scholarly journals Space weather and earthquakes: possible triggering of seismic activity by strong solar flares

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Novikov ◽  
Yuri Ruzhin ◽  
Valery Sorokin ◽  
Alexey Yaschenko

The studies completed to-date on a relation of the Earth’s seismicity and solar processes provided the fuzzy and contradictory results. The main problem of this research is a lack of physical explanation of a mechanism of earthquake triggering by strong variations of space weather conditions. Based on results obtained in the field and laboratory experiments on earthquake triggering by DC pulses injection into the Earth crust we may assume that the similar triggering phenomena may occur after the strong electromagnetic impact to the earthquake source due to solar flares or geomagnetic storms. Numerical estimations demonstrated that telluric currents induced by geomagnetic pulsations generated by solar flare have the similar density at the depth of earthquake source location (10-6 A/m2) in comparison with the current density generated by artificial power sources (10-7 – 10-8 A/m2) resulted in observed spatiotemporal redistribution of seismic activity in the regions of Pamirs and Northern Tien Shan. For supporting the idea of a possible earthquake triggering by solar flares we carried out a statistical analysis of global and regional (Greece) seismicity behavior during the solar flare of X9.3 class occurred on September 6, 2017 (the strongest flare over the past thirteen years). We have discovered a new evidence of earthquake triggering due to the Sun-Earth interaction by simple comparison of a number of earthquakes before and after the strong solar flare. The global number of earthquakes (USGS catalog, M ≥ 4) for time window of ±11 days after the solar flare has increased by 68%, and the regional seismicity (Greece, EMSC catalog, M ≥ 3) has increased by 120%.

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (S328) ◽  
pp. 315-328
Author(s):  
Vladimir S. Airapetian

AbstractOur Sun, a magnetically mild star, exhibits space weather in the form of magnetically driven solar explosive events (SEE) including solar flares, coronal mass ejections and energetic particle events. We use Kepler data and reconstruction of X-ray and UV emission from young solar-like stars to recover the frequency and energy fluxes from extreme events from active stars including the young Sun. Extreme SEEs from a magnetically active young Sun could significantly perturb the young Earth's magnetosphere, cause strong geomagnetic storms, initiate escape and introduce chemical changes in its lower atmosphere. I present our recent simulations results based on multi-dimensional multi-fluid hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic models of interactions of extreme CME and SEP events with magnetospheres and lower atmospheres of early Earth and exoplanets around active stars. We also discuss the implications of the impact of these effects on evolving habitability conditions of the early Earth and prebiotic chemistry introduced by space weather events at the early phase of evolution of our Sun.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Manuel Hernández-Pajares ◽  
Alberto García-Rigo

We report two comments affecting the paper “Curto JJ, Juan JM & Timoté CC, 2019. Confirming geomagnetic Sfe by means of a solar flare detector based on GNSS. J Space Weather Space Clim 9: A42. https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2019040”: The first comment is the reporting of two mistakes which distorts the central model used for the measurement and detection of solar flares with GNSS, that might affect as well the most part of results and discussions contained in the paper. And the second comment is the clarification about the authors’ claim of presenting the first work of using the electron content enhancement estimation at the subsolar point for characterizing solar flares with GNSS data, which is not accurate due to the existence of such previous definition and usage.


2021 ◽  
Vol 929 (1) ◽  
pp. 012033
Author(s):  
N A Sycheva ◽  
L M Bogomolov

Abstract The problem of the relationship between strong magnetic swarms caused by solar flares and variations in seismicity is considered. The data on the temporal dependences of the parameters of seismic noise (average level, and standard deviation, RMS) recorded by the stations of the KNET seismic network have been used as the output data of monitoring the territory of the Bishkek geodynamic proving ground (Northern Tien Shan). The signatures of the influence of a magnetic swarm that occurred after an ultra-strong solar flare on September 6, 2017 have been established. The results obtained on the increase in seismic noise after this super-strong eruptive event are consistent with the results of studies on the influence of magnetic swarms on changes in regional seismicity.


Author(s):  
Roman Sidorov ◽  
Anatoly Soloviev ◽  
Alexei Gvishiani ◽  
Viktor Getmanov ◽  
Mioara Mandea ◽  
...  

Abstract. The September 2017 solar flares and the subsequent geomagnetic storms driven by the coronal mass ejections were recognized as the ones of the most powerful space weather events during the current solar cycle. The occurrence of the most powerful solar flares and magnetic storms during the declining phase of a solar cycle (including the current 24th cycle) is a well-known phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to better characterize these events by applying the generalized characteristic function approach for combined analysis of geomagnetic activity indices, total electron content data and secondary cosmic ray data from the muon hodoscope that contained Forbush decreases resulting from solar plasma impacts. The main advantage of this approach is the possibility of identification of low-amplitude specific features in the analyzed data sets, using data from several environmental sources. The data sets for the storm period on September 6–11, 2017, were standardized in a unified way to construct the generalized characteristic function representing the overall dynamics of the data sequence. The new developed technique can help to study various space weather effects and obtain new mutually supportive information on different phases of geomagnetic storm evolution, based on the geomagnetic and other environmental observations in the near-terrestrial space.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (S340) ◽  
pp. 163-164
Author(s):  
Veena Choithani ◽  
Rajmal Jain ◽  
Duggirala Pallamraju

AbstractWe study 30 solar flare events associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that produced geomagnetic storms as measured in Dst index. Our study reveals that the magnitude of Dst index is significantly associated with maximum solar wind speed, peak of Bz component of the IMF and the product of peak Bz and solar wind speed (minimum and maximum). From our investigations, it can be inferred that CMEs travel with higher speed in the beginning and their speed reduces as they reach L1 location.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Borovik ◽  
Anton Zhdanov

Using flare patrol data for 1972–2010 [http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/space-weather/solar-data/solar-features/solar-flares/], we have conducted statistical studies of small solar flares. We have established a correlation between the flare brightness rise time and the total duration of small flares, and obtained evidence of the discreteness of relative rise times (Trel). The most significant Trel values are 0.2, 0.25, 0.33, and 0.5. As the area class and importance of flares increase, maxima of Trel distributions decrease, flatten, and completely disappear in case of large flares. We have found the discreteness of the area distribution of small flares. We have obtained distributions of solar flare energy, which exhibit significant overlap for flare energy of different area classes. The energy range of large solar flares contains 9.5 % of small flares. The energy range of flares of area class 1 has even a more significant overlap.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Juan José Curto ◽  
Jose Miguel Juan ◽  
Cristhian Camilo Timoté

Hernández-Pajares and García-Rigo have written a document criticizing our paper “Confirming geomagnetic Sfe by means of a solar flare detector based on GNSS. J Space Weather Space Clim 9: A42. https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2019040” (Curto et al., 2019). The main goal of our paper was to define a methodology based on GNSS measurements that is able to detect solar flares (SF) in an automatic way. This methodology was used to confirm Sfe (SF effects) detected by geomagnetism in an unsupervised manner. In their document, Hernández-Pajares and García-Rigo posed two objections related to the correctness and the novelty of the methodology used in our paper. This document is a reply to these objections and concludes that they are not relevant.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nursultan Toyshiev ◽  
Galina Khachikyan ◽  
Beibit Zhumabayev

<p>Recently, attention was drawn [1] that after geomagnetic storms that cause formation of new radiation belts in slot region or in the inner magnetosphere, after about 2 months, there is an increase in seismic activity near the footprints of geomagnetic lines of new radiation belts. More detailed studies showed [2] that on May 30, 1991, an earthquake M=7.0 occurred in Alaska with (54.57N, 161.61E) near the footprint of geomagnetic line L = 2.69 belonging to new radiation belt, which was observed by the CRRES satellite [3] around geomagnetic lines 2<L<3 after geomagnetic storm on March 24, 1991. After geomagnetic storm on September 3, 2012, the Van Allen Probes satellites observed new radiation belt around 3.0≤L≤3.5 [4], and about 2 months later, on October 28, 2012, earthquake M=7.8 occurred off the coast of Canada (52.79N, 132.1W) near the footprint of geomagnetic line L=3.32 belonging to the new radiation belt. Also, Van Allen Probes observed new radiation belt around L=1.5-1.8 after geomagnetic storm on June 23, 2015 [5], and ~2 months later, in September 2015, seismic activity noticeably increased near the footprint of these geomagnetic lines. We consider variations in seismic activity in connection with the strongest geomagnetic storms in 2003 with Dst~- 400 nT (Halloween Storm) and the formation of a belt of relativistic electrons in the inner magnetosphere around L~1.5 existed until the end of 2005 as observed SAMPEX [6]. Analysis of data from the USGS global seismological catalog showed that near the footprint of geomagnetic lines L=1.4-1.6 the number of earthquakes with M≥4.5 increased in 2003-2004 by ~70% compared with their number in two previous years. On the Northern Tien Shan, on December 1, 2003 a strong for the region earthquake M=6.0 occurred on the border of Kazakhstan and China (42.9N, 80.5E) near the footprint of L = 1.63, adjacent to the new radiation belt.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Borovik ◽  
Anton Zhdanov

Using flare patrol data for 1972–2010 [http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/space-weather/solar-data/solar-features/solar-flares/], we have conducted statistical studies of small solar flares. We have established a correlation between the flare brightness rise time and the total duration of small flares, and obtained evidence of the discreteness of relative rise times (Trel). The most significant Trel values are 0.2, 0.25, 0.33, and 0.5. As the area class and importance of flares increase, maxima of Trel distributions decrease, flatten, and completely disappear in case of large flares. We have found the discreteness of the area distribution of small flares. We have obtained distributions of solar flare energy, which exhibit significant overlap for flare energy of different area classes. The energy range of large solar flares contains 9.5 % of small flares. The energy range of flares of area class 1 has even a more significant overlap.


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