G2 Solar Storm, Middle Latitude Auroras & Exoplanet Water

SUN & SCIENCE NEWS: February 27, 2014:**PLEASE Leave ANNOTATIONS ON :) Thanks and SUBSCRIBE for daily video. Solar activity is at a low level, with the majority of events over the past 24 hours really just coming from sunspot group 11991, which included some optical flares and couple of C's. 11990 is now classified as a beta-delta region, but can regain it's beta-gamma-delta classification at anytime and has recently seen some negative polarity mix into the penumbra of the positive leading sunspot unit. But it doesn't need this to happen as the chances for an M-Class Solar Flare is 70% with a further 30% for X-Class kind that go bang. Is it wrong to keep my fingers crossed for an X Flare in the next 24 hours with sunspot group 11990 as the genie to make my wish of exciting solar activity come true? Or do you guys secretly wish for something exciting to happen too?

Increased solar wind speed playing with IMF (The Interplanetary Magnetic Field) today. Some flux in the total magnetic field B vector and the vertical B vector is expected during the next 24 hours due to a combination of arriving CMEs and some residual effects from that CME associated with the X4.9 flare. We are indeed beginning to see this flux on both the ACE, which is showing a vertical B-Field vector flux of between 10 and -10nT, and the GOES Magnetometer, which is also showing some flux as of 3pm EST. Solar wind plot showing all 3 components, Plasma density, solar wind speed and temperature on their way up with wind currently hitting 515km/s with density around 11 now but did hit 100 when the solar wind first arrived. Proton Energies are still elevated at this time and probably will be for at least the next 24 hours with energies between 10 and 50MeV seeing an extra spike in activity,    with everything greater than 50MeV, while still elevated, is on it's way down as per this graph at least. Our magnetic connection to the sun is still on the far-side of the sun where it was for the last couple of days attached to a coronal hole stream. 

we also have two coronal holes mind you, so there's several elements in this solar weather play today. The plots not showing them however because of the dense field of plasma filaments fooling the detectors, I think it looks more like this. The plot did later thicken, with the return of the trailing equatorial coronal hole but the leading still too hard for the detectors or the software running the detectors to pick out it.


Auroral forecast shows auroras likely for both of the poles, the arctic circle and parts of northern Atlantic ocean in the middle latitudes, south of Greenland and eastern Canada.,for the overnight hours. The KP Index is currently reading 5 and the total electron count of the daytime equatorial region is currently elevated.

Some notable earthquakes around the globe from the last 24 hours includes a 6.1 off the Alyushin Islands in Alaska.

Let's jump to the weather and take a look at precipitation forecasts around the planet for the next week. With a possible tropical cyclone developing in the southwestern Pacific region later this week. I'm starting to sound like a broken record player, with Alaska again, with above average temperatures with Anchorage at 32 degrees as well as places like Murmansk, Russia (which is also in the Arctic Circle) also at 32F. Reykjavik, Iceland at 41F with Greenland's capital Nuuk at 39F. Let me remind you folks, it is still February and we've been seeing this all month. Looking at the latest monthly sea surface temperature anomalies we see areas showing a 12C above average temperatures for parts of Alaska and Northern Greenland for the month of January. February's plot is about to come out next week and I predict much of the same pattern will show.

 Warm Alaska, hot pacific and cold Northeast. Don't you forget for one second that these above average temps are as the solar insolation map shows are happening when the arctic isn't getting sunlight. One can only wonder how much worse the anomalies will be this summer, when the arctic will be bathed in sunlight like Antarctica is now because its summer in the southern hemisphere. The reflected shortwave radiation map is showing the same thing. The arctic isn't reflecting solar radiation because it's not getting any (in form of light and heat at least). Notice thought how the antarctic weather systems around the south pole area reflecting sunlight back into space and how the Brazilian jungle and other jungle areas around the planet area also responsible for a lot of sunlight reflection.


In other science news
Water has been detected in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system, orbiting the nearby star,  named tau Bootis. This is a big Jupiter like planet and  with the help of infrared technique scientists were able to deduce that some samples of water vapor were detected when this planet made it's transit in front of its star when seen from earth. Cool stuff.