I'm Right Again Dot Com       

A New Commentary Each Wednesday          Feb 26, 2014


The Sunspot Cycle: What it is and how it affects us

    I don't have a degree in astronomy, though I've been an amateur stargazer most of my life. What little I know about meteorology is informed by the daily TV weatherpersons. My sense of climatology is limited to agreeing with scientists in several fields who maintain that the increase in greenhouse gas, most of which is comprised of carbon emissions, is causing global warming. 

   There is however a factor that certainly must have to do with the weather but is never mentioned in the media: our nearest star, the sun. It's about 150-million kilometers, or 93-million miles from us - give or take a few million, since the orbit of the earth around the sun is a little bit elliptical. 

    Our earth and all the rest of the planets in our solar system can be compared to peas whirling in slow motion around a basketball that's a few yards away. (I was shocked to read recently that a substantial number of people in the U.S. still believe that the sun orbits the earth).

    Without the sun, there never would have been life on this planet.

    Most people are aware that there are times when magnetic storms can be seen on the surface of the sun. These "sun spots" were first observed by Galileo, the Italian philosopher-scientist and astronomer 400 years ago.

     In 1843, a German astronomer named Samuel Heinrich came to the conclusion after long years of observation, that sunspots seen to appear in clusters, increase in number for a period of a few years and then begin to decrease in numbers, until there would be months when no sunspots would be seen. He determined that the average amount of time from peak to peak of sunspot activity was 10.66 years. 

    Five years ago, the face of the sun was quiet. Months would go by before even one relatively weak sunspot would appear and then it would quickly fade away. This morning, the face of sun, the corona observable from earth, was boiling with six of them, spewing hundreds of millions of tons of superheated plasma, including electrons and protons, million of miles out into space. One of them, a coronal mass ejection (CME), is according to NASA, one of the most powerful flares yet in this sunspot cycle. We are in the midst of a sunspot cycle peak.

    The sun rotates every 25 earth days. Since it had not fully turned toward the earth at the time this week's massive CME burst through the corona of the sun, the damage to satellites, to communications and power grids may be minimal. One like it occurred in the last solar cycle. In 1989, induced electric current from it knocked out a Canadian power grid and darkened six million people there for nine hours. Had another day passed, the latest mass ejection of atomic material would have blasted directly toward the earth and possibly could have caused the same disruption as occurred in 1989.

    I rush to say that this does not mean the destruction of the world - perhaps just a few hours of inconvenience - perhaps limited radio and TV coverage, especially if a few geostationary satellites positioned over the equator that relay television programs are knocked out of orbit. That could really mess up things for ships and planes, whose crews use GPS for positioning and would cost billions of dollars to fix. 

    Astronomers around the word see a CME taking place within seconds of the eruption. Nothing is faster than the speed of light. However, within this flare of billions of tons of superheated gas are subatomic particles, such as protons, positively charged particles that have mass, and they travel somewhat slower than the speed of light, when propelled out into space. It usually is a day or two before the effect on our magnetosphere is detected. One good indication is that Northern Lights flare up.*

   We are said to be protected from much of this radiation by a unique atmosphere, but not from all of it. Witness the prevalence of skin cancer.

   Now, as to why my intense interest in this subject. When the sunspots appear, it has been well known for 100 years at least, that when the ionosphere portion of the atmosphere is bombarded with protons, it causes the ionosphere to more refractive of radio signals, it's the best time for amateur radio experimenters all over the world to talk to one another. This connection between common people in hundreds of countries performs an invaluable social asset.

    I've been a licensed Amateur Radio Operator (K7OS) since 1948. It was my gateway to a lifetime career in broadcasting and a very rewarding hobby. For years, I joined thousands of other operators in hooking up service members overseas with their families and helped in the exchange of human eyes for corneal transplants. This was before the Internet. However in the past week, I've talked to operators in England, Slovenia and Russia (Sochi, in fact). 

     2014 marks the 100th Anniversary of the formation of the American Radio Relay League in Newington Connecticut by inventor and organizer Hiram Percy Maxim. The ARRL now has 162,000 members.** Its most important function comes into play when an disaster strikes and all other means of communications, including cell phones, are of no use. That's why all governments have been protective of portions of the high frequency spectrum used by "Hams" (That's another story) lusted for by other interests.

  For more information: * http://www.spaceweather.com  and ** http://www.arrl.org

-Phil Richardson, Storyteller and Observer of the Human Condition.

Wish to comment: Return to the eMail linked to this page and click "Reply" on your computer.


If you wish to comment, Phil can be reached at: 

If you wish to comment, Phil can be reached at:  

k7os (at) comcast (dot) net



"AgainRight"




Our unending thanks to Jim Bromley, who programs our Archive of Prior Commentaries


Learn About the Savings with Amazon.com Prime