The Sun Affects the Earth More Than You Might Realize

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What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

But what happens on the sun doesn't stay on the sun.

As I pointed out last year:

It is known that intense solar activity can destroy ozone in the Earth's atmosphere, thus affecting climactic temperatures. See this, this, this, thisand this. Indeed, the effects of solar energy on ozone may be one of the main ways in which the sun influences Earth's climate.

The sun itself also affects the Earth more than previously understood. For example, according to the European Space Agency:

Scientists ... have proven that sounds generated deep inside the Sun cause the Earth to shake and vibrate in sympathy. They have found that Earth’s magnetic field, atmosphere and terrestrial systems, all take part in this cosmic sing-along.

And NASA has just discovered that "space weather" causes "spacequakes" on Earth:

Researchers using NASA's fleet of five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a form of space weather that packs the punch of an earthquake and plays a key role in sparking bright Northern Lights. They call it "the spacequake."

A spacequake is a temblor in Earth's magnetic field. It is felt most strongly in Earth orbit, but is not exclusive to space. The effects can reach all the way down to the surface of Earth itself.

"Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake," says THEMIS principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA.

It's an apt analogy because "the total energy in a spacequake can rival that of a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake," according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria.

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"Now we know," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Plasma jets trigger spacequakes."

According to THEMIS, the jets crash into the geomagnetic field some 30,000 km above Earth's equator. The impact sets off a rebounding process, in which the incoming plasma actually bounces up and down on the reverberating magnetic field. Researchers call it "repetitive flow rebuffing." It's akin to a tennis ball bouncing up and down on a carpeted floor. The first bounce is a big one, followed by bounces of decreasing amplitude as energy is dissipated in the carpet.

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"When plasma jets hit the inner magnetosphere, vortices with opposite sense of rotation appear and reappear on either side of the plasma jet," explains Rumi Nakamura of the Space Research Institute in Austria, a co-author of the study. "We believe the vortices can generate substantial electrical currents in the near-Earth environment."

Acting together, vortices and spacequakes could have a noticeable effect on Earth. The tails of vortices may funnel particles into Earth's atmosphere, sparking auroras and making waves of ionization that disturb radio communications and GPS. By tugging on surface magnetic fields, spacequakes generate currents in the very ground we walk on. Ground current surges can have profound consequences, in extreme cases bringing down power grids over a wide area.

What does this mean?

Some allege that spacequakes cause actual, physical earthquakes on Earth. I have no idea whether or not that is true.

The above-quoted NASA article from with a poem which implies such a connection:

Vortices swirl
plasma a'twirl
Richter predicts
a magnitude six

However, the poem may use artistic license rather than scientific rigor.

What is certain is that the science of the affect of space events on Earth is in its infancy, and that there are many fascinating discoveries in our future.

Bacteria and Phytoplankton Affect the Weather

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It turns out that critters so small that they can't be seen with the naked eye might affect the weather, and perhaps even climate.

As I pointed out last year, spacefaring bacteria might affect rainfall:

In 2002, several scientists claimed that bacteria high in Earth's atmosphere came from space.

Last year, scientists said that bacteria in the upper atmosphere may actuallymake rain. Specifically, they said that bacteria can freeze at fairly warm temperatures, so that the "biological ice nuclei" form condensation nucleiwhich triggers rain.

Indeed, some scientists have speculated that bacteria cause rain as a means of transportation, so that they will "rain out" from the upper atmosphere to the surface of a planet.

Now, scientists have discovered a "hibernating" bacteria in a salt mine in Utah which they believe has been in suspended animation for 250 million years. There is evidence that this ability to hibernate for long periods of time is also useful for travel through space by the bacteria:

Bacteria have the ability to go into a kind of semi-permanent hibernation, but survival for this long was unheard of. After lying dormant in the salt crystal for 250 million years, the scientists added fresh nutrients and a new salt solution, and the ancient bacteria "re-animated."

Dr. Russell Vreeland, one of the biologists who found the bacteria, pointed out that bacteria can survive the forces [of] acceleration via rubble thrown into space via a meteor impact. If it is possible for a bacteria to survive being [thrown] off the planet and to stay alive within a salt chunk for 250 million years, then in a sort of "reverse-exogenesis" it may be possible that earth's own microbes are already out there.

Indeed, there is a more down-to-earth analogy to the idea of spacefaring bacteria: the humble coconut. Coconuts can float across long distances of water in the ocean, and when they land on a hospitable island, start growing.

Now, NOAA scientists say that phytoplankton affects hurricanes. As New Scientistwrites:

Using a computer weather simulator, [NOAA's Anand Gnanadesikan] compared the formation of tropical storms in the Pacific under today's phytoplankton concentrations to conditions without any phytoplankton at all. What he found was an overall decrease in tropical storms in a phytoplankton-free digital Pacific.

The mechanism for this shift lies inphytoplankton's ability to absorb sunlight, which heats up the water around it. Without phytoplankton, the sun's rays penetrate deep into the ocean, leaving the surface water cold. Cool water has less energy than warm water, produces less of the moist air needed to build up tropical storms, and allows for stronger winds that can dissipate thunderstorms before they turn into typhoons (what hurricanes are called in the Pacific Ocean). All of this adds up to a Pacific Ocean that is less exciting and deadly than the one we currently have.

Because phytoplankton levels have dropped 40 percent since the 1950s, that may mean that hurricane frequency and/or intensity may decline.

Rain can provide transportation to bacteria, which provides an obvious evolutionary advantage: it gives them a free ride out of space down to a planet's surface.

But could there also be an advantage to phytoplankton from hurricanes? Believe it or not, there is.

As NASA wrote in 2004:

Whenever a hurricane races across the Atlantic Ocean, chances are phytoplankton will bloom behind it. According to a new study using NASA satellite data, these phytoplankton blooms may also affect the Earth's climate and carbon cycle.

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The satellite images showed tiny microscopic ocean plants, called phytoplankton, bloomed following the storms.

"Some parts of the ocean are like deserts, because there isn't enough food for many plants to grow. A hurricane's high winds stir up the ocean waters and help bring nutrients and phytoplankton to the surface, where they get more sunlight, allowing the plants to bloom," Babin said.

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Bigger storms appear to cause larger phytoplankton blooms. Larger phytoplankton should have more chlorophyll, which satellite sensors can see.

Hurricane-induced upwelling, the rising of cooler nutrient-rich water to the ocean surface, is also critical in phytoplankton growth. For two to three weeks following almost every storm, the satellite data showed phytoplankton growth. Babin and his colleagues believe it was stimulated by the addition of nutrients brought up to the surface.

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By stimulating these phytoplankton blooms, hurricanes can affect the ecology of the upper ocean. Phytoplankton is at the bottom of the food chain. The factors that influence their growth also directly affect the animals and organisms that feed on them.