For the Sake of Science

I wish I could be more specific, but the media is sucking on this one. The sun recently had a big solar flare. When those hit Earth’s magnetic field, they tend to look awesome. The further North or South you are, provided the flare is at the correct angle, the cooler it is. Maybe you can see one tonight. Maybe.

I’ve found articles that say the U.S. would have been seeing it a few days ago and Northern Europe is going to get a show. Others say it was last night or tonight. Still others take pains to note all the mayhem and destruction that could happen because FEAR FEAR FEAR! The best I can figure, go outside tonight and look up. It can’t hurt. Maybe you’ll see some pretty colors.

Also, as a note of interest, solar flares often get cited by global warming denialists as one reason for some of Earth’s more recent temperature fluctuation. This perplexes me. The Sun has 11 year cycles where it goes from kicking some ass to just being a cute little puppy. To put it scientifically. The past decade has seen it be unusually quiet. As a result, we might expect temperatures to be, um, well, this is crazy, so brace yourself…lower. But we don’t see that. We just keep breaking records. Besides that, the biggest convey of change in Earth’s temperature is water. We have these things called oceans, you see, and because water has a high specific heat capacity, it takes some time to warm it up or cool it down. Solar flares wouldn’t have a significant impact. The denialists need to find a new way to abuse science, methinks.

Anyway. Go outside tonight. Look up. It might be prettier than usual.

Filed under: Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics, News | Tagged: 11 year cycle, Aurora borealis, Solar flares, Sun |