[Chaos-l] Recap of Decembers CHAOS meeting

[MIKE AND BOBI GALLAGHER]

Yes, it was a great meeting and the talk was a big wake up - I would put the
chances and level of danger from an 1859 type solar event right up with
(even ahead of) big meteor impact.

I did look at a couple web sites to get more information, but darned if I
could find anything about the NASA Sentinel (?) project which sounded
promising as an early warning system, but which Professor Fortner said got
cancelled. Anybody find anything on that?

Thanks again Jaime, for a thought provoking meeting!

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 8:06 PM, walter fowler <walterfowler at gmail.com>wrote:

> We haven't been following up our monthly meetings with
> "summaries/critiques" on the Listserve and I kind of miss them.  Last
> night's presentation by Dr. Brand Fortner is actually summarized pretty well
> by the speaker himself in the attachment.  It was a great presentation and a
> reminder that Jayme has been doing a great job filling the speaker slots
> each month.  Thanks, Jayme.  Keep 'em coming!  Walter
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jayme Hanzak <jhanzak at unctv.org>
> Date: Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 12:24 AM
> Subject: [Chaos-l] Decembers CHAOS meeting
> To: "CHAOS ‎[chaos-l at rtpnet.org]‎" <chaos-l at rtpnet.org>
>
>
>  This month we have a astronomical meteorologist. Dr. Brand Fortner is a
> professor at North Carolina State University.
>
> Here is a little info on his presentations.
>
> _______________
>
>
>
> Space Weather-Why it Matters
>
> The word 'weather' usually refers to what earth's atmosphere is doing
> today, tomorrow, next week. Severe weather, such as hurricanes, can cause
> havoc, as we all know. What is less well known is that not only the
> atmosphere, but space conditions in our solar system can change today,
> tomorrow, next week.  These rapid changes in the space environment are
> referred to as 'space weather'. And in direct analogy to atmospheric
> weather, there can be severe space storms, caused by solar coronal mass
> ejections.
>
> "... last night the whole heavens were lighted by the aurora borealis,
> more brilliant and beautiful than had been witnessed for years before….The
> light streaks shot upwards from the horizon and varied in width and length,
> and changed as long as the phenomenon was visible. It was a grand sight..."
> -- The Baltimore Sun , 1859.
>
> If this 1859 "SuperStorm" happened today, most of the power grids on the
> planet will be taken out for months or years, creating societal disruption
> on an unimaginable scale. Smaller space storms cause changes in satellite
> orbits, interfere or prevent communication, degrade or eliminate GPS-derived
> location information, and destroy satellites in orbit.  The challenge is
> that we have only the crudest ability to predict the behavior of the space
> environment. Space weather research is an active area of interdisciplinary
> research: it spans the range from the interior of the Sun to
> interplanetary space and includes our own atmosphere; it includes fluid
> dynamics, plasma physics, chemistry, radiative transfer,
> magnetohydrodynamics; its tools include some of the most advanced
> first-principles models. The community of practitioners covers the entire
> Earth.
>
> I will give an overview of space weather and space weather research,
> describe current and future space missions that help monitor the solar
> system space environment, and finish with the challenges to creating a true
> space weather warning system, a project currently being worked on by
> scientists at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
>
> Brand Fortner
> Research Professor
> North Carolina State University
> ________________________
>
>
>
> Please come and join us at 7pm in the Carol Woods Retirement Community's
> Assembly Hall.
>
> Carol Woods is located at 750 Weaver Dairy Rd., in Chapel Hill.
>
>
>
> We'll see you there.
>
>
>
> Jayme Hanzak
> CHAOS President
>
> CHAOS
> P.O. Box 3001
> Chapel Hill, NC 27514-0842
> http://www.rtpnet.org/chaos/
>
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