Recently, Guangzhou has suddenly cooled down significantly, and finally ushered in winter. Many places have broken the record of the lowest temperature in previous years, but in a few days, the temperature will rebound significantly. It reminds people of the unusually high temperatures around the world this summer, with countries breaking the highest temperature record ever.
Due to frequent extreme weather in the past two years, some people have raised speculations whether it is related to the increasing frequent solar activity recently. Isn’t the sun the main factor in controlling the earth’s temperature? Scientists predict that the peak of solar activity in 2025 will lead to sudden changes in the climate, and the doomsday is coming, and humans will perish like dinosaurs?
actually doesn’t have to panic, solar activity has little to do with earth’s climate change .
First explain what solar activity is. Its external manifestations are sunspots and flares ,
sunspots
When the sun is not so strong in the morning or evening, you can see small black spots on the surface, but due to the influence of dust, water vapor and other factors, it may also appear red, blue and other colors. These spots of are sunspots . Since the sun also has a magnetic field like the earth, the temperature of in places with strong magnetic fields is lower, that is, the location where the blackspots appear is about 1,000 degrees Celsius lower than the surrounding temperature. The light emitted is naturally weaker, so it looks gray-black on the earth.
Although the sunspots seen in the naked eye are only the size of spots on quail eggs, in fact, every sunspot in is larger than the earth . What we can observe by our naked eye is even bigger than the big blackspot group. How big is the big blackspot group? Take the AR2529, which was observed by the Yunnan Observatory in April 2016 for example. When they developed to the maximum scale, they were equivalent to the size of 20 earth !
Here I would like to remind everyone not to try to directly view the sun's dark spots with the naked eye. The strong light of the sun will only make you dizzy. The correct way is to use a special filter to view it with the naked eye, or use a light reduction device such as a Bader film on the astronomical telescope to observe.
Flares—The "emotional explosion" of the sun
is like human emotions. When too much pressure accumulates, people will suddenly burst out of emotions. When the solar activity becomes more and more intense, the number of sunspots generated increases, and the energy in the magnetic field is too high, the sun will release energy through an explosion. This is solar flare .
When a flare occurs, the solar atmosphere will suddenly brighten locally and emit a large amount of electromagnetic radiation outward. Scientists divide the peak X-ray flux released when the flare explodes into five levels. The highest level of X-ray flare , its power is equivalent to billions of hydrogen bombs explode at the same time. Everyone knows how powerful the atomic bomb that the United States once put on Hiroshima is, and a hydrogen bomb is equivalent to dozens of that thing, which shows how powerful the solar flare is.
The number of sunspots and flares can be judged by the solar activity level
December 3 China Space Environment Forecast Center sent a message: Within 24 hours, there are 5 sunspot activity areas on the sun, with multiple C-level flares generated, and the solar activity level is expected to be lower in the next three days.
After analyzing previous observation data, scientists found that solar activity can be cycled. Every 11 years is a solar activity cycle. In 2020, the solar activity enters an active period and is expected to reach its active peak in 2025 and then gradually decay until the next activity cycle arrives.
The impact of solar activity on the earth's climate
The temperature on the earth is controlled by the 's magnitude of solar radiation energy. Although solar activity will generate huge radiation energy, compared with the total radiation volume of the sun, this change can be said to be insignificant. During the 11-year activity cycle, the change of only accounts for 0.1% of the total radiation volume.
However, in some areas on the earth, the impact of solar activity will be amplified. For example, the solar radiation force in the ocean and the equatorial stratosphere is several times higher than that in other regions. In these areas, the climate will be affected by solar activity. However, for global climate change, solar activity is almost insignificant compared to the greenhouse effect .
So since solar activity has little impact on the earth's climate, why should solar activity be monitored?
What the solar activity really affects is not the natural environment of the earth, but human technology
When the solar activity reaches its peak, corona material erupts. If a large amount of corona material is ejected to the earth, within 8 minutes, electromagnetic radiation will arrive at the earth, and then a kind of high-energy particle will be generated. This high-energy particle will damage satellite , and will also generate strong currents in the upper atmosphere of the earth. These currents will move from the poles to the dense grid, that is, densely populated areas. At this time, the current through the power grid lines will reach thousands of times the normal, and the transformer that cannot be carried will explode and cannot work.
"Starlink" satellite collective deorbit event
In February this year, the United States launched 49 "Starlink" satellites. Unfortunately, it happened to encounter solar storm , causing the density of high-rise atmosphere to suddenly increase, and the resistance of satellites increased accordingly. As a result, 40 satellites collectively deviated from orbit . Harvard astronomer Jonathan said that is the largest satellite loss caused by a solar storm in history.
The solar storm that hit Europe and North America in September 2012 is the strongest storm in in nearly 160 years. . The storm destroyed satellites, GPS navigation systems, and mobile communication networks were all paralyzed on a large scale, and transportation, banks, schools, etc. were all unable to operate normally. It is hard to imagine that if it was today when the Internet was globalized, especially in China, where mobile payments were popular, everyone had empty pockets. If a solar storm hit the earth, we might not even be able to pay a penny to buy vegetables.
But humans are not completely unable to use the sun
With the development of technology, scientists have been monitoring solar activities and predicting the possibility of solar storms. If the time of solar storms can be predicted in advance, grid operators can reduce losses by reducing current power in advance, reducing grid interconnection, and preparing generators.
So accurately predicting the time of solar storm is a challenge facing humans. There are only two satellites used to predict solar storms, which are deep air climate observation satellites launched by the United States. However, can only issue an early warning 15-45 minutes before the solar storm. This short time is still too hasty for humans. However, the European Space Agency expects to launch the "Lagranges" spacecraft in 2027, and will monitor solar activities a few days in advance to give people more time to prepare.
However, no one can say that the matter of the universe is. Maybe an asteroid will hit the earth tomorrow. The dinosaur that has survived for nearly 240 million years did not expect that the extinction time would come so suddenly. Instead of thinking about the future all day long, it is better to enjoy the present.
Source:
Yue Ranran "Large blackspot group appearing on the surface of the sun" Xinhuanet
Xiao Ziniu The impact of solar activity on the earth's climate CNKI
Author: Absurd Cat Proofreading: Chuanchuan
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