October 21, 2024 • 40 mins
In the last couple of weeks, you might have noticed photos of the recent aurora borealis that was visible in parts of New England, dominated your social media news feeds. Auroras are caused by disturbances in solar or “space” weather. What exactly is solar weather, what are examples of it, and how does it affect us here on Earth? Shawn Dahl, a solar weather forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, joined NightSide to discuss!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's night with Dan Ray on DELI Feazy Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All right, Well, a couple of weeks ago, we had
some spectacular examples of space weather and we talked with
during the eight o'clock hour with a gentleman by the
name is Sean Dahl. He's a space weather forecaster at
Noah's Space Weather Prediction Center out in Boulder, Colorado. Has
(00:33):
had an amazing career. Spent twenty two years in the
US Air Force, served around the world in the intelligence
and meteorragical operations fields, continued his studies. He retired from
the Air Force in two thousand and seven and has
been with the National Weather Service and a weather forecaster
(00:57):
for the US Air Force. So I want to welcome
Sean back because I was fascinated by some of the
things that we talked about. This was the time a
couple of weeks ago when people were seeing the northern
lights in spectacular fashion. Seawan, welcome back to Nightside. How
(01:17):
are you Sean Dahl?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Hi? Dan, thanks, I'm glad to be glad to be
back and I'm doing great.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah. No So, Noah is the National Oceanographic and an
Aeronautics Administration. Is that have I got the acronym.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Correctly there almost National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Shakes spirit administration. Okay, al right, I was thinking aeronautics,
all right. I should have looked that one up ahead
of time. There are so many of these acronyms in
the in the vernacular. So we're talking about space weather
and when I talked to you earlier today, briefly, uh,
it was. It's fascinating because for someone like me, who
(02:00):
is not especially scientifically oriented, I learn a lot from
someone like you, and I hope our audience also might
have some honest questions that they might want to contribute
to the conversation we think about. When I think about
weather and all of that, I think about sun spots,
which I don't understand, but I'm told that depending upon
(02:22):
the intensity of sun spots that can infect can impact
our weather. That's not necessarily what we're talking about here,
but is that true?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Then sunspots are these massive, strong magnetic field and they're
so strong that they disturb the natural rising of light and.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Heat coming up from deeper inside the sun. So think
of it like a reverse bathtub plug. The water doesn't
go out when the plug's in there. In this case,
it's a magnetic plug keeping things from coming up welling
up from deeper in the Sun, and these strong magnetic fields,
these that can materialize as major sunspot groups. They're usually
they're not always the source of these space one of
(03:05):
the storms that can affect Planet Earth, but they're usually
the source of most of the significant activity that we
experience here.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, and again, I didn't do great in science in school,
but I'm smart enough to know that the Sun is
about ninety million miles away, ninety three million miles away,
and at different times during the years, a little closer
in different times during the years, a little further away.
How enormous is the Sun? Comparatively? I think all of
(03:32):
us know that the circumference of the Earth is I
think it's twenty four thousand miles at the equator. How
enormous is this? But go ahead's right?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Oh, okay, I finish your question. Sorry, No, I.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Was just saying that I think that when we think
about the equator, we think about the Earth, and you know,
as this globe and around the center of the Earth
on the equator, it's about twenty four thousand miles wide.
How much bigger is the Sun to the Earth compared
to the Earth.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, kind of thing is massive. I mean a one
hundred and nine planet earths fits side by side just
going across the flat Earth facing side of the Sun
right across its equator. So that means an enormous amount
of Earth fit around the entire Sun right and if
one does all the map basically adds up to something
on the order of one million planet earths could fit
(04:27):
inside of the Sun. So fortunately it's at the perfect distance,
being that ninety three or so million miles away, that
we escape most of the harmful things. And this planet
has been able to sustain life because it seems to
be just at the right distance. But it's so far
away it still takes light from the Sun eight minutes
to get here.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I know when you I did learn that when
you see what you think is the dawn on the horizon,
it really was sent eight minutes previously from the Sun.
Tough things to get those of us who are non
scientists are hit around. So so with the sun spots.
Starting with the sun spots that activity and let's we'll
(05:11):
fill in the middle part. We saw these northern lights,
the Aurora borealis I think was the technical name or
is that is that a different phenomenon? I I just
want to make sure I'm not making it complete fool
of myself here.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
No, Dan, you got it absolutely right. That's the scientific
name for us in the northern hemisphere.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay, great? And is the one in the southern I
assumed this one in the southern hemisphere as well?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Right down there. The scientific name is the Aurora Australis.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Okay, all right, that makes sense. So what happened out
there a couple of weeks ago which allowed us to
see these brilliant colors in the you know, a time
when it's really dark. And the other question I have
is I went up at one point to try to
see them and I didn't and a friend of mine said,
(06:04):
you're not go ahead. You're supposed to take a picture
of them, and that's how you see them on your camera.
Was he joking with me? Or I looked up and
this was times when they was saying, no, we can
see him outside of Washington and DC and Maryland. Did
I miss it by not taking a picture on my cellphone?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
You may have, Dan, especially the one that was just
like a wee weekend ago or so yeah, little over
seven days ago. Yeah, that one. You know, we'll go
back to the one in the main in a minute,
but that one there, we reached pretty significant levels, what
we call severe levels, not quite to the extreme that
we reached with the storm in May, but nevertheless that's
still strong enough, severe enough that those northern lights can
(06:46):
manifest themselves, and they did all the way down to Florida,
across the southern tier state that we wouldn't normally think
that the ore would be visible at but it is
now because people There's two things going on. One, people
are tuning, understanding, hearing more about space weather. This is
thanks to the platforms like yours. This is thanks to
(07:07):
work that the government's been doing and advertising and especially
social media and those realms that say, hey there's something
going on. Even broadcast meter. I'm just starting to talk
about this stuff. So people are beginning to look up
at the sky at night when maybe they weren't before,
So some are beginning to see it. And the other
part is, yes, that digital technology we have is very
(07:28):
very good. You can capture things like that red glow
pink colors of the upper level aurora out there when
we wouldn't normally think one would be able to see it.
But our digital technology picks up those photons of light
and puts them together on that digital sensor and it
accumulates it and voila, there one can see it.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So if I'm reading, if I am understanding correctly, if
I'm standing in the same spot next to you and
your small f take picture on your camera or your
camera or your cell phone, your smartphone, I might say,
I don't really see it. I don't really see it, Sean.
(08:12):
But you then show me the picture that you just
took on your smartphone or on your cell phone or
whatever it is, and I'm gonna say, how could the
camera see it and not me?
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, isn't that amazing that? I mean, that's the story
it is these days. Now in those northern tier states,
with that activity, one doesn't have a problem seeing I mean,
you get the green colors, you get the red, even
some other colors. From time to time it's much further
up in the sky and it stands out like a
sore thumb. But those southern tier states, it really takes
a lot to see it with your eye. And that
was the case back in May that was seen and
(08:49):
once again, even this more recent storm, people saw it
further south than you'd think, but they also captured it
much further south than one would think, just because of
that excitement one of particles up there in the atmosphere
that's interacting with that storm from the sun and lighting
up in that nice bread right bright red color that
(09:10):
people were capturing on their phones.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
When I want when we get back, I want to
talk about the impact again this space weather adverse impact
can have on our technology, which we touched upon the
other night. But I want to get into that because
we all now are slaves to technology, whether we're looking
at our computers or our cell phones. We can't live
(09:35):
with them, we can't live without them. My name is
Dan Ray. This is Nightside. Wanted to be joined again
by Sean Dahl, a space weather forecaster for the for
Noah Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. I love
talking to Sean because you hear the excitement in his voice.
(09:55):
We're going to talk about the problems that these this
beautiful space space weather can cause us. And if you
are out there and you have a question or a comment,
and most of you, I'm sure are stronger in terms
of science than I am. Feel free to join the
conversation and UH and and ask questions that maybe I'm
not smart enough to ask in this particular set of circumstances.
(10:17):
Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six one
seven nine. Coming back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Now, back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
My guest Sean Dahl. He's with the National Ocean Ocean
and Graphic and Aeronautics Administration. UH, he's with the Noah's
Space Weather Prediction Center. I want to talk to you
about weather prediction, but I also want to talk initially
about as beautiful as as the Aurora borealis is and
(10:52):
some of the things we see up there. This does
interfere this space weather. I don't know how much of
a direct impact that has on our weather per se,
but it does interfere with the technology that we use. Correct.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Oh, that's absolutely right, Dan, It sure does. That's why
we that's our real focus here at the Space Weather
Predictions Center is the implications on our technology in our
society's way of life. That's why we do what we do.
We make direct contact with a lot of these core
critical infrastructure technological operators out there, as well as our
(11:27):
federal levels of our government, so that if we do
ever experience one of these feared and we know it
can happen because it's happened throughout history, and I'll be
glad to talk to you about some of those events.
That space weather impacts things dramatically, and we don't want
to see something on the order of a catastrophic collapse
of some element of our technology, such as the power
grid of North America.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Okay, So I I this where it gets a little
scary here. Okay, two hundred years ago, when we had
no such thing, I guess probably you might have had
Morse code, but that was about it. Now we have
radio and television, and we have satellites, and we have
stuff that you know, our ancestors never could have even imagined. Okay,
(12:12):
As we have become more reliant on technology, I assume
that conversely, we're now more susceptible to some of this
space weather. Tell us.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Why, yeah, that's so true. That's because we're still learning,
you know, where it's developed things at such a fantastic pace,
this new technology. I mean, Craig, when I was going
to school, there was no such thing as a cell phone, right,
you had to do the old rotary dial phone for
goodness takes. But now and then a lot of cordless
phones were an exciting thing. But now we all have
(12:44):
cell phones and we're all reliant on them so much
so that whenever's there's a dropout of one of these devices,
like a major celler network, people are looking for immediate answer.
And that happened back in February. Space weather actually got
blamed for that due to some active the storms and
the sun called solar flares. In this case, they did
not They were not the cause of the cellular phone
(13:05):
outage back instead Dory. But we had to respond to
those questions to including from our own Pentagon, because there's
so many people that rely on that, including national security assets.
Had concerns about whether or not that was it. But yes,
we are quite susceptible to it.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
But the beauty is that.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
We're aware of this and things going up there are
trying to plan for these as much as possible, say
satellites in space. The power grid is well aware and
they're trying to They have measures in place now that
they didn't have twenty years ago to deal with these situations,
the communications that we have, the GPS devices that we
rely upon. Unfortunately, these are still very susceptible, and there
(13:44):
was major impacts from the storm in May, in particular,
a half a billion dollar loss in agriculture is the
current reported estimate now because of the GPS precision GPS
failure systems from the farmers trying to plant seeds and
spray crops in early May.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Wow, what were the farmers doing way back then, way
back when. So, from a personal point of view, this
space weather, as we begin to experience and we continue
to experience it, it was there before and it'll be
(14:25):
there after all of us depart this mortal courp It
can impact everything from our cell phones to our I
guess our computers, our televisions. Can any of that now
be channeled and used against us by a foreign military power?
Is there any concern about that?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Dan, I think there probably is. I don't I can't
speak to that because I don't know. That's not what
we're doing at the Space Center. But who does deal
with that? As a Department of Defense and our core partners,
the United States Air Force supports those efforts. They have
kind of the top secret national security side for military
interests in mind when it comes to space weather, because
they have an organization just like we have at the
(15:12):
Space Weather Pitch Center, but it's for the military side
and all those concerns that you're expressing here, that's what
they're monitoring and doing. And it's interesting you brought that
up because, in I believe it was the year in
nineteen sixty seven, around May twenty third, nuclear war was
at option. It was a possibility because of a space
(15:34):
weather event. As you can imagine, technology was beginning to loom.
Satellites were just beginning to become a thing, Rockets going
into outer space were becoming a thing. But there was
an event that happened on the Sun that was so
prolific that it caused a lot of these over the
horizon radars that are looking for nuclear launches from foreign
(15:54):
adversaries to experience a major problem where the effect that
it seemed like they were being jammed for instance, highly
concerning when you don't have a lot of information right
But it was thanks to space weather forecasters that got
the word out that no, we're experiencing this type of
event right here. We think that's the cause. And wow,
(16:15):
I mean you know, if you don't know what's causing
a problem. Even today, we could be having a cyber attack, right,
so we need to know whether or not space weather's
to blame instead.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, I assume that space weather is is if you
say it's to blame, it's a natural phenomenon over which
no one has control. But to think that a display
whatever of sun activity, space weather, whatever you want to
refer to it, and I realized they're different, but that
(16:47):
they can be related, could have panicked some nation to
launch nuclear weapons because they think they're under attack. I mean,
it could have been that the end of the world
would be caused really directly by human beings, but indirectly
by a natural phenomena called space weather. I mean, that's
(17:10):
I've never heard that story before, Sean, that's frightening to
think of that.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Oh sure is right now, It's amazing how far we've
come Now today, the odds of that happening are much swimmer,
right because other nations are doing space weather business when
they weren't before. They're invested in this because they have
critical infrastructure just like we do. I mean, the last
storm back in May caused so many power problems in
New Zealand they had to disconnect power to the northern
(17:35):
islands up in that country. I mean, this is the
state we're in. And in nineteen seventy two, there was
a storm so prolific from the sun, these things we
call geomagnetic storms, which caused the aurora that was so
impactful immediately upon the storm arrival from the Sun that
it actually detonated mines in the waters during the Vietnam War.
(17:57):
I mean, this is the power of these storms from
the path and even moving forward, this is a touch
of concerns we have today and what this means for
our current state of satellites, our current state of communications,
our current interconnected power grid system, and so on.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I'm assuming, and maybe I'm overreacting my last question, then
we're going to go to break and we'll get to
phone calls. I'm assuming we right now have some astronauts
circling the globe who were supposed to be back down
here a few months ago, are going to be up
until some time in February. One of them happens to
be a Massachusetts native, so we're a little bit concerned
about herb as well as the other astronauts. Is it
(18:34):
conceivable that we could have a situation where again, you know,
a a set of astronauts could be impowerful. I mean
we've had we've had astronaut you know, launches that have
blown up on re entry. But we've had back in
nineteen sixty two, we had I think several astronauts died
(18:55):
when when a rocket actually blew up on the platform.
The era of Gus Grissom and all of that is
the challenger, and we've had tragedies that are closer to Earth.
Is it conceivable that there could be a space weather
event which would impact astronauts or is the technology that
(19:16):
you deal with such that you could anticipate that and
they could get the spaceship, space shuttles or whatever the
space ships out of the way.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Yeah, then there's several points to that. Yes, we are
very concerned about astronauts safety. We talked to NASSA every
single day for the benefits of those astronauts in the
space And just like your native Massachusetts female up there,
this is what we do. When we have these types
of storms they're called radiation storms and are scary, frightening
(19:50):
word right, particles coming from the Sun. We're concerned about
those penetrating into human tissue of the astronauts. And that's
why we'll be working directly with Houston Mission Control when
we go back to the Moon for direct dealing of
the astronaut safety, because we know that that can be
extremely harmful to them and cause well, very nasty radiation exposure.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Wow. Wow. My guest is Sean Doll. He is a
space weather forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
We're going to go to phone calls. I see a
very familiar name. Was going to lead us off. Here's
that's going to be fun. Uh. There's one line at
six one, seven, two, five, four to ten thirty and
a couple of lines at six one, seven, nine, three one,
(20:33):
ten thirty. This is your opportunity to weigh in and
learn something or to try to make a point. You
have that opportunity. Sean is going to stay with us,
I hope until eleven o'clock. Will take calls along the way.
Feel free to join the conversation. It's a night side
with Dan Ray. I find a subject like this so
inherently interesting because they know so little about it. I
(20:55):
hope all of you can identify with that feeling. There
were some subjects saying, now a lot of baseball and politics,
but this is an area that is not in my wheelhouse,
and I'm learning as much as I can. I hope
you are as well. Back on Nightside, It's Night Side
with Dan Ray on w B Boston's news radio. My
(21:16):
guest Sean Dole. He's a space weather forecaster for NOAH,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. My first caller, first
time she's called the show. I think it's a first.
I'm not sure. We'll have to see Nicole Davis. Nicole,
how are you? You're still working here?
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Thank you. I am not at work right now, and
I am safety first, hands on the wheel. But you
can hear me, okay, right, perfectly, perfectly phenomenal. So Sean,
so good to have you on BEZ. This is something
that I am totally geeking out about. And you answered
my question earlier about the impact on radio, because I
(21:58):
was really really interested in that side of it. But
I have a kind of a tune for for you,
you know, one I'd really like to learn more about
the process of predicting these because you know, I think
if I remember right, the sun is like on an
eleven year magnetic cycle, and I really want to know
what it's like for you over at Noah, trying to
like nail down when these solar storms are going to happen,
(22:19):
the mass ejections, the coronal mass ejections. And then secondly,
i'd love to know what you think about the impact
of climate change and if that will make these ejections
more pronounced, and how it'll impact us on Earth. So
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Hi, Nicole, thanks for calling in, Thanks for those sets
of questions. Yeah, forecasting space weather's hard. You know, most
of my career has been in regular terrestrial meteorology, and
at the time I thought that was difficult. But it's
gotten a lot better, right, We've had better models, We've
got all sorts of observation platforms and satellites and lightning
detection systems, and we're getting really good. Now we can
(22:56):
predict a winter storm seven to ten days in advance,
and then as we get closer we just start to
iron out how much snow, what the actual swath is
going to be, and all that decision support kicks in.
But for space, whether trying to forecast some storm coming
from the sun ninety three million miles away, and whether
or not it's going to hit our tiny little blue
marble is very difficult because even though these coronal mass
(23:19):
ejections that you mentioned, these CMEs, for people that don't know,
these are blasts of solar material, billions of tons of
it in fact, heading out into space and enormous speeds
or can be extreme speeds, and they also carry along
with it a very strong embedded magnetic field stretching out
into space. That's what we're really concerned about is the
(23:39):
initial arrival of those CMEs that earth like a direct blow,
and then the CME. So though I guess that don't
understand the progression of these, think I know something you're
familiar with, right, A really strong Arctic cold front coming
in from the north, very strong one. You'll get that
wind blast as the cold front moves through. Same thing
with the CMEME. We get hit by the shot front
(24:00):
of this thing, and then comes the colder air from
the air mass pooling into your area. Same thing here
with the CME. Now we get the strong magnetic field
showing up along with it, and we never know what
that's gonna be, Nicole, until it gets one million miles
from Earth, so it's already made. It's ninety two million
mile journey. We've seen the CME, we've analyzed it, we've
done model runs on it, but we don't have any
(24:22):
idea what it actually is light, how strong the magnetic
field is, is it favorable to connect with Earth or not?
Until it gets one million miles away. That's when we
can see the structure of the ames with our observation
platforms out there. And as far as the second part
of your question goes, it's not so much a concern
about affecting climate. There are studies going on long term
(24:45):
studies to see if over a solar cycles some that
don't respond as usual. There may be some correlation to
changes in climate, but I don't have I'm not an
expert on any of that. What I can speak to
is we have grave concerns right now because of the
effects of climates differing. We've had more frequencies, more frequent
(25:06):
occurrences of super strong heat waves that affect so many people,
drastic weather changes, flooding events, but the heat waves of
particular are very concerning because when the power grid suffers
from a severe extreme geomagnetic storm and the things they
are dealing with their If you combine that with a
major restural heat wave going on, that's a problem. They
(25:27):
will have a very difficult time mitigating the situation for sure.
Speaker 6 (25:32):
Well, great information. Thank you so much, Sean, and thank
you Dan for covering this topic. I'm loving this.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah. We talked with Sean about a week and a
half ago, and I just thought that again, I'm not
this is not my wheelhouse, and I'm learning and listening.
I know your interest in it, and I'm so appreciati the
fact that you called in on this one. And you know,
I just want to make a quick comment about the
difficulty of weather forecasting when you think about how many
(25:58):
times and sewn. This is not an indictment of weather forecasters,
trust me, but you know they'll say this or storm
coming or whatever. I think about this situation down in
Florida where Hurricane Helene went through and did a lot
of damage, and then Hurricane Milton was coming behind it
a few days later, and all the forecasters down there,
to my recollection, was saying as bad as Helene was,
(26:21):
Milton's going to be worse. They were saying that the
waves coming in instead of being just eight feet high.
I saw pictures of weather forecasters standing on step ladders
above basketball basketball nets was through ten feet high and
saying it's going to be close to thirteen fourteen feet high.
It wasn't. Helene was actually I think the tougher storm.
And also the advantage of Milton was it just cut
(26:44):
through Florida, didn't touch Georgia or South Carolina or North
Carolina or Tennessee. So they nailed Helene. But I'm not
sure that the weather forecasters did as good a job
on Milton. And I don't know. I'll get a call
from either of you and that it just talks about
the difficulty of predicting stuff dealing with weather, never mind
(27:06):
stuff that's ninety three million miles away. I stand in RPP.
We try to do it.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
I'm going to defer to Sean because I'm just a fan,
not an expert. So I'm all, this is all you, Sean, go.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Ahead, Sean, Yeah, Dad.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
You know, the so much of mainstreams and terrestrial weather,
what we call synoptic weather, has gotten much easier to
predict and forecast and refining it down. You know, hurricanes
is a different battle as well. We've got our battle
with space weather and what's going on the sun. Hurricanes
are these massive systems, and many times they do an
excellent job the models that they scrutinize, the expertise that
(27:43):
goes into that of predicting the pan, the path or
cone of these hurricanes, right, But sometimes they you just
don't get all the information. Things start to change more
rapidly than you think from Helen enormous flooding issues afterwards
as it got deeper into the Carolinas and Tennessee, and yeah,
you know, how would you figure that's coming? And then
the tornado outbreak for Milton was a really catastrophic part
(28:06):
of that whole storm. I mean, there's just still so
many nuances, even terrestrial weather to figure out.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah more, what I'm just saying is it's difficult to
even you know, again, we were told Milton was going
to be Now Milton did have a higher death total
I think than Helene, but in terms of the damage,
the length of the it just it just shows to
me how tough it is. It's almost like if you
watch a golf tournament and someone hits a two hundred
(28:34):
and fifty yard shot, you know, four feet from the
pin and then they missed the putt. It's like, how
can you hit a two hundred and fifty yard shot
that close to the pin? Everybody should be able to
make that putt, but sometimes it doesn't work. That's the
that's the only metaphor I can I can compare it to.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
Whether it's an imperfect science.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
My friend, you bet you thanks to Gold. We'll talk soon.
We see you soon. Okay, thanks so.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Much, No problem, think, Sean, listen to this.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Let's try we get one more quick call in here
before our break. And again, I'm just interested in what
people are going to ask. Rob is in Ohio. Rob,
you go right ahead. You're next with Sean Dahle, Space
weather forecaster with Noah, go right ahead.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
What happened in Southern Airline Spike two four two nurse package?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I have no idea this is. This is a crank
caller who we occasionally get. And so we will get
rid of this crank caller. I recognize his voice. We'll
just lose them. Guys, don't need them, We're gone. We
have these guys who, for some reason, no matter what
you're talking about, they want to call and they we
opened phone lines up. Sorry, uh, Sean will take quick break.
(29:43):
I got Steve from Fort Devons, of course, which was
a military installation here in Massachusetts for decades, and Jack
down to the Cape. If anyone else wants to join us.
Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty is the number.
Rob was actually from Ohio, but he some issues. We'll
be back after this on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
nights Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
My guest is Seandall. He's a space weather forecaster. It's
a big realm of forecasting here and something we're going
to be hearing more of as the years go by.
He's working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Next
up from Fort Devons, Massachusetts, Steve, Steve, welcome, you are
(30:32):
next on nice. I appreciate you calling in. You're next
with Seandal Gorighthead. Steve.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Hey, Dan, how are you doing? Thanks for having me cms. Wow,
they are something right. They can devastate everything from electronics
to infrastruction to you name it. The military though, that's
what we call a Faraday case on every vehicle everything.
(30:58):
So actually you didn't hear that from me. But anyhow,
if people want to concern because these are going to
be happening more and more often because we're seeing the
Aurora borealis coming through and that's from a cme. Also,
so what people can do to protect themselves, right, because
(31:19):
what's going to happen anyone who has an elective vehicle
to get it? It's done.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
See, let me let me do this if I could, Steve,
could I get you to direct the question to my guest.
The sounds to me like you know a lot about
this stuff, but I suspect the guest wh would love
to have a question and they all need Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yeah, Steve, thanks for calling in. Let's make one distinction
here because there's sometimes confusion. I'm not saying you're having
it here. But there's a something called electromagnetic pulses and
there's something called geomedically induced currents. So the genies the
geomagnetically induced currents are these geomainnetic storms from the sun costs.
(32:02):
The good news for you and for everybody is that
those storms will not affect like your home appliances. They
won't affect the transmission lines running from a small capacitor
to your home. But those storms effect, on the other hand,
are the high voltage transmission lines and the huge transformers
that direct and control that current distribution. That's why when
(32:26):
we have a geomayaneting storm that's so extreme, our concern
is that the power grid is going to go down,
not for just the city block, not for a county,
not just the state, but a number of states where
one hundreds of people could lose power. An electromagnetic pulse,
on the other hand, that's something usually associated with things
like nuclear detonations. Now that kind of thing will trick
(32:51):
vehicles and things to that extent. So just to make
sure that everybody understands that as far as our science
knows and understands, these Geomania storm so far do not
have any direct impact on our electric vehicles. That's not
to say they don't on their GPS systems, but fortunately
they have other measures in place, sensors that tell where
(33:12):
they're out in the road and things, so we don't
anticipate any problems there. But these are the conversations we
continue to have as technology develops. We do know that
the storm and may Steve maybe had some effect on
some Bluetooth devices. They're still trying to figure out whether
that's actually true and correlatable or not. But there may
have been something like that going on. But as far
(33:32):
as any direct impact to somebody's home or their electronic appliances, no,
we don't know of anything like that that happens from
these storms. Right by the way, the level of the storm.
They hold up.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
For one second, Steve, can you hear us? Just hold
up for one second the point that my guests just made. Sean,
there's a book. We've interviewed this author before about electronic
magnetic pulses EMPs. His name is Ray Gorram. The book
is seventy seven Days in September. It's been out a while,
(34:09):
but I found it to be a fascinating book about
what would happen if all the power grids went down,
and this his hypothetical involved some small country exploding a
couple of small nuclear bombs over the US and wiping
out the grid. And it's a tough book to read
(34:29):
in terms of you realize that there are people out
there who would love to take the grid down. And
I know that Sean knows probably much more about this
than I do. But what the book I was referring
to today was written by a fellow named Ray Gorum
seventy seven days in September. I'm looking at edit right now.
Go ahead, Steve. You with the final comment that you
(34:51):
wanted to make it.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, yeah, I do so. Prior to President Obamama believe
in UH is UH you know, in the January time there,
he made an executive order to I don't know if
anyone's aware of this, to for incoming inbound UH particles
(35:19):
projections from the sun or from space. And it mainly
is from the Sun because now we're studying in the
sun in the CMEs. Now that they're not let's look
at the Carriken event for instance.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
You're giving me way too much information here, and I
got out.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
The big thing is people protect themselves for an event
like this. It's an event. We had an event that
was a level event for when if it gets to
a level event eight or higher and it's bound to happen.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Okay, great, Steve, Thank you for the warning. Steve, I
gotta I gotta accommodate. A couple of other callers, very
interesting observations. Thank you very much. Let me go next
to Jack Down of the Cape. Jack on Cape Cod
you're next on nice side with my guest Sean Dahl awesome.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
The fact that we're experiencing Aurora down here on Cape
cod and below to me, indicates that the magnetos magnique
magnetosphere density is weakened. And so, uh, my concern. And
I've got two points. I'm going to put one point.
I'll follow to the other point.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
You got to be quick, Okay, I got you some
time here, but you got to be a little quicker
than Steve. Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Good.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
Uh, the magnetosphere and its potential oscillation to a poll
shift and what would that indicate? And I think we're
looking at some indications. The second point, Danu, the power grid,
the AC and the DC, the high voltage versus the
low voltage, Dan, I want you to look into this.
(37:06):
There were there were back in the AC DC Edison
Tesla days, Wars on Current. We got to look into
this and bring it up on another show.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
So yes, send me some information on that. Let me
let me get my guests to respond to the first
point you made, Sean go right ahead.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, the you know when the CMEs interact with Earth's
protective magnetic barrier, that's what he's talking about the magnetosphere.
This is how all the interaction happens. This interaction changes
the structure and causes currents of energy to naturally flow
all the time because we're always connected to the sun.
It's just the CMEs exasperated. These natural currents they flow
(37:48):
and they build up on these high voltage transmission lines,
and these high voltage transmission lines ferry hundreds of thousands
of volts of electricity across miles and miles from Canada
down across our country, and it's that connection that builds
up these currents. Look for shortcuts, right. That's why we're
told not to put a fork in an electric socket
as a kid, because that electricity walls shoot out there
(38:10):
and get into your body. Same thing here, these electrical currents.
If the ground that we live on is highly resistive
to current, it's going to look for those shortcuts naturally,
and that's how they find them. So there's some areas
of our country that are more prone to those build
ups of electrical energy. Direct current, in relation to the
point that was just made, showing up on an alternating
(38:30):
current system is not good. It causes all sorts of
anomalies and it builds up in overheats transformers. If it's
not accounted for. So I think that's the you know,
in relation to the point I can come up with
it with the caller just talked about.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
All right, Jack, appreciate it. Send me information on that
second point and maybe I can put a sheltergether the
for us. Okay, we'll do sure, Dan or Noah will
give you my direct emails so you can send it
to me and I'll respond to you. I want to
thank you very much, Sean. Again, I've learned a lot,
but in learning a lot, I now realize how much
(39:04):
I need to learn. I'll tell you there's nothing that
was asked that you did not bring clarification to and
I just want to say thank you very much for
your time tonight and as we go on over the
next few months in the next few years. Love to
have you back here and talk more about it, because
it sounds to me like this is an area of
science that is going to explode literally and figuratively in
(39:28):
the years ahead.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, thanks Dan, thanks for having me back. Glad to
come back anytime. And we're in the grips of solar
maximum that was just announced for this cycle last week
by NASA Noah joint conference. But it doesn't mean we're
on our way down. We still got all of this year,
all of next year, and even into twenty twenty six.
Some of the strongest storms in history have been two
years after solar maximum, so we've still got an issue
(39:54):
to deal with over the next couple of years. So
space where there's still going to be a story to
be talked about.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Sounds great. Sean. I really appreciate your time. I can't
tell you much. I appreciate your time if this is
an area that that fascinates me, and I wish I
had studied harder in science classes and a little less
English than poly side. Thanks so much, Sean, appreciate the call. Okay,
thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
You're very welcome. Thank you. We're going to take quick break.
Eleven o'clock news is here, as is the eleven o'clock
hour just around the corner, and we'll be back on nightside.
It's night with Dan Ray on DELI Feazy Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All right, Well, a couple of weeks ago, we had
some spectacular examples of space weather and we talked with
during the eight o'clock hour with a gentleman by the
name is Sean Dahl. He's a space weather forecaster at
Noah's Space Weather Prediction Center out in Boulder, Colorado. Has
(00:33):
had an amazing career. Spent twenty two years in the
US Air Force, served around the world in the intelligence
and meteorragical operations fields, continued his studies. He retired from
the Air Force in two thousand and seven and has
been with the National Weather Service and a weather forecaster
(00:57):
for the US Air Force. So I want to welcome
Sean back because I was fascinated by some of the
things that we talked about. This was the time a
couple of weeks ago when people were seeing the northern
lights in spectacular fashion. Seawan, welcome back to Nightside. How
(01:17):
are you Sean Dahl?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Hi? Dan, thanks, I'm glad to be glad to be
back and I'm doing great.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah. No So, Noah is the National Oceanographic and an
Aeronautics Administration. Is that have I got the acronym.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Correctly there almost National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Shakes spirit administration. Okay, al right, I was thinking aeronautics,
all right. I should have looked that one up ahead
of time. There are so many of these acronyms in
the in the vernacular. So we're talking about space weather
and when I talked to you earlier today, briefly, uh,
it was. It's fascinating because for someone like me, who
(02:00):
is not especially scientifically oriented, I learn a lot from
someone like you, and I hope our audience also might
have some honest questions that they might want to contribute
to the conversation we think about. When I think about
weather and all of that, I think about sun spots,
which I don't understand, but I'm told that depending upon
(02:22):
the intensity of sun spots that can infect can impact
our weather. That's not necessarily what we're talking about here,
but is that true?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Then sunspots are these massive, strong magnetic field and they're
so strong that they disturb the natural rising of light and.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Heat coming up from deeper inside the sun. So think
of it like a reverse bathtub plug. The water doesn't
go out when the plug's in there. In this case,
it's a magnetic plug keeping things from coming up welling
up from deeper in the Sun, and these strong magnetic fields,
these that can materialize as major sunspot groups. They're usually
they're not always the source of these space one of
(03:05):
the storms that can affect Planet Earth, but they're usually
the source of most of the significant activity that we
experience here.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, and again, I didn't do great in science in school,
but I'm smart enough to know that the Sun is
about ninety million miles away, ninety three million miles away,
and at different times during the years, a little closer
in different times during the years, a little further away.
How enormous is the Sun? Comparatively? I think all of
(03:32):
us know that the circumference of the Earth is I
think it's twenty four thousand miles at the equator. How
enormous is this? But go ahead's right?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Oh, okay, I finish your question. Sorry, No, I.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Was just saying that I think that when we think
about the equator, we think about the Earth, and you know,
as this globe and around the center of the Earth
on the equator, it's about twenty four thousand miles wide.
How much bigger is the Sun to the Earth compared
to the Earth.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, kind of thing is massive. I mean a one
hundred and nine planet earths fits side by side just
going across the flat Earth facing side of the Sun
right across its equator. So that means an enormous amount
of Earth fit around the entire Sun right and if
one does all the map basically adds up to something
on the order of one million planet earths could fit
(04:27):
inside of the Sun. So fortunately it's at the perfect distance,
being that ninety three or so million miles away, that
we escape most of the harmful things. And this planet
has been able to sustain life because it seems to
be just at the right distance. But it's so far
away it still takes light from the Sun eight minutes
to get here.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I know when you I did learn that when
you see what you think is the dawn on the horizon,
it really was sent eight minutes previously from the Sun.
Tough things to get those of us who are non
scientists are hit around. So so with the sun spots.
Starting with the sun spots that activity and let's we'll
(05:11):
fill in the middle part. We saw these northern lights,
the Aurora borealis I think was the technical name or
is that is that a different phenomenon? I I just
want to make sure I'm not making it complete fool
of myself here.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
No, Dan, you got it absolutely right. That's the scientific
name for us in the northern hemisphere.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay, great? And is the one in the southern I
assumed this one in the southern hemisphere as well?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Right down there. The scientific name is the Aurora Australis.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Okay, all right, that makes sense. So what happened out
there a couple of weeks ago which allowed us to
see these brilliant colors in the you know, a time
when it's really dark. And the other question I have
is I went up at one point to try to
see them and I didn't and a friend of mine said,
(06:04):
you're not go ahead. You're supposed to take a picture
of them, and that's how you see them on your camera.
Was he joking with me? Or I looked up and
this was times when they was saying, no, we can
see him outside of Washington and DC and Maryland. Did
I miss it by not taking a picture on my cellphone?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
You may have, Dan, especially the one that was just
like a wee weekend ago or so yeah, little over
seven days ago. Yeah, that one. You know, we'll go
back to the one in the main in a minute,
but that one there, we reached pretty significant levels, what
we call severe levels, not quite to the extreme that
we reached with the storm in May, but nevertheless that's
still strong enough, severe enough that those northern lights can
(06:46):
manifest themselves, and they did all the way down to Florida,
across the southern tier state that we wouldn't normally think
that the ore would be visible at but it is
now because people There's two things going on. One, people
are tuning, understanding, hearing more about space weather. This is
thanks to the platforms like yours. This is thanks to
(07:07):
work that the government's been doing and advertising and especially
social media and those realms that say, hey there's something
going on. Even broadcast meter. I'm just starting to talk
about this stuff. So people are beginning to look up
at the sky at night when maybe they weren't before,
So some are beginning to see it. And the other
part is, yes, that digital technology we have is very
(07:28):
very good. You can capture things like that red glow
pink colors of the upper level aurora out there when
we wouldn't normally think one would be able to see it.
But our digital technology picks up those photons of light
and puts them together on that digital sensor and it
accumulates it and voila, there one can see it.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So if I'm reading, if I am understanding correctly, if
I'm standing in the same spot next to you and
your small f take picture on your camera or your
camera or your cell phone, your smartphone, I might say,
I don't really see it. I don't really see it, Sean.
(08:12):
But you then show me the picture that you just
took on your smartphone or on your cell phone or
whatever it is, and I'm gonna say, how could the
camera see it and not me?
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, isn't that amazing that? I mean, that's the story
it is these days. Now in those northern tier states,
with that activity, one doesn't have a problem seeing I mean,
you get the green colors, you get the red, even
some other colors. From time to time it's much further
up in the sky and it stands out like a
sore thumb. But those southern tier states, it really takes
a lot to see it with your eye. And that
was the case back in May that was seen and
(08:49):
once again, even this more recent storm, people saw it
further south than you'd think, but they also captured it
much further south than one would think, just because of
that excitement one of particles up there in the atmosphere
that's interacting with that storm from the sun and lighting
up in that nice bread right bright red color that
(09:10):
people were capturing on their phones.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
When I want when we get back, I want to
talk about the impact again this space weather adverse impact
can have on our technology, which we touched upon the
other night. But I want to get into that because
we all now are slaves to technology, whether we're looking
at our computers or our cell phones. We can't live
(09:35):
with them, we can't live without them. My name is
Dan Ray. This is Nightside. Wanted to be joined again
by Sean Dahl, a space weather forecaster for the for
Noah Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. I love
talking to Sean because you hear the excitement in his voice.
(09:55):
We're going to talk about the problems that these this
beautiful space space weather can cause us. And if you
are out there and you have a question or a comment,
and most of you, I'm sure are stronger in terms
of science than I am. Feel free to join the
conversation and UH and and ask questions that maybe I'm
not smart enough to ask in this particular set of circumstances.
(10:17):
Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six one
seven nine. Coming back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Now, back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
My guest Sean Dahl. He's with the National Ocean Ocean
and Graphic and Aeronautics Administration. UH, he's with the Noah's
Space Weather Prediction Center. I want to talk to you
about weather prediction, but I also want to talk initially
about as beautiful as as the Aurora borealis is and
(10:52):
some of the things we see up there. This does
interfere this space weather. I don't know how much of
a direct impact that has on our weather per se,
but it does interfere with the technology that we use. Correct.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Oh, that's absolutely right, Dan, It sure does. That's why
we that's our real focus here at the Space Weather
Predictions Center is the implications on our technology in our
society's way of life. That's why we do what we do.
We make direct contact with a lot of these core
critical infrastructure technological operators out there, as well as our
(11:27):
federal levels of our government, so that if we do
ever experience one of these feared and we know it
can happen because it's happened throughout history, and I'll be
glad to talk to you about some of those events.
That space weather impacts things dramatically, and we don't want
to see something on the order of a catastrophic collapse
of some element of our technology, such as the power
grid of North America.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Okay, So I I this where it gets a little
scary here. Okay, two hundred years ago, when we had
no such thing, I guess probably you might have had
Morse code, but that was about it. Now we have
radio and television, and we have satellites, and we have
stuff that you know, our ancestors never could have even imagined. Okay,
(12:12):
As we have become more reliant on technology, I assume
that conversely, we're now more susceptible to some of this
space weather. Tell us.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Why, yeah, that's so true. That's because we're still learning,
you know, where it's developed things at such a fantastic pace,
this new technology. I mean, Craig, when I was going
to school, there was no such thing as a cell phone, right,
you had to do the old rotary dial phone for
goodness takes. But now and then a lot of cordless
phones were an exciting thing. But now we all have
(12:44):
cell phones and we're all reliant on them so much
so that whenever's there's a dropout of one of these devices,
like a major celler network, people are looking for immediate answer.
And that happened back in February. Space weather actually got
blamed for that due to some active the storms and
the sun called solar flares. In this case, they did
not They were not the cause of the cellular phone
(13:05):
outage back instead Dory. But we had to respond to
those questions to including from our own Pentagon, because there's
so many people that rely on that, including national security assets.
Had concerns about whether or not that was it. But yes,
we are quite susceptible to it.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
But the beauty is that.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
We're aware of this and things going up there are
trying to plan for these as much as possible, say
satellites in space. The power grid is well aware and
they're trying to They have measures in place now that
they didn't have twenty years ago to deal with these situations,
the communications that we have, the GPS devices that we
rely upon. Unfortunately, these are still very susceptible, and there
(13:44):
was major impacts from the storm in May, in particular,
a half a billion dollar loss in agriculture is the
current reported estimate now because of the GPS precision GPS
failure systems from the farmers trying to plant seeds and
spray crops in early May.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Wow, what were the farmers doing way back then, way
back when. So, from a personal point of view, this
space weather, as we begin to experience and we continue
to experience it, it was there before and it'll be
(14:25):
there after all of us depart this mortal courp It
can impact everything from our cell phones to our I
guess our computers, our televisions. Can any of that now
be channeled and used against us by a foreign military power?
Is there any concern about that?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Dan, I think there probably is. I don't I can't
speak to that because I don't know. That's not what
we're doing at the Space Center. But who does deal
with that? As a Department of Defense and our core partners,
the United States Air Force supports those efforts. They have
kind of the top secret national security side for military
interests in mind when it comes to space weather, because
they have an organization just like we have at the
(15:12):
Space Weather Pitch Center, but it's for the military side
and all those concerns that you're expressing here, that's what
they're monitoring and doing. And it's interesting you brought that
up because, in I believe it was the year in
nineteen sixty seven, around May twenty third, nuclear war was
at option. It was a possibility because of a space
(15:34):
weather event. As you can imagine, technology was beginning to loom.
Satellites were just beginning to become a thing, Rockets going
into outer space were becoming a thing. But there was
an event that happened on the Sun that was so
prolific that it caused a lot of these over the
horizon radars that are looking for nuclear launches from foreign
(15:54):
adversaries to experience a major problem where the effect that
it seemed like they were being jammed for instance, highly
concerning when you don't have a lot of information right
But it was thanks to space weather forecasters that got
the word out that no, we're experiencing this type of
event right here. We think that's the cause. And wow,
(16:15):
I mean you know, if you don't know what's causing
a problem. Even today, we could be having a cyber attack, right,
so we need to know whether or not space weather's
to blame instead.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, I assume that space weather is is if you
say it's to blame, it's a natural phenomenon over which
no one has control. But to think that a display
whatever of sun activity, space weather, whatever you want to
refer to it, and I realized they're different, but that
(16:47):
they can be related, could have panicked some nation to
launch nuclear weapons because they think they're under attack. I mean,
it could have been that the end of the world
would be caused really directly by human beings, but indirectly
by a natural phenomena called space weather. I mean, that's
(17:10):
I've never heard that story before, Sean, that's frightening to
think of that.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Oh sure is right now, It's amazing how far we've
come Now today, the odds of that happening are much swimmer,
right because other nations are doing space weather business when
they weren't before. They're invested in this because they have
critical infrastructure just like we do. I mean, the last
storm back in May caused so many power problems in
New Zealand they had to disconnect power to the northern
(17:35):
islands up in that country. I mean, this is the
state we're in. And in nineteen seventy two, there was
a storm so prolific from the sun, these things we
call geomagnetic storms, which caused the aurora that was so
impactful immediately upon the storm arrival from the Sun that
it actually detonated mines in the waters during the Vietnam War.
(17:57):
I mean, this is the power of these storms from
the path and even moving forward, this is a touch
of concerns we have today and what this means for
our current state of satellites, our current state of communications,
our current interconnected power grid system, and so on.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I'm assuming, and maybe I'm overreacting my last question, then
we're going to go to break and we'll get to
phone calls. I'm assuming we right now have some astronauts
circling the globe who were supposed to be back down
here a few months ago, are going to be up
until some time in February. One of them happens to
be a Massachusetts native, so we're a little bit concerned
about herb as well as the other astronauts. Is it
(18:34):
conceivable that we could have a situation where again, you know,
a a set of astronauts could be impowerful. I mean
we've had we've had astronaut you know, launches that have
blown up on re entry. But we've had back in
nineteen sixty two, we had I think several astronauts died
(18:55):
when when a rocket actually blew up on the platform.
The era of Gus Grissom and all of that is
the challenger, and we've had tragedies that are closer to Earth.
Is it conceivable that there could be a space weather
event which would impact astronauts or is the technology that
(19:16):
you deal with such that you could anticipate that and
they could get the spaceship, space shuttles or whatever the
space ships out of the way.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Yeah, then there's several points to that. Yes, we are
very concerned about astronauts safety. We talked to NASSA every
single day for the benefits of those astronauts in the
space And just like your native Massachusetts female up there,
this is what we do. When we have these types
of storms they're called radiation storms and are scary, frightening
(19:50):
word right, particles coming from the Sun. We're concerned about
those penetrating into human tissue of the astronauts. And that's
why we'll be working directly with Houston Mission Control when
we go back to the Moon for direct dealing of
the astronaut safety, because we know that that can be
extremely harmful to them and cause well, very nasty radiation exposure.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Wow. Wow. My guest is Sean Doll. He is a
space weather forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
We're going to go to phone calls. I see a
very familiar name. Was going to lead us off. Here's
that's going to be fun. Uh. There's one line at
six one, seven, two, five, four to ten thirty and
a couple of lines at six one, seven, nine, three one,
(20:33):
ten thirty. This is your opportunity to weigh in and
learn something or to try to make a point. You
have that opportunity. Sean is going to stay with us,
I hope until eleven o'clock. Will take calls along the way.
Feel free to join the conversation. It's a night side
with Dan Ray. I find a subject like this so
inherently interesting because they know so little about it. I
(20:55):
hope all of you can identify with that feeling. There
were some subjects saying, now a lot of baseball and politics,
but this is an area that is not in my wheelhouse,
and I'm learning as much as I can. I hope
you are as well. Back on Nightside, It's Night Side
with Dan Ray on w B Boston's news radio. My
(21:16):
guest Sean Dole. He's a space weather forecaster for NOAH,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. My first caller, first
time she's called the show. I think it's a first.
I'm not sure. We'll have to see Nicole Davis. Nicole,
how are you? You're still working here?
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Thank you. I am not at work right now, and
I am safety first, hands on the wheel. But you
can hear me, okay, right, perfectly, perfectly phenomenal. So Sean,
so good to have you on BEZ. This is something
that I am totally geeking out about. And you answered
my question earlier about the impact on radio, because I
(21:58):
was really really interested in that side of it. But
I have a kind of a tune for for you,
you know, one I'd really like to learn more about
the process of predicting these because you know, I think
if I remember right, the sun is like on an
eleven year magnetic cycle, and I really want to know
what it's like for you over at Noah, trying to
like nail down when these solar storms are going to happen,
(22:19):
the mass ejections, the coronal mass ejections. And then secondly,
i'd love to know what you think about the impact
of climate change and if that will make these ejections
more pronounced, and how it'll impact us on Earth. So
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Hi, Nicole, thanks for calling in, Thanks for those sets
of questions. Yeah, forecasting space weather's hard. You know, most
of my career has been in regular terrestrial meteorology, and
at the time I thought that was difficult. But it's
gotten a lot better, right, We've had better models, We've
got all sorts of observation platforms and satellites and lightning
detection systems, and we're getting really good. Now we can
(22:56):
predict a winter storm seven to ten days in advance,
and then as we get closer we just start to
iron out how much snow, what the actual swath is
going to be, and all that decision support kicks in.
But for space, whether trying to forecast some storm coming
from the sun ninety three million miles away, and whether
or not it's going to hit our tiny little blue
marble is very difficult because even though these coronal mass
(23:19):
ejections that you mentioned, these CMEs, for people that don't know,
these are blasts of solar material, billions of tons of
it in fact, heading out into space and enormous speeds
or can be extreme speeds, and they also carry along
with it a very strong embedded magnetic field stretching out
into space. That's what we're really concerned about is the
(23:39):
initial arrival of those CMEs that earth like a direct blow,
and then the CME. So though I guess that don't
understand the progression of these, think I know something you're
familiar with, right, A really strong Arctic cold front coming
in from the north, very strong one. You'll get that
wind blast as the cold front moves through. Same thing
with the CMEME. We get hit by the shot front
(24:00):
of this thing, and then comes the colder air from
the air mass pooling into your area. Same thing here
with the CME. Now we get the strong magnetic field
showing up along with it, and we never know what
that's gonna be, Nicole, until it gets one million miles
from Earth, so it's already made. It's ninety two million
mile journey. We've seen the CME, we've analyzed it, we've
done model runs on it, but we don't have any
(24:22):
idea what it actually is light, how strong the magnetic
field is, is it favorable to connect with Earth or not?
Until it gets one million miles away. That's when we
can see the structure of the ames with our observation
platforms out there. And as far as the second part
of your question goes, it's not so much a concern
about affecting climate. There are studies going on long term
(24:45):
studies to see if over a solar cycles some that
don't respond as usual. There may be some correlation to
changes in climate, but I don't have I'm not an
expert on any of that. What I can speak to
is we have grave concerns right now because of the
effects of climates differing. We've had more frequencies, more frequent
(25:06):
occurrences of super strong heat waves that affect so many people,
drastic weather changes, flooding events, but the heat waves of
particular are very concerning because when the power grid suffers
from a severe extreme geomagnetic storm and the things they
are dealing with their If you combine that with a
major restural heat wave going on, that's a problem. They
(25:27):
will have a very difficult time mitigating the situation for sure.
Speaker 6 (25:32):
Well, great information. Thank you so much, Sean, and thank
you Dan for covering this topic. I'm loving this.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah. We talked with Sean about a week and a
half ago, and I just thought that again, I'm not
this is not my wheelhouse, and I'm learning and listening.
I know your interest in it, and I'm so appreciati the
fact that you called in on this one. And you know,
I just want to make a quick comment about the
difficulty of weather forecasting when you think about how many
(25:58):
times and sewn. This is not an indictment of weather forecasters,
trust me, but you know they'll say this or storm
coming or whatever. I think about this situation down in
Florida where Hurricane Helene went through and did a lot
of damage, and then Hurricane Milton was coming behind it
a few days later, and all the forecasters down there,
to my recollection, was saying as bad as Helene was,
(26:21):
Milton's going to be worse. They were saying that the
waves coming in instead of being just eight feet high.
I saw pictures of weather forecasters standing on step ladders
above basketball basketball nets was through ten feet high and
saying it's going to be close to thirteen fourteen feet high.
It wasn't. Helene was actually I think the tougher storm.
And also the advantage of Milton was it just cut
(26:44):
through Florida, didn't touch Georgia or South Carolina or North
Carolina or Tennessee. So they nailed Helene. But I'm not
sure that the weather forecasters did as good a job
on Milton. And I don't know. I'll get a call
from either of you and that it just talks about
the difficulty of predicting stuff dealing with weather, never mind
(27:06):
stuff that's ninety three million miles away. I stand in RPP.
We try to do it.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
I'm going to defer to Sean because I'm just a fan,
not an expert. So I'm all, this is all you, Sean, go.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Ahead, Sean, Yeah, Dad.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
You know, the so much of mainstreams and terrestrial weather,
what we call synoptic weather, has gotten much easier to
predict and forecast and refining it down. You know, hurricanes
is a different battle as well. We've got our battle
with space weather and what's going on the sun. Hurricanes
are these massive systems, and many times they do an
excellent job the models that they scrutinize, the expertise that
(27:43):
goes into that of predicting the pan, the path or
cone of these hurricanes, right, But sometimes they you just
don't get all the information. Things start to change more
rapidly than you think from Helen enormous flooding issues afterwards
as it got deeper into the Carolinas and Tennessee, and yeah,
you know, how would you figure that's coming? And then
the tornado outbreak for Milton was a really catastrophic part
(28:06):
of that whole storm. I mean, there's just still so
many nuances, even terrestrial weather to figure out.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah more, what I'm just saying is it's difficult to
even you know, again, we were told Milton was going
to be Now Milton did have a higher death total
I think than Helene, but in terms of the damage,
the length of the it just it just shows to
me how tough it is. It's almost like if you
watch a golf tournament and someone hits a two hundred
(28:34):
and fifty yard shot, you know, four feet from the
pin and then they missed the putt. It's like, how
can you hit a two hundred and fifty yard shot
that close to the pin? Everybody should be able to
make that putt, but sometimes it doesn't work. That's the
that's the only metaphor I can I can compare it to.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
Whether it's an imperfect science.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
My friend, you bet you thanks to Gold. We'll talk soon.
We see you soon. Okay, thanks so.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Much, No problem, think, Sean, listen to this.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Let's try we get one more quick call in here
before our break. And again, I'm just interested in what
people are going to ask. Rob is in Ohio. Rob,
you go right ahead. You're next with Sean Dahle, Space
weather forecaster with Noah, go right ahead.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
What happened in Southern Airline Spike two four two nurse package?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I have no idea this is. This is a crank
caller who we occasionally get. And so we will get
rid of this crank caller. I recognize his voice. We'll
just lose them. Guys, don't need them, We're gone. We
have these guys who, for some reason, no matter what
you're talking about, they want to call and they we
opened phone lines up. Sorry, uh, Sean will take quick break.
(29:43):
I got Steve from Fort Devons, of course, which was
a military installation here in Massachusetts for decades, and Jack
down to the Cape. If anyone else wants to join us.
Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty is the number.
Rob was actually from Ohio, but he some issues. We'll
be back after this on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
nights Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
My guest is Seandall. He's a space weather forecaster. It's
a big realm of forecasting here and something we're going
to be hearing more of as the years go by.
He's working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Next
up from Fort Devons, Massachusetts, Steve, Steve, welcome, you are
(30:32):
next on nice. I appreciate you calling in. You're next
with Seandal Gorighthead. Steve.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Hey, Dan, how are you doing? Thanks for having me cms. Wow,
they are something right. They can devastate everything from electronics
to infrastruction to you name it. The military though, that's
what we call a Faraday case on every vehicle everything.
(30:58):
So actually you didn't hear that from me. But anyhow,
if people want to concern because these are going to
be happening more and more often because we're seeing the
Aurora borealis coming through and that's from a cme. Also,
so what people can do to protect themselves, right, because
(31:19):
what's going to happen anyone who has an elective vehicle
to get it? It's done.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
See, let me let me do this if I could, Steve,
could I get you to direct the question to my guest.
The sounds to me like you know a lot about
this stuff, but I suspect the guest wh would love
to have a question and they all need Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yeah, Steve, thanks for calling in. Let's make one distinction
here because there's sometimes confusion. I'm not saying you're having
it here. But there's a something called electromagnetic pulses and
there's something called geomedically induced currents. So the genies the
geomagnetically induced currents are these geomainnetic storms from the sun costs.
(32:02):
The good news for you and for everybody is that
those storms will not affect like your home appliances. They
won't affect the transmission lines running from a small capacitor
to your home. But those storms effect, on the other hand,
are the high voltage transmission lines and the huge transformers
that direct and control that current distribution. That's why when
(32:26):
we have a geomayaneting storm that's so extreme, our concern
is that the power grid is going to go down,
not for just the city block, not for a county,
not just the state, but a number of states where
one hundreds of people could lose power. An electromagnetic pulse,
on the other hand, that's something usually associated with things
like nuclear detonations. Now that kind of thing will trick
(32:51):
vehicles and things to that extent. So just to make
sure that everybody understands that as far as our science
knows and understands, these Geomania storm so far do not
have any direct impact on our electric vehicles. That's not
to say they don't on their GPS systems, but fortunately
they have other measures in place, sensors that tell where
(33:12):
they're out in the road and things, so we don't
anticipate any problems there. But these are the conversations we
continue to have as technology develops. We do know that
the storm and may Steve maybe had some effect on
some Bluetooth devices. They're still trying to figure out whether
that's actually true and correlatable or not. But there may
have been something like that going on. But as far
(33:32):
as any direct impact to somebody's home or their electronic appliances, no,
we don't know of anything like that that happens from
these storms. Right by the way, the level of the storm.
They hold up.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
For one second, Steve, can you hear us? Just hold
up for one second the point that my guests just made. Sean,
there's a book. We've interviewed this author before about electronic
magnetic pulses EMPs. His name is Ray Gorram. The book
is seventy seven Days in September. It's been out a while,
(34:09):
but I found it to be a fascinating book about
what would happen if all the power grids went down,
and this his hypothetical involved some small country exploding a
couple of small nuclear bombs over the US and wiping
out the grid. And it's a tough book to read
(34:29):
in terms of you realize that there are people out
there who would love to take the grid down. And
I know that Sean knows probably much more about this
than I do. But what the book I was referring
to today was written by a fellow named Ray Gorum
seventy seven days in September. I'm looking at edit right now.
Go ahead, Steve. You with the final comment that you
(34:51):
wanted to make it.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, yeah, I do so. Prior to President Obamama believe
in UH is UH you know, in the January time there,
he made an executive order to I don't know if
anyone's aware of this, to for incoming inbound UH particles
(35:19):
projections from the sun or from space. And it mainly
is from the Sun because now we're studying in the
sun in the CMEs. Now that they're not let's look
at the Carriken event for instance.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
You're giving me way too much information here, and I
got out.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
The big thing is people protect themselves for an event
like this. It's an event. We had an event that
was a level event for when if it gets to
a level event eight or higher and it's bound to happen.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Okay, great, Steve, Thank you for the warning. Steve, I
gotta I gotta accommodate. A couple of other callers, very
interesting observations. Thank you very much. Let me go next
to Jack Down of the Cape. Jack on Cape Cod
you're next on nice side with my guest Sean Dahl awesome.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
The fact that we're experiencing Aurora down here on Cape
cod and below to me, indicates that the magnetos magnique
magnetosphere density is weakened. And so, uh, my concern. And
I've got two points. I'm going to put one point.
I'll follow to the other point.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
You got to be quick, Okay, I got you some
time here, but you got to be a little quicker
than Steve. Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Good.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
Uh, the magnetosphere and its potential oscillation to a poll
shift and what would that indicate? And I think we're
looking at some indications. The second point, Danu, the power grid,
the AC and the DC, the high voltage versus the
low voltage, Dan, I want you to look into this.
(37:06):
There were there were back in the AC DC Edison
Tesla days, Wars on Current. We got to look into
this and bring it up on another show.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
So yes, send me some information on that. Let me
let me get my guests to respond to the first
point you made, Sean go right ahead.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, the you know when the CMEs interact with Earth's
protective magnetic barrier, that's what he's talking about the magnetosphere.
This is how all the interaction happens. This interaction changes
the structure and causes currents of energy to naturally flow
all the time because we're always connected to the sun.
It's just the CMEs exasperated. These natural currents they flow
(37:48):
and they build up on these high voltage transmission lines,
and these high voltage transmission lines ferry hundreds of thousands
of volts of electricity across miles and miles from Canada
down across our country, and it's that connection that builds
up these currents. Look for shortcuts, right. That's why we're
told not to put a fork in an electric socket
as a kid, because that electricity walls shoot out there
(38:10):
and get into your body. Same thing here, these electrical currents.
If the ground that we live on is highly resistive
to current, it's going to look for those shortcuts naturally,
and that's how they find them. So there's some areas
of our country that are more prone to those build
ups of electrical energy. Direct current, in relation to the
point that was just made, showing up on an alternating
(38:30):
current system is not good. It causes all sorts of
anomalies and it builds up in overheats transformers. If it's
not accounted for. So I think that's the you know,
in relation to the point I can come up with
it with the caller just talked about.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
All right, Jack, appreciate it. Send me information on that
second point and maybe I can put a sheltergether the
for us. Okay, we'll do sure, Dan or Noah will
give you my direct emails so you can send it
to me and I'll respond to you. I want to
thank you very much, Sean. Again, I've learned a lot,
but in learning a lot, I now realize how much
(39:04):
I need to learn. I'll tell you there's nothing that
was asked that you did not bring clarification to and
I just want to say thank you very much for
your time tonight and as we go on over the
next few months in the next few years. Love to
have you back here and talk more about it, because
it sounds to me like this is an area of
science that is going to explode literally and figuratively in
(39:28):
the years ahead.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, thanks Dan, thanks for having me back. Glad to
come back anytime. And we're in the grips of solar
maximum that was just announced for this cycle last week
by NASA Noah joint conference. But it doesn't mean we're
on our way down. We still got all of this year,
all of next year, and even into twenty twenty six.
Some of the strongest storms in history have been two
years after solar maximum, so we've still got an issue
(39:54):
to deal with over the next couple of years. So
space where there's still going to be a story to
be talked about.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Sounds great. Sean. I really appreciate your time. I can't
tell you much. I appreciate your time if this is
an area that that fascinates me, and I wish I
had studied harder in science classes and a little less
English than poly side. Thanks so much, Sean, appreciate the call. Okay,
thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
You're very welcome. Thank you. We're going to take quick break.
Eleven o'clock news is here, as is the eleven o'clock
hour just around the corner, and we'll be back on nightside.
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