Speaker 1: It's night with Dan Ray on DELI Feazy Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, a couple of weeks ago, we had
Speaker 2: some spectacular examples of space weather and we talked with
Speaker 2: during the eight o'clock hour with a gentleman by the
Speaker 2: name is Sean Dahl. He's a space weather forecaster at
Speaker 2: Noah's Space Weather Prediction Center out in Boulder, Colorado. Has
Speaker 2: had an amazing career. Spent twenty two years in the
Speaker 2: US Air Force, served around the world in the intelligence
Speaker 2: and meteorragical operations fields, continued his studies. He retired from
Speaker 2: the Air Force in two thousand and seven and has
Speaker 2: been with the National Weather Service and a weather forecaster
Speaker 2: for the US Air Force. So I want to welcome
Speaker 2: Sean back because I was fascinated by some of the
Speaker 2: things that we talked about. This was the time a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago when people were seeing the northern
Speaker 2: lights in spectacular fashion. Seawan, welcome back to Nightside. How
Speaker 2: are you Sean Dahl?
Speaker 3: Hi? Dan, thanks, I'm glad to be glad to be
Speaker 3: back and I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No So, Noah is the National Oceanographic and an
Speaker 2: Aeronautics Administration. Is that have I got the acronym.
Speaker 3: Correctly there almost National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Speaker 2: Shakes spirit administration. Okay, al right, I was thinking aeronautics,
Speaker 2: all right. I should have looked that one up ahead
Speaker 2: of time. There are so many of these acronyms in
Speaker 2: the in the vernacular. So we're talking about space weather
Speaker 2: and when I talked to you earlier today, briefly, uh,
Speaker 2: it was. It's fascinating because for someone like me, who
Speaker 2: is not especially scientifically oriented, I learn a lot from
Speaker 2: someone like you, and I hope our audience also might
Speaker 2: have some honest questions that they might want to contribute
Speaker 2: to the conversation we think about. When I think about
Speaker 2: weather and all of that, I think about sun spots,
Speaker 2: which I don't understand, but I'm told that depending upon
Speaker 2: the intensity of sun spots that can infect can impact
Speaker 2: our weather. That's not necessarily what we're talking about here,
Speaker 2: but is that true?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Then sunspots are these massive, strong magnetic field and they're
Speaker 4: so strong that they disturb the natural rising of light and.
Speaker 3: Heat coming up from deeper inside the sun. So think
Speaker 3: of it like a reverse bathtub plug. The water doesn't
Speaker 3: go out when the plug's in there. In this case,
Speaker 3: it's a magnetic plug keeping things from coming up welling
Speaker 3: up from deeper in the Sun, and these strong magnetic fields,
Speaker 3: these that can materialize as major sunspot groups. They're usually
Speaker 3: they're not always the source of these space one of
Speaker 3: the storms that can affect Planet Earth, but they're usually
Speaker 3: the source of most of the significant activity that we
Speaker 3: experience here.
Speaker 2: Okay, and again, I didn't do great in science in school,
Speaker 2: but I'm smart enough to know that the Sun is
Speaker 2: about ninety million miles away, ninety three million miles away,
Speaker 2: and at different times during the years, a little closer
Speaker 2: in different times during the years, a little further away.
Speaker 2: How enormous is the Sun? Comparatively? I think all of
Speaker 2: us know that the circumference of the Earth is I
Speaker 2: think it's twenty four thousand miles at the equator. How
Speaker 2: enormous is this? But go ahead's right?
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, I finish your question. Sorry, No, I.
Speaker 2: Was just saying that I think that when we think
Speaker 2: about the equator, we think about the Earth, and you know,
Speaker 2: as this globe and around the center of the Earth
Speaker 2: on the equator, it's about twenty four thousand miles wide.
Speaker 2: How much bigger is the Sun to the Earth compared
Speaker 2: to the Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of thing is massive. I mean a one
Speaker 3: hundred and nine planet earths fits side by side just
Speaker 3: going across the flat Earth facing side of the Sun
Speaker 3: right across its equator. So that means an enormous amount
Speaker 3: of Earth fit around the entire Sun right and if
Speaker 3: one does all the map basically adds up to something
Speaker 3: on the order of one million planet earths could fit
Speaker 3: inside of the Sun. So fortunately it's at the perfect distance,
Speaker 3: being that ninety three or so million miles away, that
Speaker 3: we escape most of the harmful things. And this planet
Speaker 3: has been able to sustain life because it seems to
Speaker 3: be just at the right distance. But it's so far
Speaker 3: away it still takes light from the Sun eight minutes
Speaker 3: to get here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know when you I did learn that when
Speaker 2: you see what you think is the dawn on the horizon,
Speaker 2: it really was sent eight minutes previously from the Sun.
Speaker 2: Tough things to get those of us who are non
Speaker 2: scientists are hit around. So so with the sun spots.
Speaker 2: Starting with the sun spots that activity and let's we'll
Speaker 2: fill in the middle part. We saw these northern lights,
Speaker 2: the Aurora borealis I think was the technical name or
Speaker 2: is that is that a different phenomenon? I I just
Speaker 2: want to make sure I'm not making it complete fool
Speaker 2: of myself here.
Speaker 3: No, Dan, you got it absolutely right. That's the scientific
Speaker 3: name for us in the northern hemisphere.
Speaker 2: Okay, great? And is the one in the southern I
Speaker 2: assumed this one in the southern hemisphere as well?
Speaker 3: Right down there. The scientific name is the Aurora Australis.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, that makes sense. So what happened out
Speaker 2: there a couple of weeks ago which allowed us to
Speaker 2: see these brilliant colors in the you know, a time
Speaker 2: when it's really dark. And the other question I have
Speaker 2: is I went up at one point to try to
Speaker 2: see them and I didn't and a friend of mine said,
Speaker 2: you're not go ahead. You're supposed to take a picture
Speaker 2: of them, and that's how you see them on your camera.
Speaker 2: Was he joking with me? Or I looked up and
Speaker 2: this was times when they was saying, no, we can
Speaker 2: see him outside of Washington and DC and Maryland. Did
Speaker 2: I miss it by not taking a picture on my cellphone?
Speaker 3: You may have, Dan, especially the one that was just
Speaker 3: like a wee weekend ago or so yeah, little over
Speaker 3: seven days ago. Yeah, that one. You know, we'll go
Speaker 3: back to the one in the main in a minute,
Speaker 3: but that one there, we reached pretty significant levels, what
Speaker 3: we call severe levels, not quite to the extreme that
Speaker 3: we reached with the storm in May, but nevertheless that's
Speaker 3: still strong enough, severe enough that those northern lights can
Speaker 3: manifest themselves, and they did all the way down to Florida,
Speaker 3: across the southern tier state that we wouldn't normally think
Speaker 3: that the ore would be visible at but it is
Speaker 3: now because people There's two things going on. One, people
Speaker 3: are tuning, understanding, hearing more about space weather. This is
Speaker 3: thanks to the platforms like yours. This is thanks to
Speaker 3: work that the government's been doing and advertising and especially
Speaker 3: social media and those realms that say, hey there's something
Speaker 3: going on. Even broadcast meter. I'm just starting to talk
Speaker 3: about this stuff. So people are beginning to look up
Speaker 3: at the sky at night when maybe they weren't before,
Speaker 3: So some are beginning to see it. And the other
Speaker 3: part is, yes, that digital technology we have is very
Speaker 3: very good. You can capture things like that red glow
Speaker 3: pink colors of the upper level aurora out there when
Speaker 3: we wouldn't normally think one would be able to see it.
Speaker 3: But our digital technology picks up those photons of light
Speaker 3: and puts them together on that digital sensor and it
Speaker 3: accumulates it and voila, there one can see it.
Speaker 2: So if I'm reading, if I am understanding correctly, if
Speaker 2: I'm standing in the same spot next to you and
Speaker 2: your small f take picture on your camera or your
Speaker 2: camera or your cell phone, your smartphone, I might say,
Speaker 2: I don't really see it. I don't really see it, Sean.
Speaker 2: But you then show me the picture that you just
Speaker 2: took on your smartphone or on your cell phone or
Speaker 2: whatever it is, and I'm gonna say, how could the
Speaker 2: camera see it and not me?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, isn't that amazing that? I mean, that's the story
Speaker 3: it is these days. Now in those northern tier states,
Speaker 3: with that activity, one doesn't have a problem seeing I mean,
Speaker 3: you get the green colors, you get the red, even
Speaker 3: some other colors. From time to time it's much further
Speaker 3: up in the sky and it stands out like a
Speaker 3: sore thumb. But those southern tier states, it really takes
Speaker 3: a lot to see it with your eye. And that
Speaker 3: was the case back in May that was seen and
Speaker 3: once again, even this more recent storm, people saw it
Speaker 3: further south than you'd think, but they also captured it
Speaker 3: much further south than one would think, just because of
Speaker 3: that excitement one of particles up there in the atmosphere
Speaker 3: that's interacting with that storm from the sun and lighting
Speaker 3: up in that nice bread right bright red color that
Speaker 3: people were capturing on their phones.
Speaker 2: When I want when we get back, I want to
Speaker 2: talk about the impact again this space weather adverse impact
Speaker 2: can have on our technology, which we touched upon the
Speaker 2: other night. But I want to get into that because
Speaker 2: we all now are slaves to technology, whether we're looking
Speaker 2: at our computers or our cell phones. We can't live
Speaker 2: with them, we can't live without them. My name is
Speaker 2: Dan Ray. This is Nightside. Wanted to be joined again
Speaker 2: by Sean Dahl, a space weather forecaster for the for
Speaker 2: Noah Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. I love
Speaker 2: talking to Sean because you hear the excitement in his voice.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about the problems that these this
Speaker 2: beautiful space space weather can cause us. And if you
Speaker 2: are out there and you have a question or a comment,
Speaker 2: and most of you, I'm sure are stronger in terms
Speaker 2: of science than I am. Feel free to join the
Speaker 2: conversation and UH and and ask questions that maybe I'm
Speaker 2: not smart enough to ask in this particular set of circumstances.
Speaker 2: Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six one
Speaker 2: seven nine. Coming back on night Side.
Speaker 1: Now, back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest Sean Dahl. He's with the National Ocean Ocean
Speaker 2: and Graphic and Aeronautics Administration. UH, he's with the Noah's
Speaker 2: Space Weather Prediction Center. I want to talk to you
Speaker 2: about weather prediction, but I also want to talk initially
Speaker 2: about as beautiful as as the Aurora borealis is and
Speaker 2: some of the things we see up there. This does
Speaker 2: interfere this space weather. I don't know how much of
Speaker 2: a direct impact that has on our weather per se,
Speaker 2: but it does interfere with the technology that we use. Correct.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's absolutely right, Dan, It sure does. That's why
Speaker 3: we that's our real focus here at the Space Weather
Speaker 3: Predictions Center is the implications on our technology in our
Speaker 3: society's way of life. That's why we do what we do.
Speaker 3: We make direct contact with a lot of these core
Speaker 3: critical infrastructure technological operators out there, as well as our
Speaker 3: federal levels of our government, so that if we do
Speaker 3: ever experience one of these feared and we know it
Speaker 3: can happen because it's happened throughout history, and I'll be
Speaker 3: glad to talk to you about some of those events.
Speaker 3: That space weather impacts things dramatically, and we don't want
Speaker 3: to see something on the order of a catastrophic collapse
Speaker 3: of some element of our technology, such as the power
Speaker 3: grid of North America.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I I this where it gets a little
Speaker 2: scary here. Okay, two hundred years ago, when we had
Speaker 2: no such thing, I guess probably you might have had
Speaker 2: Morse code, but that was about it. Now we have
Speaker 2: radio and television, and we have satellites, and we have
Speaker 2: stuff that you know, our ancestors never could have even imagined. Okay,
Speaker 2: As we have become more reliant on technology, I assume
Speaker 2: that conversely, we're now more susceptible to some of this
Speaker 2: space weather. Tell us.
Speaker 3: Why, yeah, that's so true. That's because we're still learning,
Speaker 3: you know, where it's developed things at such a fantastic pace,
Speaker 3: this new technology. I mean, Craig, when I was going
Speaker 3: to school, there was no such thing as a cell phone, right,
Speaker 3: you had to do the old rotary dial phone for
Speaker 3: goodness takes. But now and then a lot of cordless
Speaker 3: phones were an exciting thing. But now we all have
Speaker 3: cell phones and we're all reliant on them so much
Speaker 3: so that whenever's there's a dropout of one of these devices,
Speaker 3: like a major celler network, people are looking for immediate answer.
Speaker 3: And that happened back in February. Space weather actually got
Speaker 3: blamed for that due to some active the storms and
Speaker 3: the sun called solar flares. In this case, they did
Speaker 3: not They were not the cause of the cellular phone
Speaker 3: outage back instead Dory. But we had to respond to
Speaker 3: those questions to including from our own Pentagon, because there's
Speaker 3: so many people that rely on that, including national security assets.
Speaker 3: Had concerns about whether or not that was it. But yes,
Speaker 3: we are quite susceptible to it.
Speaker 2: But the beauty is that.
Speaker 3: We're aware of this and things going up there are
Speaker 3: trying to plan for these as much as possible, say
Speaker 3: satellites in space. The power grid is well aware and
Speaker 3: they're trying to They have measures in place now that
Speaker 3: they didn't have twenty years ago to deal with these situations,
Speaker 3: the communications that we have, the GPS devices that we
Speaker 3: rely upon. Unfortunately, these are still very susceptible, and there
Speaker 3: was major impacts from the storm in May, in particular,
Speaker 3: a half a billion dollar loss in agriculture is the
Speaker 3: current reported estimate now because of the GPS precision GPS
Speaker 3: failure systems from the farmers trying to plant seeds and
Speaker 3: spray crops in early May.
Speaker 2: Wow, what were the farmers doing way back then, way
Speaker 2: back when. So, from a personal point of view, this
Speaker 2: space weather, as we begin to experience and we continue
Speaker 2: to experience it, it was there before and it'll be
Speaker 2: there after all of us depart this mortal courp It
Speaker 2: can impact everything from our cell phones to our I
Speaker 2: guess our computers, our televisions. Can any of that now
Speaker 2: be channeled and used against us by a foreign military power?
Speaker 2: Is there any concern about that?
Speaker 3: Dan, I think there probably is. I don't I can't
Speaker 3: speak to that because I don't know. That's not what
Speaker 3: we're doing at the Space Center. But who does deal
Speaker 3: with that? As a Department of Defense and our core partners,
Speaker 3: the United States Air Force supports those efforts. They have
Speaker 3: kind of the top secret national security side for military
Speaker 3: interests in mind when it comes to space weather, because
Speaker 3: they have an organization just like we have at the
Speaker 3: Space Weather Pitch Center, but it's for the military side
Speaker 3: and all those concerns that you're expressing here, that's what
Speaker 3: they're monitoring and doing. And it's interesting you brought that
Speaker 3: up because, in I believe it was the year in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty seven, around May twenty third, nuclear war was
Speaker 3: at option. It was a possibility because of a space
Speaker 3: weather event. As you can imagine, technology was beginning to loom.
Speaker 3: Satellites were just beginning to become a thing, Rockets going
Speaker 3: into outer space were becoming a thing. But there was
Speaker 3: an event that happened on the Sun that was so
Speaker 3: prolific that it caused a lot of these over the
Speaker 3: horizon radars that are looking for nuclear launches from foreign
Speaker 3: adversaries to experience a major problem where the effect that
Speaker 3: it seemed like they were being jammed for instance, highly
Speaker 3: concerning when you don't have a lot of information right
Speaker 3: But it was thanks to space weather forecasters that got
Speaker 3: the word out that no, we're experiencing this type of
Speaker 3: event right here. We think that's the cause. And wow,
Speaker 3: I mean you know, if you don't know what's causing
Speaker 3: a problem. Even today, we could be having a cyber attack, right,
Speaker 3: so we need to know whether or not space weather's
Speaker 3: to blame instead.
Speaker 2: Well, I assume that space weather is is if you
Speaker 2: say it's to blame, it's a natural phenomenon over which
Speaker 2: no one has control. But to think that a display
Speaker 2: whatever of sun activity, space weather, whatever you want to
Speaker 2: refer to it, and I realized they're different, but that
Speaker 2: they can be related, could have panicked some nation to
Speaker 2: launch nuclear weapons because they think they're under attack. I mean,
Speaker 2: it could have been that the end of the world
Speaker 2: would be caused really directly by human beings, but indirectly
Speaker 2: by a natural phenomena called space weather. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: I've never heard that story before, Sean, that's frightening to
Speaker 2: think of that.
Speaker 3: Oh sure is right now, It's amazing how far we've
Speaker 3: come Now today, the odds of that happening are much swimmer,
Speaker 3: right because other nations are doing space weather business when
Speaker 3: they weren't before. They're invested in this because they have
Speaker 3: critical infrastructure just like we do. I mean, the last
Speaker 3: storm back in May caused so many power problems in
Speaker 3: New Zealand they had to disconnect power to the northern
Speaker 3: islands up in that country. I mean, this is the
Speaker 3: state we're in. And in nineteen seventy two, there was
Speaker 3: a storm so prolific from the sun, these things we
Speaker 3: call geomagnetic storms, which caused the aurora that was so
Speaker 3: impactful immediately upon the storm arrival from the Sun that
Speaker 3: it actually detonated mines in the waters during the Vietnam War.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is the power of these storms from
Speaker 3: the path and even moving forward, this is a touch
Speaker 3: of concerns we have today and what this means for
Speaker 3: our current state of satellites, our current state of communications,
Speaker 3: our current interconnected power grid system, and so on.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming, and maybe I'm overreacting my last question, then
Speaker 2: we're going to go to break and we'll get to
Speaker 2: phone calls. I'm assuming we right now have some astronauts
Speaker 2: circling the globe who were supposed to be back down
Speaker 2: here a few months ago, are going to be up
Speaker 2: until some time in February. One of them happens to
Speaker 2: be a Massachusetts native, so we're a little bit concerned
Speaker 2: about herb as well as the other astronauts. Is it
Speaker 2: conceivable that we could have a situation where again, you know,
Speaker 2: a a set of astronauts could be impowerful. I mean
Speaker 2: we've had we've had astronaut you know, launches that have
Speaker 2: blown up on re entry. But we've had back in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two, we had I think several astronauts died
Speaker 2: when when a rocket actually blew up on the platform.
Speaker 2: The era of Gus Grissom and all of that is
Speaker 2: the challenger, and we've had tragedies that are closer to Earth.
Speaker 2: Is it conceivable that there could be a space weather
Speaker 2: event which would impact astronauts or is the technology that
Speaker 2: you deal with such that you could anticipate that and
Speaker 2: they could get the spaceship, space shuttles or whatever the
Speaker 2: space ships out of the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then there's several points to that. Yes, we are
Speaker 3: very concerned about astronauts safety. We talked to NASSA every
Speaker 3: single day for the benefits of those astronauts in the
Speaker 3: space And just like your native Massachusetts female up there,
Speaker 3: this is what we do. When we have these types
Speaker 3: of storms they're called radiation storms and are scary, frightening
Speaker 3: word right, particles coming from the Sun. We're concerned about
Speaker 3: those penetrating into human tissue of the astronauts. And that's
Speaker 3: why we'll be working directly with Houston Mission Control when
Speaker 3: we go back to the Moon for direct dealing of
Speaker 3: the astronaut safety, because we know that that can be
Speaker 3: extremely harmful to them and cause well, very nasty radiation exposure.
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow. My guest is Sean Doll. He is a
Speaker 2: space weather forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Speaker 2: We're going to go to phone calls. I see a
Speaker 2: very familiar name. Was going to lead us off. Here's
Speaker 2: that's going to be fun. Uh. There's one line at
Speaker 2: six one, seven, two, five, four to ten thirty and
Speaker 2: a couple of lines at six one, seven, nine, three one,
Speaker 2: ten thirty. This is your opportunity to weigh in and
Speaker 2: learn something or to try to make a point. You
Speaker 2: have that opportunity. Sean is going to stay with us,
Speaker 2: I hope until eleven o'clock. Will take calls along the way.
Speaker 2: Feel free to join the conversation. It's a night side
Speaker 2: with Dan Ray. I find a subject like this so
Speaker 2: inherently interesting because they know so little about it. I
Speaker 2: hope all of you can identify with that feeling. There
Speaker 2: were some subjects saying, now a lot of baseball and politics,
Speaker 2: but this is an area that is not in my wheelhouse,
Speaker 2: and I'm learning as much as I can. I hope
Speaker 2: you are as well. Back on Nightside, It's Night Side
Speaker 2: with Dan Ray on w B Boston's news radio. My
Speaker 2: guest Sean Dole. He's a space weather forecaster for NOAH,
Speaker 2: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. My first caller, first
Speaker 2: time she's called the show. I think it's a first.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. We'll have to see Nicole Davis. Nicole,
Speaker 2: how are you? You're still working here?
Speaker 6: Thank you. I am not at work right now, and
Speaker 6: I am safety first, hands on the wheel. But you
Speaker 6: can hear me, okay, right, perfectly, perfectly phenomenal. So Sean,
Speaker 6: so good to have you on BEZ. This is something
Speaker 6: that I am totally geeking out about. And you answered
Speaker 6: my question earlier about the impact on radio, because I
Speaker 6: was really really interested in that side of it. But
Speaker 6: I have a kind of a tune for for you,
Speaker 6: you know, one I'd really like to learn more about
Speaker 6: the process of predicting these because you know, I think
Speaker 6: if I remember right, the sun is like on an
Speaker 6: eleven year magnetic cycle, and I really want to know
Speaker 6: what it's like for you over at Noah, trying to
Speaker 6: like nail down when these solar storms are going to happen,
Speaker 6: the mass ejections, the coronal mass ejections. And then secondly,
Speaker 6: i'd love to know what you think about the impact
Speaker 6: of climate change and if that will make these ejections
Speaker 6: more pronounced, and how it'll impact us on Earth. So
Speaker 6: I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 3: Hi, Nicole, thanks for calling in, Thanks for those sets
Speaker 3: of questions. Yeah, forecasting space weather's hard. You know, most
Speaker 3: of my career has been in regular terrestrial meteorology, and
Speaker 3: at the time I thought that was difficult. But it's
Speaker 3: gotten a lot better, right, We've had better models, We've
Speaker 3: got all sorts of observation platforms and satellites and lightning
Speaker 3: detection systems, and we're getting really good. Now we can
Speaker 3: predict a winter storm seven to ten days in advance,
Speaker 3: and then as we get closer we just start to
Speaker 3: iron out how much snow, what the actual swath is
Speaker 3: going to be, and all that decision support kicks in.
Speaker 3: But for space, whether trying to forecast some storm coming
Speaker 3: from the sun ninety three million miles away, and whether
Speaker 3: or not it's going to hit our tiny little blue
Speaker 3: marble is very difficult because even though these coronal mass
Speaker 3: ejections that you mentioned, these CMEs, for people that don't know,
Speaker 3: these are blasts of solar material, billions of tons of
Speaker 3: it in fact, heading out into space and enormous speeds
Speaker 3: or can be extreme speeds, and they also carry along
Speaker 3: with it a very strong embedded magnetic field stretching out
Speaker 3: into space. That's what we're really concerned about is the
Speaker 3: initial arrival of those CMEs that earth like a direct blow,
Speaker 3: and then the CME. So though I guess that don't
Speaker 3: understand the progression of these, think I know something you're
Speaker 3: familiar with, right, A really strong Arctic cold front coming
Speaker 3: in from the north, very strong one. You'll get that
Speaker 3: wind blast as the cold front moves through. Same thing
Speaker 3: with the CMEME. We get hit by the shot front
Speaker 3: of this thing, and then comes the colder air from
Speaker 3: the air mass pooling into your area. Same thing here
Speaker 3: with the CME. Now we get the strong magnetic field
Speaker 3: showing up along with it, and we never know what
Speaker 3: that's gonna be, Nicole, until it gets one million miles
Speaker 3: from Earth, so it's already made. It's ninety two million
Speaker 3: mile journey. We've seen the CME, we've analyzed it, we've
Speaker 3: done model runs on it, but we don't have any
Speaker 3: idea what it actually is light, how strong the magnetic
Speaker 3: field is, is it favorable to connect with Earth or not?
Speaker 3: Until it gets one million miles away. That's when we
Speaker 3: can see the structure of the ames with our observation
Speaker 3: platforms out there. And as far as the second part
Speaker 3: of your question goes, it's not so much a concern
Speaker 3: about affecting climate. There are studies going on long term
Speaker 3: studies to see if over a solar cycles some that
Speaker 3: don't respond as usual. There may be some correlation to
Speaker 3: changes in climate, but I don't have I'm not an
Speaker 3: expert on any of that. What I can speak to
Speaker 3: is we have grave concerns right now because of the
Speaker 3: effects of climates differing. We've had more frequencies, more frequent
Speaker 3: occurrences of super strong heat waves that affect so many people,
Speaker 3: drastic weather changes, flooding events, but the heat waves of
Speaker 3: particular are very concerning because when the power grid suffers
Speaker 3: from a severe extreme geomagnetic storm and the things they
Speaker 3: are dealing with their If you combine that with a
Speaker 3: major restural heat wave going on, that's a problem. They
Speaker 3: will have a very difficult time mitigating the situation for sure.
Speaker 6: Well, great information. Thank you so much, Sean, and thank
Speaker 6: you Dan for covering this topic. I'm loving this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We talked with Sean about a week and a
Speaker 2: half ago, and I just thought that again, I'm not
Speaker 2: this is not my wheelhouse, and I'm learning and listening.
Speaker 2: I know your interest in it, and I'm so appreciati the
Speaker 2: fact that you called in on this one. And you know,
Speaker 2: I just want to make a quick comment about the
Speaker 2: difficulty of weather forecasting when you think about how many
Speaker 2: times and sewn. This is not an indictment of weather forecasters,
Speaker 2: trust me, but you know they'll say this or storm
Speaker 2: coming or whatever. I think about this situation down in
Speaker 2: Florida where Hurricane Helene went through and did a lot
Speaker 2: of damage, and then Hurricane Milton was coming behind it
Speaker 2: a few days later, and all the forecasters down there,
Speaker 2: to my recollection, was saying as bad as Helene was,
Speaker 2: Milton's going to be worse. They were saying that the
Speaker 2: waves coming in instead of being just eight feet high.
Speaker 2: I saw pictures of weather forecasters standing on step ladders
Speaker 2: above basketball basketball nets was through ten feet high and
Speaker 2: saying it's going to be close to thirteen fourteen feet high.
Speaker 2: It wasn't. Helene was actually I think the tougher storm.
Speaker 2: And also the advantage of Milton was it just cut
Speaker 2: through Florida, didn't touch Georgia or South Carolina or North
Speaker 2: Carolina or Tennessee. So they nailed Helene. But I'm not
Speaker 2: sure that the weather forecasters did as good a job
Speaker 2: on Milton. And I don't know. I'll get a call
Speaker 2: from either of you and that it just talks about
Speaker 2: the difficulty of predicting stuff dealing with weather, never mind
Speaker 2: stuff that's ninety three million miles away. I stand in RPP.
Speaker 2: We try to do it.
Speaker 6: I'm going to defer to Sean because I'm just a fan,
Speaker 6: not an expert. So I'm all, this is all you, Sean, go.
Speaker 2: Ahead, Sean, Yeah, Dad.
Speaker 3: You know, the so much of mainstreams and terrestrial weather,
Speaker 3: what we call synoptic weather, has gotten much easier to
Speaker 3: predict and forecast and refining it down. You know, hurricanes
Speaker 3: is a different battle as well. We've got our battle
Speaker 3: with space weather and what's going on the sun. Hurricanes
Speaker 3: are these massive systems, and many times they do an
Speaker 3: excellent job the models that they scrutinize, the expertise that
Speaker 3: goes into that of predicting the pan, the path or
Speaker 3: cone of these hurricanes, right, But sometimes they you just
Speaker 3: don't get all the information. Things start to change more
Speaker 3: rapidly than you think from Helen enormous flooding issues afterwards
Speaker 3: as it got deeper into the Carolinas and Tennessee, and yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, how would you figure that's coming? And then
Speaker 3: the tornado outbreak for Milton was a really catastrophic part
Speaker 3: of that whole storm. I mean, there's just still so
Speaker 3: many nuances, even terrestrial weather to figure out.
Speaker 2: Yeah more, what I'm just saying is it's difficult to
Speaker 2: even you know, again, we were told Milton was going
Speaker 2: to be Now Milton did have a higher death total
Speaker 2: I think than Helene, but in terms of the damage,
Speaker 2: the length of the it just it just shows to
Speaker 2: me how tough it is. It's almost like if you
Speaker 2: watch a golf tournament and someone hits a two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty yard shot, you know, four feet from the
Speaker 2: pin and then they missed the putt. It's like, how
Speaker 2: can you hit a two hundred and fifty yard shot
Speaker 2: that close to the pin? Everybody should be able to
Speaker 2: make that putt, but sometimes it doesn't work. That's the
Speaker 2: that's the only metaphor I can I can compare it to.
Speaker 6: Whether it's an imperfect science.
Speaker 2: My friend, you bet you thanks to Gold. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 2: We see you soon. Okay, thanks so.
Speaker 3: Much, No problem, think, Sean, listen to this.
Speaker 2: Let's try we get one more quick call in here
Speaker 2: before our break. And again, I'm just interested in what
Speaker 2: people are going to ask. Rob is in Ohio. Rob,
Speaker 2: you go right ahead. You're next with Sean Dahle, Space
Speaker 2: weather forecaster with Noah, go right ahead.
Speaker 3: What happened in Southern Airline Spike two four two nurse package?
Speaker 2: I have no idea this is. This is a crank
Speaker 2: caller who we occasionally get. And so we will get
Speaker 2: rid of this crank caller. I recognize his voice. We'll
Speaker 2: just lose them. Guys, don't need them, We're gone. We
Speaker 2: have these guys who, for some reason, no matter what
Speaker 2: you're talking about, they want to call and they we
Speaker 2: opened phone lines up. Sorry, uh, Sean will take quick break.
Speaker 2: I got Steve from Fort Devons, of course, which was
Speaker 2: a military installation here in Massachusetts for decades, and Jack
Speaker 2: down to the Cape. If anyone else wants to join us.
Speaker 2: Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty is the number.
Speaker 2: Rob was actually from Ohio, but he some issues. We'll
Speaker 2: be back after this on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: nights Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is Seandall. He's a space weather forecaster. It's
Speaker 2: a big realm of forecasting here and something we're going
Speaker 2: to be hearing more of as the years go by.
Speaker 2: He's working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Next
Speaker 2: up from Fort Devons, Massachusetts, Steve, Steve, welcome, you are
Speaker 2: next on nice. I appreciate you calling in. You're next
Speaker 2: with Seandal Gorighthead. Steve.
Speaker 3: Hey, Dan, how are you doing? Thanks for having me cms. Wow,
Speaker 3: they are something right. They can devastate everything from electronics
Speaker 3: to infrastruction to you name it. The military though, that's
Speaker 3: what we call a Faraday case on every vehicle everything.
Speaker 3: So actually you didn't hear that from me. But anyhow,
Speaker 3: if people want to concern because these are going to
Speaker 3: be happening more and more often because we're seeing the
Speaker 3: Aurora borealis coming through and that's from a cme. Also,
Speaker 3: so what people can do to protect themselves, right, because
Speaker 3: what's going to happen anyone who has an elective vehicle
Speaker 3: to get it? It's done.
Speaker 2: See, let me let me do this if I could, Steve,
Speaker 2: could I get you to direct the question to my guest.
Speaker 2: The sounds to me like you know a lot about
Speaker 2: this stuff, but I suspect the guest wh would love
Speaker 2: to have a question and they all need Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Steve, thanks for calling in. Let's make one distinction
Speaker 3: here because there's sometimes confusion. I'm not saying you're having
Speaker 3: it here. But there's a something called electromagnetic pulses and
Speaker 3: there's something called geomedically induced currents. So the genies the
Speaker 3: geomagnetically induced currents are these geomainnetic storms from the sun costs.
Speaker 3: The good news for you and for everybody is that
Speaker 3: those storms will not affect like your home appliances. They
Speaker 3: won't affect the transmission lines running from a small capacitor
Speaker 3: to your home. But those storms effect, on the other hand,
Speaker 3: are the high voltage transmission lines and the huge transformers
Speaker 3: that direct and control that current distribution. That's why when
Speaker 3: we have a geomayaneting storm that's so extreme, our concern
Speaker 3: is that the power grid is going to go down,
Speaker 3: not for just the city block, not for a county,
Speaker 3: not just the state, but a number of states where
Speaker 3: one hundreds of people could lose power. An electromagnetic pulse,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, that's something usually associated with things
Speaker 3: like nuclear detonations. Now that kind of thing will trick
Speaker 3: vehicles and things to that extent. So just to make
Speaker 3: sure that everybody understands that as far as our science
Speaker 3: knows and understands, these Geomania storm so far do not
Speaker 3: have any direct impact on our electric vehicles. That's not
Speaker 3: to say they don't on their GPS systems, but fortunately
Speaker 3: they have other measures in place, sensors that tell where
Speaker 3: they're out in the road and things, so we don't
Speaker 3: anticipate any problems there. But these are the conversations we
Speaker 3: continue to have as technology develops. We do know that
Speaker 3: the storm and may Steve maybe had some effect on
Speaker 3: some Bluetooth devices. They're still trying to figure out whether
Speaker 3: that's actually true and correlatable or not. But there may
Speaker 3: have been something like that going on. But as far
Speaker 3: as any direct impact to somebody's home or their electronic appliances, no,
Speaker 3: we don't know of anything like that that happens from
Speaker 3: these storms. Right by the way, the level of the storm.
Speaker 3: They hold up.
Speaker 2: For one second, Steve, can you hear us? Just hold
Speaker 2: up for one second the point that my guests just made. Sean,
Speaker 2: there's a book. We've interviewed this author before about electronic
Speaker 2: magnetic pulses EMPs. His name is Ray Gorram. The book
Speaker 2: is seventy seven Days in September. It's been out a while,
Speaker 2: but I found it to be a fascinating book about
Speaker 2: what would happen if all the power grids went down,
Speaker 2: and this his hypothetical involved some small country exploding a
Speaker 2: couple of small nuclear bombs over the US and wiping
Speaker 2: out the grid. And it's a tough book to read
Speaker 2: in terms of you realize that there are people out
Speaker 2: there who would love to take the grid down. And
Speaker 2: I know that Sean knows probably much more about this
Speaker 2: than I do. But what the book I was referring
Speaker 2: to today was written by a fellow named Ray Gorum
Speaker 2: seventy seven days in September. I'm looking at edit right now.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Steve. You with the final comment that you
Speaker 2: wanted to make it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I do so. Prior to President Obamama believe
Speaker 3: in UH is UH you know, in the January time there,
Speaker 3: he made an executive order to I don't know if
Speaker 3: anyone's aware of this, to for incoming inbound UH particles
Speaker 3: projections from the sun or from space. And it mainly
Speaker 3: is from the Sun because now we're studying in the
Speaker 3: sun in the CMEs. Now that they're not let's look
Speaker 3: at the Carriken event for instance.
Speaker 2: You're giving me way too much information here, and I
Speaker 2: got out.
Speaker 3: The big thing is people protect themselves for an event
Speaker 3: like this. It's an event. We had an event that
Speaker 3: was a level event for when if it gets to
Speaker 3: a level event eight or higher and it's bound to happen.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, Steve, Thank you for the warning. Steve, I
Speaker 2: gotta I gotta accommodate. A couple of other callers, very
Speaker 2: interesting observations. Thank you very much. Let me go next
Speaker 2: to Jack Down of the Cape. Jack on Cape Cod
Speaker 2: you're next on nice side with my guest Sean Dahl awesome.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: The fact that we're experiencing Aurora down here on Cape
Speaker 5: cod and below to me, indicates that the magnetos magnique
Speaker 5: magnetosphere density is weakened. And so, uh, my concern. And
Speaker 5: I've got two points. I'm going to put one point.
Speaker 5: I'll follow to the other point.
Speaker 2: You got to be quick, Okay, I got you some
Speaker 2: time here, but you got to be a little quicker
Speaker 2: than Steve. Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 5: Uh, the magnetosphere and its potential oscillation to a poll
Speaker 5: shift and what would that indicate? And I think we're
Speaker 5: looking at some indications. The second point, Danu, the power grid,
Speaker 5: the AC and the DC, the high voltage versus the
Speaker 5: low voltage, Dan, I want you to look into this.
Speaker 5: There were there were back in the AC DC Edison
Speaker 5: Tesla days, Wars on Current. We got to look into
Speaker 5: this and bring it up on another show.
Speaker 2: So yes, send me some information on that. Let me
Speaker 2: let me get my guests to respond to the first
Speaker 2: point you made, Sean go right ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the you know when the CMEs interact with Earth's
Speaker 3: protective magnetic barrier, that's what he's talking about the magnetosphere.
Speaker 3: This is how all the interaction happens. This interaction changes
Speaker 3: the structure and causes currents of energy to naturally flow
Speaker 3: all the time because we're always connected to the sun.
Speaker 3: It's just the CMEs exasperated. These natural currents they flow
Speaker 3: and they build up on these high voltage transmission lines,
Speaker 3: and these high voltage transmission lines ferry hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of volts of electricity across miles and miles from Canada
Speaker 3: down across our country, and it's that connection that builds
Speaker 3: up these currents. Look for shortcuts, right. That's why we're
Speaker 3: told not to put a fork in an electric socket
Speaker 3: as a kid, because that electricity walls shoot out there
Speaker 3: and get into your body. Same thing here, these electrical currents.
Speaker 3: If the ground that we live on is highly resistive
Speaker 3: to current, it's going to look for those shortcuts naturally,
Speaker 3: and that's how they find them. So there's some areas
Speaker 3: of our country that are more prone to those build
Speaker 3: ups of electrical energy. Direct current, in relation to the
Speaker 3: point that was just made, showing up on an alternating
Speaker 3: current system is not good. It causes all sorts of
Speaker 3: anomalies and it builds up in overheats transformers. If it's
Speaker 3: not accounted for. So I think that's the you know,
Speaker 3: in relation to the point I can come up with
Speaker 3: it with the caller just talked about.
Speaker 2: All right, Jack, appreciate it. Send me information on that
Speaker 2: second point and maybe I can put a sheltergether the
Speaker 2: for us. Okay, we'll do sure, Dan or Noah will
Speaker 2: give you my direct emails so you can send it
Speaker 2: to me and I'll respond to you. I want to
Speaker 2: thank you very much, Sean. Again, I've learned a lot,
Speaker 2: but in learning a lot, I now realize how much
Speaker 2: I need to learn. I'll tell you there's nothing that
Speaker 2: was asked that you did not bring clarification to and
Speaker 2: I just want to say thank you very much for
Speaker 2: your time tonight and as we go on over the
Speaker 2: next few months in the next few years. Love to
Speaker 2: have you back here and talk more about it, because
Speaker 2: it sounds to me like this is an area of
Speaker 2: science that is going to explode literally and figuratively in
Speaker 2: the years ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks Dan, thanks for having me back. Glad to
Speaker 3: come back anytime. And we're in the grips of solar
Speaker 3: maximum that was just announced for this cycle last week
Speaker 3: by NASA Noah joint conference. But it doesn't mean we're
Speaker 3: on our way down. We still got all of this year,
Speaker 3: all of next year, and even into twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Some of the strongest storms in history have been two
Speaker 3: years after solar maximum, so we've still got an issue
Speaker 3: to deal with over the next couple of years. So
Speaker 3: space where there's still going to be a story to
Speaker 3: be talked about.
Speaker 2: Sounds great. Sean. I really appreciate your time. I can't
Speaker 2: tell you much. I appreciate your time if this is
Speaker 2: an area that that fascinates me, and I wish I
Speaker 2: had studied harder in science classes and a little less
Speaker 2: English than poly side. Thanks so much, Sean, appreciate the call. Okay,
Speaker 2: thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. Thank you. We're going to take quick break.
Speaker 2: Eleven o'clock news is here, as is the eleven o'clock
Speaker 2: hour just around the corner, and we'll be back on nightside.