At https://spaceweather.com … archive November 6th 2023. Here we have a large purple tube of light – but it wasn’t an aurora. It was caused by two CMEs hitting earth’s atmosphere in successive days, November 4th and 5th. They sparked a strong geomagnetic storm and aurora could be seen as far south as Colorado. At the apex of the storm bright lights danced across the skies of northern Europe. Not all of them were aurorae. One of them was a STEVE – a tall pillar or tube of purple light. The soft glow is caused by hot rivers of gas flowing through Earth’s magnetosphere at high speed. Plasma, I assume. One of the observations of STEVE occurred above Whitley Bay in northern England – and it lasted for over an hour. Will Cheung sent in the info. Strong auroras danced in the north, he said, while STEVE flowed through the sky to the south.
At https://spaceweather.com … archive 7th November 2023. This concerns the recent CMEs once again- and the geomagnetic storm they generated. Aurora has been seen as far south as Texas and Arizona it was reported. The sleuths at Space Weather decided to double check. Looking at the images again it became obvious they were not aurora – but something known as SARs. These SAR arcs have been known about since 1956. Researchers at the time did not know what they were. Aurora appear when charged particles rain down from space, hitting the upper atmosphere and causing it to glow. SAR arcs, on the other hand, are caused by heat energy leaking into the upper atmosphere from Earth’s ring current system, a doughnut shaped current carrying millions of amps around our planet. Electricity in space, it would seem. Now officially recognised, I might add. The ring current was pumped up by hours of prolonged geomagnetic activity and excess energy was dissipated into the SAR arcs. It was a global event. A real global event.
These chaps at Space Weather are really on the ball and it is worth looking at the site on a daily basis. Only takes a click and a short read. Perfect web site – short and concise for the low attention spanners. It is full of amazing facts you won’t hear voiced elsewhere – and certainly not in mainstream media.
We might then ask, if the upper atmosphere has been energised can we expect a mild weather Christmas? Further, SAR arcs also seem to have a connecion with STEVE phenomena. Apparently, a SAR was seen to transform itself into a STEVE as witnessed by observers in New Zealand, and corroborated elsewhere. Do SARs and STEVEs cause global warming?