CARRINGTON, CHAPMAN AND OTHER GIANTS (Von HUMBOLDT, MAUNDER, CHREE AND BARTELS): HAVE WE ASSIMALATED ALL THEY TOLD US ABOUT SPACE WEATHER? Bruce T. Tsurutani* Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of technology Pasadena, California *Collaborators: W.D. Gonzalez, G.S. Lakhina, E. Echer and O.P. Verkhoglyadova

Carrington, 1859 Carrington MNRS, 1859

“Description of a Singular Appearance seen in the Sun on September 1, 1859” By R.C. Carrington, Esq. (MNRA, 20, 13, 1859) “Mr. Carrington exhibited at the November meeting of the Society and pointed out that a moderate but very marked disturbance took place at about 11:20 AM, September 1st, of short duration; and that towards four hours after midnight there commenced a great magnetic storm, ……….” “While contemporary occurrence may deserve nothing, he would not have it supposed that he even leans towards hastily connecting them. “One swallow does not make a summer”. “. Carrington gave us gave us information to determine the average speed of the CME. It was not “politically correct” to relate solar and geomagnetic phenomena at the time (due to Lord Kelvin).

The October 28, 2003 “Halloween” AR

The 1972 Event

Big Solar Events Some “big solar and interplanetary events” are the Carrington 1859 flare, the August 1972 event and the Halloween 2003 events. What do they have in common? All flares were associated with magnetic ARs. All took place after solar maximum. See Svestka ASR, 1995

> X10 flares N. Gopalswamy, personal comm., 2009

Large flares tend to occur late in a solar cycle (Svestka ASR 1995; Gopalswamy, personal comm., 2009). How to explain the above: there might be more beta-gamma- delta regions (Kuenzel, AN, 1960; Sammis, Tang and Zirin, ApJ 2000) in this phase? (M. Wheatland, personal comm., 2009) A plus: the ARs would be closest to the equator (J. Harvey, personal comm., 2009).

Total Energy from Solar/Stellar Flares September 1, 1859 Flare E = possibly ergs (K. Harvey, personal comm., 2001) Is This The Most Energetic Flare? August 1972 Flare E ≈ – ergs (Lin and Hudson, Sol. Phys., 50, 153, 1976) June 1, 1991 Flare E ≈ ergs (Kane, et al., Astro. J., 446, L47, 1995) What is the Maximum Flare energy? E = ergs? (See Schrijver, ASR, 2009)

Is Solar Flare Energy the Most Important Parameter (for magnetic storms)? Answer: not necessarily

The most important quantity is the interplanetary electric field: E =V x B ~ V 2 GoVnzalez et al. GRL, 2001GoVnzalez et al. GRL, 2001 Gonzalez et al., GRL 1998 Max V sw = 3000 km/s? Gopalswamy et al. JGR 2005

The Sept Carrington Storm

Low-latitude Auroras: The Magnetic Storm of 1-2 September 1859 D.S. Kimball (University of Alaska), 1960 “Red glows were reported as visible from within 23° of the geomagnetic equator in both north and south hemispheres during the display of September 1-2” D.S. Kimball, a colleague of S. Chapman wrote a comprehensive detailed report of the aurora during the Carrington storm (it is a GI/Univ. Alaska “internal report”).

“Hand” measurements taken from a Grubb magnetometer. The magnetometer was “high technology” at the time and the manual for calibration does not have a sketch of it.

From a plasmapause location of L=1.3 (auroral data: Kimball, 1960), we can estimate the magnetospheric electric field. The electric potential (Volland, 1973; Stern, 1975; Nishida, 1978) for charged particles is: Where and are radial distance and azimuthal angle measured counterclockwise from solar direction M – dipole moment - particle charge and magnetic moment Therefore: Modern day knowledge plus older observations allowed us to estimate the storm E field

Extreme Magnetic Storm of September 1-2, 1859 The storm was the most intense in recorded history. Auroras were seen from Hawaii and Santiago. SYM-H is estimated to be ~ nT, consistent with the Colaba local noon response of ΔH = 1600 ± 10 nT (In recent years we have only had the 1989 storm : Dst = -589 nT)

Is this the most intense storm that has taken place? Ans: Most probably not. Maximum Magnetic Storm Intensity? Dst ~ nT (Vasyliunas, 2008)

Have there been other recent events that might have surpassed the 1859 event under different conditions? Ans: Yes

THE AUGUST 1972 SUPER FLARE/ICME The ICME took only 14 hours to reach the Earth (V sw = 2850 km/s. Vaisberg and Zastenker, 1976; Zastenker et al., 1978). The 1859 ICME took 17 hrs to reach 1 AU.

Tsurutani et al. JGR 1992 MC: R. Lepping, private comm., major Bs intervals

3 storm main phases Storm main phaseGeomagnetic Quiet Removal of the radial and corotational delays indicate that the Pioneer 10 Bz features and geomagnetic activity at Earth line up.

INTERPLANETARY EVENT OF 7-8 NOVEMBER, 2004: AR ASSOCIATION 3 Forward Shocks Two reverse waves Tsurutani et al., GRL, 2008

CAN WE PREDICT WHEN THE NEXT ONE WILL OCCUR IN A STATISTICAL SENSE? Predictions of greater intensity magnetic storms requires either: 1) full understanding of the physical processes involved, or 2) good empirical statistics of the tail of the energy distributions. The statistics for extreme events are poor. We are making progress on understanding physical limitations. Cannot predict tail distributions

What Would the Consequences Be if a 1859-type ICME Hit Today?

1989 Storm Consequence

Plasmasheet E SW B V SW Prompt Penetration Electric Fields(PPEFs) and Their Effects: A Global Scenario Tsurutani et al., JGR, 2004 Initiation of the Magnetic Storm RC Negative Ionospheric Storm Positive Ionospheric Storm

10 6 Log N (cm - 3 ) 300 h (km) h (km) Log N (cm - 3 ) Quiet Creation of a new ionosphere: TEC enhancement Solar photoionization creates a new ionosphere Uplifted plasma moved to region of lower recombination time scales

CHAMP GPS Mannucci et al. GRL, 2005 Mannucci et al. GRL 2005 The Oct 30-31, 2003 Superstorm Mannucci et al. GRL 2005 Dayside Ionospheric Superfountain

Satellite Drag With O + ions being rapidly uplifted, one can expect corresponding uplift of neutrals by drag forces (ion-neutral drag). For the October superstorm neutral densities at ~370 km altitude could be increased by up to 60% of the quiet time values and that at ~600 km by up to a factor of 7. Precipitation in the auroral zones lead to enhanced ionospheric heating and increased satellite drag (Thayer et al., GRL, 2008). These two effects should be modeled for an 1859 type storm.

Effects During the Carrington Storm Arcing from exposed wires set fires. Unpowered telegraph lines carried signals (Loomis, Am. J. Sci., 1861) Everything was “low tech” at the time. Effects Today? Today one could certainly expect outages of major power grids (Severe Space Weather Events, NRC Workshop report, Nat. Acad. Press, 2008). MEO and GEO Satellites disabled, LEO satellites deorbited (Odenwald et al., ASR 2006). Loomis, Am. J. Sci., 1861

Thank you very much for your attention.

Some Reflection on Works Done by Von Humboldt, Maunder, Chree and Bartels Recurrent (~27 day) geomagnetic activity: Maunder (1904) Put on a sound mathematical basis: Chree (1912) “Invisible” magnetically active regions, “M-regions”: Bartels (1934) “Magnetisches Ungewitter”, Von Humboldt (1810)

Coronal hole DECLINING PHASE OF SOLAR CYCLE

McComas et al. GRL 2003 THE SOLAR WIND DURING THE DECLINING PHASE OF THE SOLAR CYCLE Large polar coronal holes HSSs

Nonlinear( ΔB/B ~ 1-2) Alfvén waves Tsurutani et al., Nonl.Proc. Geophys., 2005

BSBS Bs HILDCAA Tsurutani and Gonzalez, PSS, 1987

Tsurutani et al., Wave Inst. Spa Plas., 1979 Chorus due to Injection of T ┴ /T || > 1 Anisotropic keV Electrons

Burton and Holzer JGR 1968 Chorus “element” duration ~ 0.1 to 0.5 s

High-speed stream Tsurutani et al., JGR, 2006 HILDCAA

Relativistic ~400 keV electrons Tsurutani et al., JGR 2006 Chorus PC5s

Kasahara et al. GRL 2008 >30 keV electrons Chorus 2.5 Mev electrons

D. Baker, MeV electron peak occurrence occurs in solar cycle declining phase when HSSs dominate

The energy input into the magnetosphere can be higher during the declining phase of the solar cycle than during solar maximum CIR storm “recovery” phases can last ~25 days Tsurutani et al., JGR, 1995 ~25 day HILDCAAs

Kozyra et al. 2006

Our scientific “giants” could not have envisaged the long chain of physical connections: M-regions, high speed solar wind streams, embedded Alfvén waves, magnetic reconnection at Earth, nightside plasma injections, chorus and PC5 wave generation, relativistic electron acceleration, NOx production, and Ozone destruction.

THE END