Space Weather and Space Climate , livre ebook

168

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English

Ebooks

2024

Écrit par
European Space Weather and Space Climate Association (E-SWAN)

Publié par
EDP Sciences

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168

pages

English

Ebooks

2024

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Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

EDP Sciences

Date de parution

04 novembre 2024

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9782759836116

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

24 Mo

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was admitted that our atmosphere could not extend beyond a few tens of kilometers. Shortly after the midst of that same century, it was understood that the Earth is surrounded by a complex and rich plasma environment, conditioned by solar activity, extending over several tens of thousands of kilometers.

Today, we know that our planet’s boundaries extend all the way to the Sun. This book tells the long story of humanity’s efforts to understand the boundaries of the Earth and its influence from the external celestial objects dominated by our closest star, the Sun.

It also reveals the impact that solar activity is having on our technological societies, from the most beautiful to the most fearsome: Polar auroras and northern tourism, power and communications cuts, GNSS positioning degradations, planes losing contact with control towers, astronauts under threat, space... It presents, in a clear and educational way, this new and exciting discipline: space weather and space climate, its physics, its instruments, its methods, from modelling to artificial intelligence, its forecasting centres.

Written by a dozen of the world’s leading specialists in this field, this book is the tribute of the world’s largest space weather and space climate association, E-SWAN, to the lovers of space and nature.

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V

CHAPTER 1

The Age of Questioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Electricity and Magnetism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Atmosphere and the Aurora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The First Steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

CHAPTER 2

The Time of Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

The Sun’s Energy Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

The Solar Corona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Emergence of New Physics and a New Concept: Plasma and the Solar Wind 34

Hannes Alfvén . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Discovery of an Electrically Conductive Atmospheric Layer: The Ionosphere . 38

The Marconi Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Nomenclature for the Atmospheric and Ionospheric Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

The First Idea on the Variable Earth’s Magnetosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

CHAPTER 3

The Time of Complexity: The Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

The Beginnings of the Space Age in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

The International Geophysical Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

The Hunt for the Radiation Belt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

The Magnetosphere and Solar Wind are Revealed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Is the Magnetosphere Closed or Open? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

The Dynamics of the Magnetosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Magnetic Reconnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Geomagnetic Storms and Magnetospheric Substorms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

The South Atlantic Anomaly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Dynamics of the Upper Atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Variability of the Aurora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Variability of Airglow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Cosmic Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Space Instrumentation and Multi-Satellite Missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

First Unsuccessful Launch of CLUSTER Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Ground-Based Instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Magnetometer Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Incoherent Scatter Radars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

EISCAT 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Coherent Scatter Radars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Measuring the Total Electron Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Optical Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Neutron Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

CHAPTER 4

The Time of Complexity: The Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

The Dynamic Sun and the Solar Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

The Solar Flare Myth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

The Solar Dynamo and Solar Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

We Lost SOHO! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

The Solar Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Coronal Mass Ejections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Solar Flares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Solar Energetic Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

CHAPTER 5

The Time of Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Description of the Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

The Worst Case: Should We Fear Space Weather? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

CHAPTER 6

Space Weather Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Activity Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Observing the Sun from the Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Observing the Sun from Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

From Data to Forecast: The Key Role of Modelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Modelling to Interpret Observations or to Simulate the Unobservable . . . . . . 134

Correlation and Causality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

The Evolution of the Modelling of the Sun-Earth Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

A New Approach: Artificial Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

At the Heart of Forecasting Models: The Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

From Data to Forecast: The Operational Centres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

A New Way Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Webography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Voir

Publié par

EDP Sciences

Date de parution

04 novembre 2024

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9782759836116

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

24 Mo

9 782759 836109

and

A timeline

European Space Weather and Space Climate association

and

A timeline

European Space Weather and Space Climate association

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was admitted that our atmos-phere could not extend beyond a few tens of kilometres. Shortly after the midst of that same century, it was understood that the Earth is sur-rounded by a complex and rich plasma environment, conditioned by solar activity, extending over several tens of thousands of kilometres. Today, we know that our planet’s boundaries extend all the way to the Sun. This book tells the long story of humanity’s efforts to understand the boundaries of the Earth and its inﬂuence from the external celestial objects dominated by our closest star, the Sun.

It also reveals the impact that solar activity is having on our techno-logical societies, from the most beautiful to the most fearsome: Polar auroras and northern tourism, power and communications cuts, GNSS positioning degradations, planes losing contact with control towers, astronauts under threat, space... It presents, in a clear and educational way, this new and exciting discipline: space weather and space climate, its physics, its instruments, its methods, from modelling to artiﬁcial intel-ligence, its forecasting centres.

Written by a dozen of the world’s leading specialists in this ﬁeld, this book is the tribute of the world’s largest space weather and space climate association, E-SWAN, to the lovers of space and nature.

EUROPEAN SPACE WEATHERAND SPACE CLIMATE ASSOCIATION

www.edpsciences.org

ISBN : 978-2-7598-3610-9

9 782759 836109

European Space Weather and Space Climate Association

Space Weather and Space Climate

A Timeline

Cover picture: credit Olivier Katz, AurorAlpes

Printed in France

EDP Sciences–ISBN(print): 9782759836109–ISBN(ebook): 9782759836116 DOI: 10.1051/9782759836109

This book is published under an Open Access license Creative Commons CCBY. This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

The Authors, 2024

This book has been coordinated by Jean Lilensten and Jaroslav Urbar The authors (in alphabetical order are): Sophie Chabanski, Antonio Guerrero Ortega, Marina Gruet, Magnar Gullikstad Johnsen, Stefan Hofmeister, Lauri Holappa, Jean Lilensten, Joao Pedro Marques, Lisa Nelson, Frédéric Pitout, Jaroslav Urbar, Christine Verbeke Part of the current book is based on“J. Lilensten, F. Pitout, M. Gruet, J. Marques, Météorologie de l’espace, vivre demain avec notre soleil, Editions De Boeck supérieur, ISBN 9782807333062, 2021”, with the authorization of the publisher De Bœck Supérieur.

Acknowledgements

This book is framed within the initiatives of the Outreach and Education Committee of the European Space Weather and Space Climate Association (ESWAN). ESWAN is an international nonprofit association created to provide a longterm support to the space weather and space climate activities, with a focus on Europe. The authors acknowledge the financial contribution of ESWAN towards this publication via an International Coordination Action grant from the Research Foundation–Flanders (www.fwo.be). J. Lilensten acknowledges funding support from the Programme National Soleil Terre (PNST–Solar Terrestrial physics national program) of the CNRS/INSU also cofunded by CNES and CEA.

Introduction

Space weather is a recent discipline, taking advantage of space physics at the interface between astrophysics and geophysics, but different in being between fun damental research and operational forecasting for industry. Space climate provides an understanding of the past, allowing us to predict variations in the space envi ronment mainly due to solar activity; to quantify their effects on Earth and our technological world. In 2011, the OECD ranked space weather among the five sig nificant global risks, equal to systemic financial risks, cyber risks, social unrest, and pandemics. However, among them, space weather is still certainly the least known by the general public. The purpose of this book is to overcome this ignorance, not to add stress to an already highly anxietyprovoking world, but to inform and share. During the last decades, we have considerably pushed back the limits of our environment reaching out to the Moon and planets of the Solar System. We have pushed them back to the Sun itself. And we have learned that the Sun, in many ways, affects our life, environment, and technology on Earth. In what ways? Answering this question is one of the main goals of space weather and space climate, and constitutes the heart of chapter five of this book. But how did we come to understand that our planet was bathed in the atmo sphere of the Sun? By a long process. Until the end of the 19th century, it was believed that the energy source of the Sun lay in chemistry similar to the burning of coal. Its gravity is also so great that scientists thought it impossible for anything to escape from it. As far as the Earth is concerned, the physics knowledge of that time explained well that the centrifugal effect compensated for the force of gravity at a few kilometres of altitude, above which there could no longer be an atmosphere accommodating“burned”material, therefore an ether was introduced on which“leaned”the light to propagate, with characteristics little constrained or known. However, questions appeared here and there. The first highaltitude soundings contradicted the predictions of such a thin atmosphere for the case of Earth, and the determination of the altitude of the polar auroras showed that there was something dynamic above 100 km. What could it be? The advances in electromagnetism also posed important problems. What was observed in the laboratory had to be reproduced in the Earth’s magnetic field.

DOI: 10.1051/9782759836109.c901 The Authors, 2024

Introduction

How, and with what periodicity? The observation of sunspots showed a curious periodicity that seemed to correlate with that of the polar auroras: coincidence or causality? It was then the time of questioning. But at the beginning of the 20th century, physics made considerable progress, and the nuclear energy source of the Sun was soon revealed. At the same time, radio transmitters revealed that our atmosphere extends far beyond the predicted few kilometres up to more than three hundred kilometres, where instead of electrically neutral gas it is mostly constituted by ions and electrons. Where do the ions and electrons come from? Adventurous physicists suggested that the main source is the Sun. It took an incredible amount of audacity for them to assume that particles could escape from it despite its fantastic gravity. The realtime of adventure started with the discoveries of the space environment, the topic of chapter two. The space age and the increasing complexity of the instrumentation on the ground soon contributed to the picture in all its richness providing a multitude of details. The rigid and static picture that prevailed until the 1950’s was put in motion showing how much the space environment can vary from one hour to the next one. Everything moves and everything mixes the particles with the electric and the magnetic field. The zones that surround us are manifold, subtle, always interacting, and never clearly delimited. Chapters three and four give pride to this conceptual revolution, the latter focused on the understanding of the Sun. The sixth and last chapter is about the future of the discipline. Still, experience has taught us to be cautious, and we know that even if we write about the future, the future is not written. It is the opening towards modern methods still in a state of clearing for operational forecasts: networking, big data, and artificial intelligence. Thus, space weather and space climate have transformed from bench research to the most sophisticated operational applications within one century. The reader will certainly notice a detail that surprised us during the writing of this book. Chapters one and two are filled with scientists’names. It is exciting to see how, long before the digital age, there were already lively and abundant exchanges in science, from one country to another, without language barriers. Then, subtly, chapters three and four–the time of complexity–substitute space probes and large terrestrial instruments for humans. The names of the scientists disappear, we can only guess that they continue to exist behind the instruments, but we see that they have almost become secondary, erased by a torrent of data. Chapter six is the logical continuation of this evolution: big data and artificial intelligence take precedence this time over the big instruments themselves. A single scientist can no longer master the calculations; entire teams are needed, where the individual seems to be diluted in the mass. While it is difficult to escape this trend, we think that it is an illusion. The authors are all involved in space weather and space climate research, working on the ionosphere, the magnetosphere, the aurora, the Sun and its influence in the helio sphere, artificial intelligence, and operational services. We meet our colleagues during meetings and measurement campaigns. We know that space weather and space climate are above all driven by humans, carried by nature enthusiasts, and scientists eager to understand and predict.

Introduction

VII

By the end of this book, the readers will have gone through four centuries of science history. We hope that they will have understood how dependent our tech nological society is on a space environment firmly anchored to solar activity, and that a new hazard is to be considered for the survival of humanity. Not to scare, but to understand and prepare.

Voir