough, called solar maximum and solar minimum. Solar minimum, when the Sun’s magnetic field is weakest, occurs when the Sun’s magnetic poles change places. The most recent solar minimum was in December 2019.

This means that we are currently heading towards solar maximum, when the solar magnetic field is strongest. Because the Sun’s magnetic field controls its activity, this means we will see an increase in sunspots, solar flares and CMEs. (Sunspots are temporary regions of strong magnetic fields that form when the Sun’s magnetic field becomes entangled.)

Solar maximum is expected to occur around July 2025. It can be difficult to predict how active any given cycle will be, but there is evidence to suggest we may be entering the strongest cycle on record.

More powerful solar storms can cause bigger problems, so hopefully our star will stay relatively inconspicuous.

Link of video: Multiple Geomagnetic Storms Are Headed for Earth | fox61.com

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