Space Weather, Coronal Holes, Hurricanes, South Atlantic?

[Jim Hughes]

During one of my replies in my last discussion "' Space Weather effect upon Epsilon" I touched base on something that I have previously talked about many times over.

http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=79108

I am referring to my comments that I made on Dec 4th to Btangy about coronal holes. I have written many discussions about the relationship that it seems to have with the earth's atmosphere and how it seems to have both an effect the upon steering currents and temperature trends.

One of the earliest public comments I made was in this forum debate about solar activity and the climate effects.

( I realize some may think my public comments about the planets are a pseudoscience but my forecast for Sunspot Cycle 23, of 115 , was accurately closer than anyone elses. Space Environment Center, WWW Internet website forecasts included, etc....)

http://www.john-daly.com/solar/review2.htm


You can see how important I thought they were by my comments. I even mention about their possible relationship with the prior two hurricane seasons. (98 & 99)

(The reason why I never went forward even more with allot of this, besides a the statistical e-mail discussion that I sent out later on, was because of how my life changed almost the _exact _ same day as this post. My wife found out she was expecting around this day and then we found out shortly later that we had twins on the way. So I ended up do major renovations on our home. The rest is history. If you have kids you understand. )

The coronal hole related temperature research mentioned in the above forum debate/discussion was done by Baulinas, Soon, Posmentier, and Dkeke. They found a temperature relationship between coronal holes and the troposphere.

(This paper was submitted in November 1999 and it came out shortly later. You can tell by my forum debate comments that I had been following this relationship for a quite while and I had been using this methodology to make forecasts. I had written about coronal holes in some prior e-mail discussions , that I had sent out before this forum post. Soon and Baulinas were not on my mailing list early on so they did not receive these early discussions although they did receive a coronal hole temperature discussion from me later on. )

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~wsoon/myown ... al00NA.pdf


Now I am going to take the short route instead of trying to explain everything. I will not get into the whole solar dynamo process again.

Certain solar cycles will have certain variables show up more often due to the morphology of the interplanetary magnetic field. A fairly good proxy for looking back may be sunspot totals. Although even this is somewhat unreliable. In my opinion medium sized cycles (The Cycle's monthly peak sunspot total) should have a fairly frequent amount of coronal holes present throughout an extended length of the sunspot cycle compared to the other ones.

Now the presence of these coronal holes is going to cool parts of the troposphere, and quite possibly other areas as well. This cooling will definitely have an effect upon both storm development and intensification by way of increasing atmospheric instability . This will also than have an effect upon the steering currents because of the feedbacks that are going to occur between the atmosphere and the oceanic teleconnections.

So it is of my _Strong Opinion _ that what I have been noticing for the past eight years or so is very important and I have been right about their influence upon storminess.

Listed below is a website from a DX's website. Jan Alvestad's "Solar Terrestrial Activity Report" is great and Jan is a superb solar observer and space weather analyst. This data is very reliable. Jan unfortunately takes some vacations so there will be some data gaps.

( I will update certain other website URL's for further analysis. I am not sure when though. So just ask me if you need them before I post. )

Here is Todays report. You can access archive here or from the URL right below.

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/index.html


Archive of daily reports since 2003. (You can get into a back door by clicking on the go back 27 days, near coronal hole image/maps, to get some late 2002 data after you bring up any early January 2003 daily report. )

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/old_reports/

I believe just about everyone within the forum knows about a hurricane data base to cross reference with the coronal hole/windstream data. If not here' one.

http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/index.html

If you look at the DX archive here you will see that we were either under the influence of a coronal windstream or their was some fairly large coronal hole areas on the sun during the times of increased tropical activity and storminess. (Winter storms etc..)

( There was also some other conducive activity going on. I have already touched base on 90 % of these in prior discussions. )

I would like to touch base on one other thing in hopes of tying all of these variables together.

I have previously discussed the stratosphere temperature trends etc... in a prior discussions in relation to the cyclical nature of the AMO.

http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=78570

Some people may recall that a South Atlantic Hurricane formed in March 2004. (Catarina)

This was supposedly the only one ever to form in the South Atlantic.

I recently was doing a search and I ran across a Wikidipedia discussion and they mention that three systems have formed in the South Atlantic.

http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atla ... ne#Cyclone

The time frames . Around

4/10/1991 , 1/18/2004, 3/28/2004

Could this graph, that I used as reference during my AMO discussion, also possibly point towards a relationship with these systems?

I am referring to the recent cooling in the stratosphere since 1993 , at 50 hPa in between 25S-25N . Could this be a tell tale sign of what could happen when certain dynamics change.

httP://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/s ... ure_07.gif

You can easily see that the 2004 time frame was one of the coolest years and I think it may have been somewhat different from 2003 and 2005 because we were seeing a eastern QBO (50 mb).

So maybe the eastern QBO played a role in why these two systems formed in 2004. So the 50 hpa temperatures , at 25S-25N , may also have been quite cool during 2003 and 2005, but some other conducive variable might not have been present. There by negating any formation.

(Maybe the eastern QBO , which had been influential in the Atlantic hurricane season /northern hemisphere up until 1995, has flipped hemisphere influence now, after the AMO changed to positive. So it now enhances southern hemisphere activity.)

Maybe another important thing also happened prior to these two systems forming in 2004. It may have been a warning as to what lied ahead.

Historical monitoring has told us that the south pole does not have major warmings in the stratosphere during it's late winter. This previously had only occured in the northern hemisphere. But one did occur during late September of 2002 for the first time ever. (Read my AMO discussion to learn more about major warmings. URL's etc... )

http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/20/ ... icle7.html

So we may have once again seen a precursor relationship, between the temperatures in the stratosphere, at the poles , and the lower latitudes, and a hemispheric storm pattern change. You can also understand why a historical storm like Catarina developed , if you take into consideration the coronal hole effect.

The earth was under the influence of a very high speed coronal hole windstream at this time. The presence of this coronal hole, along with the energetic particles that it brings along, most likely contributed to cooler troposphere temperatures. So this may possibly explain why a freakish storm like Catarina developed. Of course you also must take into consideration the presence of some other conducive variables besides the coronal hole effect.

DX' archive for 3/27 & 28/ 2004 shows that we were under the influence of a very fast coronal windstream during this time frame.

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/old_reports/2 ... 40327.html

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/old_reports/2 ... 40328.html



1/18/2004 report

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/old_reports/2 ... 40118.html

The coronal winds stream speed during Catarina's life, in March 2004, reached the 1, 000 km/sec range. I can assure you that this is somewhat rare. I would guess that this may have occurred 20 times during the past 10 years but the actual number is probably much lower.

Now we were also under the influence of a coronal windstream during 1/18/2004 but it was weaker. But it was just as strong as the one we had just recently been under this week.

The first storm , if true , is somewhat harder to figure out. Flaring/eruptional activity was strong around 4/10/1991 and I know coronal holes were also frequent back then do to the type of geomagnetic activity. The poles were also close, magnetic strength value wise, and this supports this as well. I also know of some coronal hole graph data that also support this important variable.

But the temperature graph, of 50 hPa 25S-25N , shows that it was not nearly as cool as it was during the most recent years. But it was below average.

Now several volcanoes were erupting back then so I have to wonder if they could have played a role in some type of temperature gradient effect. I know they tend to cause a warming in the stratosphere but they must also cause some very cool pockets in the troposphere somewhere.

We also have to consider that maybe the coronal hole influence was extremely strong during April 1991. This might have made up for the lack of cooling at the 50 hPa between 25S-25N.

I also do not think that we should question why the 50 mb QBO was west back in 1991 , instead of east, like it was 2004. I have previously spoken about how some QBO relationships can reverse themselves depending upon the different magnetic cycles of the sun. Plus lets not forget the possible AMO relationship. The AMO was negative in 1991 so maybe this explains the western QBO presence.

(QBO relationship in 1991 would be reversed from the 2004 relationship because the AMO was negative in 1991 and not positive like it was in 2004)

Now I realize that this is all just a hypothesis, just like everything else I have written about recently, but I believe I have given some backbone towards the possibility of a strong theory in the making, regarding the influences of coronal holes, a cooler troposphere/stratosphere, on increased tropical activity/storminess.

I guess the $64,000 question is whether or not we will see a South Atlantic system form in the months ahead with an eastern QBO present ? I believe we could see some good sized coronal holes in the upcoming months ahead. Maybe some strong eruptional activity might also occur and this could only enhance the chances.

I guess we will find out sooner or later if one is going to form. This might end up being one of the few times that I will be paying attention to what the models are forecasting.



Jim

[Jim Hughes]

I have corrected the URl's. All links work. Coronal hole research paper etc..


Jim

[Jim Hughes]

I have found a science news story about the major warming in the stratosphere, at the south pole , in late September of 2002. I will still try and find the submitted research paper about this event. I have added the URL to the discussion and I have also made some minor edit changes to discussion.


Here is the new URL.


http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/20/ ... icle7.html



Jim

[wxcrazytwo]

I think space weather has a lot to do with our weather, but the changes are slow. Historical only goes so far in predicting weather and space weather relationships. I think what we are witnessing is a slow progressing change for the worse, as far as weather and the environment goes. I think volcanoes effect the our weather more on earth then space weather..

[Jim Hughes]

I think space weather has a lot to do with our weather, but the changes are slow. Historical only goes so far in predicting weather and space weather relationships. I think what we are witnessing is a slow progressing change for the worse, as far as weather and the environment goes. I think volcanoes effect the our weather more on earth then space weather..

Yes volcanoes can and have a effect and anyone who knows anything about climatology is aware of this. So you'll preaching to the choir here. As to which is more influential? I guess it depends upon the level of activity.

Smaller volcanic eruptions may be limited to localized influences just like certain space weather variables might be limited to certain areas because of all the different intangibles.

Then you have your bigger climate changes when you have larger volcanic eruptions like Pintubo and Tambora . We also seem to have climate changes around extreme space weather lulls. Like the Maunder Minimum.

So it's really hard to say which is directly more influential. The subject matters may have to be separated and maybe even some time frames.

Some atmospheric researchers will sometimes even attempt to remove the noise of the above subjects matters when they are trying to look at other statistical relationships.



Jim