Transcription
In our previous space weather lessons, we went over the difference between Sunspot maximum and Sunspot minimum and the solar magnetic reversal that causes it. We also went over how it triggers those sunspots to appear, as well as the low latitude coronal holes and what the difference between the coronal holes and the sunspots are.
We went over how they send energy to Earth, including in powerful solar flares and how their energy compresses the magnetic field, sending particles downward into the atmosphere. How they excite the auroras as well, and how those auroras send waves of energy through the ionosphere towards the equator, such that the whole Earth is impacted.
But impacted in what way? These three vectors of solar forcing: the auroral induced currents, energetic particle precipitation, and the ionospheric equatorward traveling waves, have some key impacts on the weather and on our bodies. Perhaps the most important large-scale forcing they impart is on the Hadley cells in the atmosphere. There are polar cells at the poles, Ferrell cells at mid to high latitude, and then the Hadley cells straddling the Equator. The solar energy impacts those Hadley cells, which determines where the high and low pressure cells move, as well as the jet stream. This has major effects on ocean heating and land heating, and on storm tracks. This is also how the Sun impacts the El Niño cycle.
While this is happening, the ionospheric energization juices up the global electric circuit, which transfers that energy back and forth from the ground to the top of the sky. The current goes upward in storms and low pressure, and comes down in fair weather, clear skies. This electric flow impacts atmospheric electricity obviously, which impacts cloud nucleation via their impact on water vapor and dust, as well as affecting lightning. And it directly heats the atmosphere via Joule heat heating or ohmic resistive heating.
Through these two processes, the Sun's activity is able to modulate just about everything from temperature, El Niño, clouds, storms, humidity, wind, and more. But that energy is also hitting our bodies, both direct particle bombardment and induced currents. Our bodies are vulnerable to electric energy, and hundreds of studies have investigated these connections and confirm their impacts on all electrolyte and ion mediated processes, which is pretty much everything in our body. This makes sense since the electrolytes and ion mediated processes are about electrically charged particles and electrically charged processes. They have significant impacts on the heart, the brain, both biophysically and psychologically, and on cellular processes from metabolism to vascular integrity to organ function.
If you want to dive deeper into these topics, grab a copy of "WEA Man's Guide to the Sun" or check out our other resources below the video whenever you're watching. I'll see you in the morning for the Daily Show. Be safe everyone.