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Surprise Discovery In Earth's Upper Atmosphere
elyons sends word out of UCLA of a completely unexpected discovery in the physics of the Sun-Earth interaction — a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere. "'It's like something else is heating the atmosphere besides the sun. This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down,' said Larry Lyons, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences. 'We all have thought for our entire careers — I learned it as a graduate student — that this energy transfer rate is primarily controlled by the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field. The closer to southward-pointing the magnetic field is, the stronger the energy transfer rate is, and the stronger the magnetic field is in that direction. [It turns out that] if it is both southward and big, the energy transfer rate is even bigger.'" The researchers have two papers on the discovery coming out in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Don't you people realize how you cheerish only discoveries that have potential to lessen human impact / global temp. change? You do realise that they are made by the same evil global conspiracy of scientists that mostly, by far, support current views regarding global warming?
I, for one, welcome our improving-understanding-of-universe overlords. Without bias.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Saying "It's like something else is heating the atmosphere besides the sun" when they're talking about the interaction of the solar wind and the magnetosphere is more than a little disingenuous....
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Sounds like another shoe drops in the solar - terrestial interactions with regard to global warming and climate change. Why wasn't this found 20 years ago? Because IPCC and NASA haven't been diligently working a major term, the many solar-terrestial interactions, in the general energy equation? Because they are happy worshipping simplistic false models that say "Send academia, modelers and autocrats more money"?
Okay so when I first saw the title, I read it as "Surprise! Discovery In Earth's Upper Atmosphere" and thought the landing a couple of days ago was a hoax or something.
it was something unexpected (which it was), so nobody was looking in this direction. It would be interesting to find out if this was discovered because of all the hoopla about GW. I am guessing that it is the case. IOW, this would not likely have been found except that ppl are concerned about getting the facts, rather than just trolling.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"It's like something else is heating the atmosphere besides the sun."
The orbiting teapot must have boiled! ;)
I hope it's not a subspace anomaly left open by a Goa'uld mothership!
> "Heejeong separated the data into when the solar wind was fluctuating a lot and when it
> was fluctuating a little," he added. "When the interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations
> are low, she saw the pattern everyone knows,
That is, the likelihood of "substorms" in Earh's ionoshpere is a function of how "northward"
or "southward" Earth's manetosphere is. More southward, more storms, worse
satellite TV reception.
> but when she analyzed the pattern when the interplanetary magnetic field was
> fluctuating strongly, that pattern completely disappeared. Instead, the strength of the
> flows depended on the strength of the fluctuations.
There's this "interplanetary magnetic field" between the Sun and Earth. The solar wind
is Earthward charged particles from the Sun. These particles interact with the Earth's
magnetisphere. When you have large changes in the solar wind, there are more
substorms, and worse satellite TV reception.
So, pseudo-diff-eq, their contribution is the second term (or maybe I'm missing the point):
substorm likelihood =
southwardness of magnetosphere +
change of solar wind intensity with respect to time
Poor graduate student. So much data...
It's good to see some basic science being done though. More, please!
Would there be some way to tap the energy from these fluctuations? Instead of solar power arrays in space, could we just have giant blimps floating in the upper atmosphere with large coils in their superstructure to take advantage of magnetic fluctuations? They could then beam that energy down as microwaves to a receiving station.
solar winds = sun. root cause people.....
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I read the title, and said "the landing was a hoax?"
Tesla predicted, then went out and measured it a century ago. He went on to show how the energy could be tapped and directed on a global scale.
Formal equations were worked out by Heaviside and then for the next 100 years from time to time people rediscover part of it and claim they're first.
Schumann applied it to global lightning detection but seems to have missed entirely that the energy can be accessed.
Why is this being tagged "climate change" with people yammering about global warming? This is a previously unexpected form of energy transfer but would have been occuring since...oh...our planet had a magnetosphere and there is not a single mention in the article concerning climate change or global warming.
Larry: This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down.
Interviewer: So, the temperature actually goes up when the sun sets?
Larry: Er, no.
Interviewer: No? What does happen then?
Larry: Um, well... the temperature goes... down, I guess.
Interviewer: Okay. Thanks for that Larry.
TFA is one of the most confused articles I've seen in a long time.
If Stuart Wolpert had just let the scientists write it, chances are it might be intelligible. As it is it was muddled, convoluted, mis-stated, and just plain wrong on many points.
Never let a journalism student, or worse yet, one who hung around after graduating into the Science buildings.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Whales and flowerpots.
Disappointment is me.
It's an unfortunate inevitability of life -- everybody poops. And
while this task can occasionally provide us with an opportunity to
relax or engage in some deep thinking, there are other instances when
this basic undertaking becomes a chore no person should have to
endure. Whether or not these stooling sessions can be tolerated, is
often determined by one single factor: where it is taking place? If
you're alone in the privacy of your own home, why not make an hour of
it and get some reading in? However, if you're at work with your boss
sitting in the adjacent stall, you'd better hold off on dropping
anything for fear of creating an embarrassing splash. With that in
mind though, things could be worse, and here are eight examples of how
much worse..
8-The Wilderness Toilet
This is essentially taking a #2 in a wall-less bathroom. Sure,
you're in a pretty remote location, but it's not so remote that they
haven't needed to accommodate other people with full bowels. At any
second, some fellow hiker could round that nearby group of trees and
put an eyeball on you while you prepare to release yesterday's granola
bar. It's also safe to assume that since this toilet is on a path
intended for people who want to get away from the hectic bustle of
society, that same society's emphasis on cleanliness and sterile
toilets is far removed as well. And since the act of pooping leaves
man at nearly his most helpless, this would seem like the ideal time
for a voracious wild animal to attack. So, not only is this an
uncomfortable practice, but it's a dangerous one as well.
7-School
Kids can be merciless. They will go to great measures to find any
points of weakness in their unfortunate victims, and to a youth,
finding out that someone has been pooping presents an incredible
opportunity for ridicule. Yet, at times your body requires you to crap
at these academic establishments, and so you are immediately presented
with the impossible task of somehow taking an undetectable dump, or
completely leaving school. If you excuse yourself from class, the time
you spend in the bathroom will surely be recorded by your callous
peers, and upon return, you will be thoroughly mocked. If you try and
poop in between class, you'll be too worried about the possibility of
being tardy, and you'll probably pinch it off before you're completely
done. And even if you muster up the courage to attempt this risky
procedure, there's always the risk of someone walking in and berating
you while you take part in what should be one of mankind's most
private moments. So please children, let each other poop in peace.
6-Your New Girlfriend/Boyfriend's House
Let's say you're about to leave your newly-acquired significant
other's residence after your first sleep over, when nature suddenly
decides this would be the perfect moment to defecate. Maybe it's the
nerves after a night of apprehensive tongue-kissing and heavy petting,
or maybe it's the three-bean taco salad you ate prior to the
caressing, but whatever the case, your body's telling you it needs to
be relieved immediately. Now the bathroom in this situation is
certainly not the problem; it's clean, and probably provides some sort
of reading material. The problem is what will happen to this new and
delicate relationship once the odorous evidence of your actions hits
the air. There may be an air-freshener, or perhaps you're carrying
some matches, but that will only mask the smell, and the psychological
damage of having your body demonstrate what it's like at its most foul
will forever remain in the nostrils of their brain. This will
permanently change how your significant other looks at you.
5-The Port-a-Potty
Here's what the Port-a-Potty brings to waste elimination sessions:
One--They're typically found in unfamiliar, public locations that can
make an already-taxing exercise more stres
it sounds like the earth has evolved to absorb even rear-facing southward magnetic solar wind. Darwin was right!
Only one of those links seemed like a credible source, the BBC (which was broken link but one that could be easily modified to work). I did want to give the two other ones a chance, though.
BBC article doesn't tell about any flaws in the current scientific consensus on anything. It simply mentions that Al Gore's video was found to not stay true to the consensus on 9 things. Nothing major in climate warming, just specific, poorly chosen examples. An example given:
The climateaudit has a FAQ. One of the questions is "Does your work disprove global warming?" and the answer:
And then... It also has a newer entry that newer, published data no longer has these problems!
Your link actually supports the claims! (or well, it says that the reports about it are scientific and fully auditable)
The skeptical science link... It's just pure bullshit. Just look at the comments which give reference links.
Hello, hello, hello. After how much time some REAL Science - and not GreenPeace fictions about Hummers warming the Earth. Not that I think anyone has any sane reason to own or operate such a behemoth. All this "Global Warming" is 100% B.S. run by politicos for their own unlisted agendas.
There are constant changes to the model, but nothing HUGE. My understanding from talking to some NOAA scientists that I know, that it would take something totally unknown coming from out of the solar system or from the middle of the earth.
As they pointed out, the simplest item to look at are the glaciers. Overall, they are melting very fast. Some new ones are started, but that is due to increased moisture in the air. That is like the center of Antarctica is growing again, but that is due to increased moisture due to the high melting towards the edge. It use to be melting took place truly on the edge, and now, it is quite far inland.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
... its HAARP
Military buffs get the things to show that they too can get the quality you expect from the lowest bidder at a special inflated military price.
Then again...
This IS Slashdot, so it is quite understandable that many might first think of a Hummer instead of a hummer, despite all those references OP made to "wives" and "girlfriends".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down"
Oh really? He's never been to New Mexico, then. I swear it has sometimes become hotter after the sun's gone down during the summers.
IRREVERENT AND RATHER OFF-TOPIC ANONYMOUS COWARD POWERS ENGAGE!
PhDs were from those schools, not those schools' faculty.
Prof was fired as an outside consultant and consulting company with a payroll of about a dozen with a cushy contract, about $3m/yr in today's scrip, by a Fortune 50 company, not as a professor. And it was an unpublicized matter that neither wanted out in public.
The prof would have jeopardized future funding, grants and donations where he was actively seeking about $50m in today's scrip, and had been lead to expect a good chunk of it if he could deliver technically and politically. The contracting F50 company and manager would have been further embarrassed over various failure issues.
To me, the most interesting point of this discovery is that it should improve our understanding of shortwave radio propagation.
It has always frustrated me that the same space program that is producing the data needed to understand the physics needed to make accurate, day-to-day predictions of ionospheric propagation -- a hundred-year-old mystery -- is also the same space program that replaced commercial HF communication with satellites, greatly reducing the economic value of such predictions (and, therefore, the science funding to make them). So now that we have the ability, we no longer have the desire . . . unless one is an amateur radio operator, and it's harder to think of an entity lower on the economic value chain than that.
The most difficult path for shortwave links is one that passes near the magnetic poles, like the path from Southeast Asia to the US East Coast that passes over the north magnetic pole. Energy from the solar wind couples into the Earth's magnetic field; in particular, charged particles are directed parallel to the field. This is great for propagation over most of the planet; however, near the poles the magnetic field becomes vertical and these particles are directed perpendicular to the ground, where they form a ring of radio wave attenuation and refraction in the upper atmosphere that closes this path for many days out of a given month. To open this path there has to be minimal energy coupling from the solar wind, and there is very little understanding of when this will occur. Even the best propagation prediction software (e.g., VOACAP and Proplab Pro) is based on statistics, giving one the probability of a given path being open.
This discovery should add to our understanding of how and when these paths will open. Until then, we have to survive on "Space Weather" web sites like these, and turn on a radio to see for ourselves what the day brings.
(Those interested in an accessible introduction to HF propagation can check out K9LA's propagation site.)
with anBy sort
a tech guy would be asking how big is this effect and other,
like, technical questions. the politics here are boorish.
That damn unshielded reactor just keeps causing us problems - damn it, damn it to hell. But seriously, this kind of reminds me of the Tacoma Narrows bridge failure. Second order forces thought to be inconsequential end up causing a dramatic change in behavior. Also, the vitriol of many comments is amazing. Probably sounds just like the Church when discussing a certain Italian.
Conservative, mod down for violating
...is a flame war centred around the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Can one of our atheist friends here on Slashdot outline to us, where this discovery stands in relation to the Second Law? Have we finally arrived at the moment we've all been breathlessly waiting for; the Second Law's violation?
I'm seriously hoping so; I've waited for years now for the ability to have a magnetic motor next to the power supply in my desktop, and run it without plugging it into the wall. That would seriously be awesome. ;)
Does it run Linux?
{{.sig}}
I'm the poster of the article because this is from my dad's lab at UCLA. While I must profess great ignorance about much of what he does and this piece of research in particular, he has been telling me about this work for a while. Basically, he is a weather scientist, but instead of studying weather patterns that directly affect earth's surface (e.g. rain storms and tornadoes), he studies the weather in earth's upper atmosphere, and specifically in the magnetosphere where earth's atmosphere interacts with the solar wind. His primary focus is to understand the dynamics and triggers of weather storms there, called magnetospheric substorms -- which, besides from causing some havoc with satellites and communications, also cause the aurora, or northern lights. While this has nothing to do with global warming, it is quite interesting as his group discovered that there is a much larger influx of energy into the magnetosphere than was previously thought. For all those here with space/physics/weather/atmosphere interests, I thought it would be of interest. As previously noted, this is solid basic research that furthers our understanding of how our planet works at the interface with space.
Congratulations, you won the internet!
I'm constantly, cynically impressed by how few people even mention that fact. It's almost as if the entire environmentalist community doesn't want anyone to know that the natural world has global-scale mechanisms in place to balance things out. What are they afraid of?
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
a pokemon maybe?
Slashdot ya no es que lo era!
Only one of those links seemed like a credible source ...
That denialists uncritically embrace any pseudo-science which bears out their ideological prejudices is perhaps unsurprising. What is astounding, is that they then insist we call them 'sceptics.'
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html ...shows how U.S. department of energy misleads the cause.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101102724 ...shows how the null hypothesis (read: human-made CO2 concentration is significant enough to change global climite) was protected via sabotage.
Common sense might tell you that seafloor spreading and the geothermal activity account for more of an increase in ocean and ground temperatures than air temperature can possible account for. Can't link you to any common sense so you'll have to discover that on your own.