Wednesday, August 10, 2016

BARREL Daily Update: Aug. 10th 2016

Update Summary
Not much news. The high speed stream (HSS) has had an oscillating Bz magnetic field component which means that there hasn't been a geomagnetic storm as defined by Dst associated with it. (The more southward Bz the more solar wind energy can enter the magnetosphere and ultimately produce a geomagnetic storm) There have been some strong(ish) substorm activity throughout the last 24 hours. Substorm processes produce aurora at higher latitudinal regions. The HSS appears to be starting it's decline and should completely pass us by the morning of Aug. 12. 

There are three large numbered sunspots which have now rotated onto the Earthward side of the solar disk. They are all beta or alpha class (not very complex) and so currently are unlikely to produce a coronal mass ejection (CME), but they are growing in complexity and not yet Earth-Directed. 


News from Kiruna

Next possible launch date - Evening of Aug. 13th for the early morning conjunction on Aug. 14th


News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary
The lapping event, where the spacecraft are very close together is happening I think today. 

News from MMS: 
MMS team needs to know within 24 hours if you would like them to download data. E-mail Drew Turner or Allison Jaynes if you would like them to collect data in a specific region/time for conjunction studies.

News from THEMIS: 
As an update, the THEMIS team have enabled fast survey captures at
the L-shell of BARREL and the neighboring inner magnetosphere (L> ~3)
for the context of possible conjunctions with this BARREL campaign.
Within these fast survey intervals, thye also trigger particle and wave
bursts to capture high-frequency waves (whistler-mode).

This special data collection scheme is implemented on the three inner
probes for Aug. 10-25 (starting from Aug. 11 for TH-D), based on your
estimated interval of this BARREL campaign.

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.comSWPC.noaa.gov , http://relativisticballoons.blogspot.com/2016/08/space-weather-update.html,  and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Swedish Institute of Space Physics: Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
quiet but it looks like this past evening there was a substorm. 

Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory: Finnish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php
EMIC waves observed around noon at Kilpisjarvi and IVALO on Aug. 9th. 

Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory: Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php
Just a reminder Riometers are not my area of expertise, but it does look like there may have been precipitation from around Aug. 9th on and off starting at 0300UT and continuing  throughout the afternoon into the midnight hours. 

NOAA GOES Electron Flux:
Some significant activity with today's substorms and a bit before hand as well. 

NOAA GOES Proton Flux:
nominal levels.

ACE Solar wind speed: 
Vsw =  620.5 km/s

ACE Solar proton density:
density =  1.5 protons/cm^3

Sunspot number:
72 and Sunspot AR2571 has a beta-gamma complexity which means that there is at a slightly higher chance for an M-class solar flare. Currently it looks like if we were so lucky for it to produce a CME, it may be Earth directed. There are a few more larger sunspot regions (2574, 2575, and 2576) which are now starting to appear on the disk and may produce Earth directed CMEs in a few days giving a potential arrival time of about 1 week from now. This is all speculative at the moment but stay tuned! 

Flare activity:
6-hr max B4 
24 hr max B5

Kp:
kp =   4 with a 24 hour max of kp = 4

SW magnetic field:
Bz = 0.4 nT South
Btotal =  4.1 nT

Coronal hole news
The high speed stream has reached the Earth and the solar wind velocity is expected to stay high until about August 12th according to the WSA-ENLIL models. Bz has been fluctuating and so no geomagnetic storm has been produced, but there has been some nice substorm activity.

AE:
Possible substorms around 8:45 and 10:00 UT today. It does seems to have been slightly elevated throughout the morning hours though. 

Dst:
Very quiet. 

Grönsaker är en mineral-och vitaminrik källa
Vegetables are a rich source of vitamins and minerals. 

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team.

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