18 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Just to further drive home the point about AR11967's delta:

Unfortunately I have no clue why it only produced M's.

I suppose the strength of the flare depends on the entanglement of the magnetic fields. If the spots of opposite polarities are close together, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are highly entanglement. However, generally, the more complex the magnetic configuration of the spots, the higher the likelihood of a flare, but this isn't always the case. We've recently witnessed the rapid emergence of X flares from seemingly simple regions of spots.

Edited July 4Jul 4 by Samrau

Good point @Samrau many times we have seen tiny deltas perform miracles on opposite polarities too. Other times apparent deltas have even sat staring at us through a full region transit. Maddening to see. 😵‍💫

If ionised gases are the cause of aurora and ionised gases can form liquids like water , why is it assumed that the mass ionisation of the atmosphere during aurora doesn't create water vapour , therefore humidity , therefore effect the weather systems of the earth .

Most people seem to believe aurora have no effect in the weather systems of our planet. How is it that aurora doesn't create water vapour from the ionised gases involved ?

Can anyone explain more to me why the charging of hydrogen and oxygen particles isn't thought to effect the water vapour content of the air ?

6 hours ago, Alphane said:

If ionised gases are the cause of aurora and ionised gases can form liquids like water , why is it assumed that the mass ionisation of the atmosphere during aurora doesn't create water vapour , therefore humidity , therefore effect the weather systems of the earth .

Most people seem to believe aurora have no effect in the weather systems of our planet. How is it that aurora doesn't create water vapour from the ionised gases involved ?

Can anyone explain more to me why the charging of hydrogen and oxygen particles isn't thought to effect the water vapour content of the air ?

I guess a short answer would be that hydrogen and helium both are typically found in the much more rarified atmosphere. Nitrogen and Oxygen predominantly in the thermosphere. They are ionized every day in our D layer as the sun passes over however recombination takes place rapidly at sunset. Nitrogen oxides are possibly produced during auroras. Carbon 14 is also produced by the transmutation of Nitrogen 14 as you may already know. But probably not much more than the very energetic particles produce from beyond our solar system. Sounds like a good question. But that’s the best I can offer at this time. Maybe another member reading this can step in. Recombination into a molecule requires closer proximity and at the E and F layers there isn’t enough Hydrogen probably to form water molecules.

Edited July 7Jul 7 by hamateur 1953

7 hours ago, Alphane said:

If ionised gases are the cause of aurora and ionised gases can form liquids like water , why is it assumed that the mass ionisation of the atmosphere during aurora doesn't create water vapour , therefore humidity , therefore effect the weather systems of the earth .

Most people seem to believe aurora have no effect in the weather systems of our planet. How is it that aurora doesn't create water vapour from the ionised gases involved ?

Can anyone explain more to me why the charging of hydrogen and oxygen particles isn't thought to effect the water vapour content of the air ?

I'm not really sure about the ionised liquids. Plasma needs quite high temperatures to avoid neutralisation, so it won't remain ionised if liquid. Also, plasma does not really exist in any significant amounts below 50 km, so the impact should not go lower.

Plasma does heat and move the neutral gases, impacting the wind currents in the mesosphere. Those can potentially impact the lower levels. I would not consider much water vapour to be ionised, so the impact on the clouds from plasma would be only indirect.

Remember, that aurora is not just an emissions from collisions, but mainly of the neutral gas with electrons. The ionisation occurs much higher. Auroras produce quite a lot of heat and that's a well known impact on the weather... not impacting the surface temperatures much though.

13 hours ago, MJOdorczuk said:

I'm not really sure about the ionised liquids. Plasma needs quite high temperatures to avoid neutralisation, so it won't remain ionised if liquid. Also, plasma does not really exist in any significant amounts below 50 km, so the impact should not go lower.

Plasma does heat and move the neutral gases, impacting the wind currents in the mesosphere. Those can potentially impact the lower levels. I would not consider much water vapour to be ionised, so the impact on the clouds from plasma would be only indirect.

Remember, that aurora is not just an emissions from collisions, but mainly of the neutral gas with electrons. The ionisation occurs much higher. Auroras produce quite a lot of heat and that's a well known impact on the weather... not impacting the surface temperatures much though.

Geophycisist Stefan Burns did a great job the other day in this video explaining how the liquid and ionized plasma phase of the water cycle interacts with solar activity and earths geo electric current.

14 hours ago, Bry said:

Geophycisist Stefan Burns did a great job the other day in this video explaining how the liquid and ionized plasma phase of the water cycle interacts with solar activity and earths geo electric current.

Burns is a fraudulent charlatan; not as malignant as Bananas Grifterson, but far from benign. Him desperately calling himself a geophysicist in order to give himself more credibility despite only having a bachelor's in geology and zero research experience in geophysics is quite frankly completely ridiculous, and an insult to science. Even calling himself a geologist would be stretching it to the maximum. The vast majority of what he "explains" is just total nonsense with zero basis in reality. Even Tamitha Skov, whom Burns took the space weather courses of, has described him as having gone "to the dark side", and says that his primary value at this point is just making people aware of the fact that space weather exists, and hopefully sending them to sources of information that are actually accurate and useful.

It's telling that in that entire video he only devotes a tiny little segment to hydrocarbons, and rambles on about them releasing heat when burned as if that's how GHG emissions cause global warming, and only briefly mentioning that the atmosphere holds ~7% more moisture for every single °C of warming as per the C-C relation, which is known to be the by far dominant driver of intense rainfall events becoming more frequent and more severe over time. He's also talking as if the water released from combusting hydrocarbons somehow meaningfully contributes to atmospheric water vapor, and as if the heat released from the combustion reactions itself is even remotely comparable to the heat trapped by the GHE, which is one of the most scientifically illiterate statements I've seen in a while.

Then he tops that one by making the most scientifically illiterate statement regularly regurgitated by people with no idea what they're talking about, namely claiming that CO2 isn't the main driver of global warming and climate change, despite this being an extremely well-established fact, and something we've understood for over a century at this point. He doubles down on "the burning releases so much heat!", and then even tries to downplay cows belching (not farting, another in an endless series of typical misconceptions from people who are clueless on the subject, which he unquestionably is) methane despite this being a huge driver of global warming and climate change as well. He says those are "stupid things" that "political people bring up", highlighting only his own stupidity and ignorance of basic radiative and atmospheric physics.

No offense, but when you fall for people like him, you really need to get back to the basics. He's the kind of person that is able to pretend to know what he's talking about and fool people who have even less of a clue than himself, but when faced with various well-understood objective scientific facts of reality it's quickly seen that he's completely clueless. I would know, as I engage almost every single day with dozens of people who are blindly parroting many of these same exact misconceptions about climate science. The irony is that it's often they who are politically motivated, it being far more convenient for them to downplay human impacts, essentially giving them a "free pass" to keep doing more of what's causing the problems.

On 7/7/2025 at 2:14 AM, Alphane said:

How is it that aurora doesn't create water vapour from the ionised gases involved ?

Can anyone explain more to me why the charging of hydrogen and oxygen particles isn't thought to effect the water vapour content of the air ?

No offense, but the very premises of that question don't really make sense. Why would ionized gases form liquids like water? Water is H₂O; two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. It forms wherever something that has both react with each other, including when pure hydrogen gas reacts with oxygen (pure hydrogen gas is extremely flammable, i.e. it reacts extremely easily with oxygen to form water). The amount of pure hydrogen in the atmosphere at any given time is virtually negligible in this context, ~0.5-1 ppm; if every single molecule of hydrogen spontaneously reacted with oxygen (combusted), it would increase atmospheric water vapor by ~0.01%.

In comparison, as mentioned in my rant above, each °C of warming makes the atmosphere hold ~7% more water vapor as per the C-C relation, which is what serves as the driver for atmospheric water vapor. Water vapor cycles so rapidly in and out of the atmosphere that any water we emit would never affect that concentration in any significant way, even if we had a chance to emit a significant fraction of the concentration in the first place (which we don't). Even the large Hunga underwater eruption a few years back that was characterized by emitting an unusually large amount of water vapor relative to reflective aerosols only emitted ~0.001% of the water vapor in the atmosphere at any given time. As you can read here, it's been found empirically to be the case that atmospheric water vapor closely follows atmospheric temperature, just as expected; as such it acts as a feedback to radiative forcing from actual drivers like CO2 and methane (CH4), but does not act as a driver itself:

The amount of water vapor is primarily controlled by the air temperature when the relative humidity (especially over the ocean) remains unchanged in the low troposphere. The total precipitable water (TPW), also known as the column-integrated amount of water vapor from the surface to the top of the atmosphere, increases by 6 %–7 % with a 1 K increase in air temperature, according to the Clausius–Clapeyron equation. This enhances the strength of global warming with strong positive feedback due to the greenhouse effect particularly in the upper troposphere, whereas changes at lower levels are strongly linked with precipitation, influencing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

Edited July 8Jul 8 by Philalethes
water vapor, not air

3 hours ago, Philalethes said:

No offense, but the very premises of that question don't really make sense. Why would ionized gases form liquids like water? Water is H₂O; two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. It forms wherever something that has both react with each other, including when pure hydrogen gas reacts with oxygen (pure hydrogen gas is extremely flammable, i.e. it reacts extremely easily with oxygen to form water). The amount of pure hydrogen in the atmosphere at any given time is virtually negligible in this context, ~0.5-1 ppm; if every single molecule of hydrogen spontaneously reacted with oxygen (combusted), it would increase atmospheric water vapor by ~0.01%.

No offense taken . Being generally scientifically illiterate myself , most of what I know comes from barely remembered science lessons and the web .

My search ' Can ionised Hydrogen and Oxygen produce water ' seems to say H+ and O- could react to from water . TBH it wasn't clear on the situation it was refering to , but it made me wonder if this reaction could occur in the atmosphere , hence the original question .

Your answer that there simply isn't enough Hydrogen for any significant amount of water vapour to be produced to be significant makes sense thanks .

/ Edit for clarity here is a copy paste of the search

Yes, ionized hydrogen and oxygen can react to form water. In fact, the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen, whether ionized or not, is a fundamental process that produces water and releases energy. Specifically, this reaction is an oxidation-reduction (redox) reaction where hydrogen is oxidized and oxygen is reduced. 

Here's a breakdown of the process:

Ionized Hydrogen:

Hydrogen atoms can be ionized by losing an electron, forming H+ ions. 

Ionized Oxygen:

Oxygen atoms can also be ionized, either by gaining electrons (forming O2- ions) or by losing electrons (forming O+ or O2+ ions). 

Reaction:

When these ionized hydrogen and oxygen atoms come into contact, they can combine to form water (H2O). 

Energy Release:

The formation of water from hydrogen and oxygen is an exothermic reaction, meaning it releases energy, often in the form of heat and light. 

Balanced Equation:

The balanced chemical equation for the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to form water is 2H2 + O2 → 2H2O, according to a chemistry textbook. 

Edited July 8Jul 8 by Alphane

Hi again, haven't been able to get online so apologies for any posts / messages that I failed to reply to! I'll get around to them eventually!

I have a new question: if the magnetometer goes from -50 to +190 (those are approximate numbers taken from Kirunas graph of today), all in a few hours, does this herald a CME arrival or flare or what?

Edited July 8Jul 8 by Stella
Misspelling

8 minutes ago, Stella said:

Hi again, haven't been able to get online so apologies for any posts / messages that I failed to reply to! I'll get around to them eventually!

I have a new question: if the magnetometer goes from -50 to +190 (those are approximate numbers taken from Kirunas graph of today), all in a few hours, does this herald a CME arrival or flare or what?

The website displays the horizontal component, and the magnetic field is somewhat northern, so increase means the field becomes more northern. This can occur if there is a current going east/westward current above weakens. This is a rather weak deflection. It may be just a small release from the magnetotail or may be some slight push from a change in the solar wind. Nothing that would suggest a CME. Flares do not affect (in any significant way) the magnetic field.

If you are curious, you can read about the auroral electrojets, as those are (AFAIR) the main source of the deflections in the magnetometers. Vertical Birkeland currents can also affect the readouts, though, they are strongly correlated with the electrojets.

Edited July 8Jul 8 by MJOdorczuk
Added a note on the electrojets

4 minutes ago, Alphane said:

My search ' Can ionised Hydrogen and Oxygen produce water ' seems to say H- and O+ could react to from water . TBH it wasn't clear on the situation it was refering to , but it made me wonder if this reaction could occur in the atmosphere , hence the original question .

Your answer that there simply isn't enough Hydrogen for any significant amount of water vapour to be produced to be significant makes sense thanks .

It certainly can and does happen in the atmosphere on a continuous basis in very tiny amounts, but it doesn't ultimately have anything to do with ionization. It would in fact require quite rare conditions for the reaction to specifically take place with H⁺ (protons) and reduced oxygen; the kind of ionization processes happening in the upper parts of the atmosphere are generally much more likely to strip electrons away. By and large the by far most common reaction is between neutral H₂ and O₂; even if there were plenty of the former to feed a reaction it would still not have much to do with ionization, but rather just providing activation energy for it (as would any heat source).

If anything you'd be much more likely to achieve the opposite, i.e. splitting water apart into hydrogen and oxygen, heh. This happens higher up through photodissociation as well, though water is very scarce there, but it's quite scarce where auroral electrons would do so as well; but such electrons are certainly more than energetic enough to do so. This would still only be a very minor source of atmospheric hydrogen. In this paper that's almost a century old at this point there is enumerated a range of known and possible (at the time) sources of hydrogen in the atmosphere, and though scientific understanding of the aurora and space weather was still in its infancy then there's a point which would include both photodissociation and auroral processes:

(8) There is a possibility that a very small amount of water vapor is dissociated in the upper atmosphere by means of particles and radiation emitted from the sun and other heavenly bodies.

Another source listed is lightning, which is likely a lot more productive, given how there's vastly more water in the lower atmosphere. If you have the opportunity I'd certainly recommend you try to perform a basic experiment with electrolysis of water, I recall we did that in high school; with enough hydrogen gas you can get a really good pop out of it, just be careful not to blow yourself up!

Edited July 8Jul 8 by Philalethes
missing word, intrusive word

2 hours ago, MJOdorczuk said:

The website displays the horizontal component, and the magnetic field is somewhat northern, so increase means the field becomes more northern. This can occur if there is a current going east/westward current above weakens. This is a rather weak deflection. It may be just a small release from the magnetotail or may be some slight push from a change in the solar wind. Nothing that would suggest a CME. Flares do not affect (in any significant way) the magnetic field.

If you are curious, you can read about the auroral electrojets, as those are (AFAIR) the main source of the deflections in the magnetometers. Vertical Birkeland currents can also affect the readouts, though, they are strongly correlated with the electrojets.

Now I'd need to know what electro jets are, too 😂

The solar wind appears to be moderately high, I suppose that might account for the change?

8 minutes ago, Stella said:

Now I'd need to know what electro jets are, too 😂

The solar wind appears to be moderately high, I suppose that might account for the change?

The currents from the magnetosphere (https://geomag.colorado.edu/magnetospheric-magnetic-field for example) connect to the ionosphere through Birkeland currents (blue, red and teal or whatever it is). There ions constantly collide and drift slowly across the polar regions due to electric potential (Pedersen current, green), and electrons experience ExB drift (electric field elongates the orbits around the magnetic field lines, leading to the drift), visible above as electrojets (yellow) or Hall currents. This is a fascinating macrocosm of interactions up there. I really recommend diving into the topic :D

On 7/8/2025 at 5:57 AM, Philalethes said:

Water vapor cycles so rapidly in and out of the atmosphere that any water we emit would never affect that concentration in any significant way, even if we had a chance to emit a significant fraction of the concentration in the first place (which we don't).

On 7/8/2025 at 5:57 AM, Philalethes said:

Burns is a fraudulent charlatan; not as malignant as Bananas Grifterson, but far from benign. Him desperately calling himself a geophysicist in order to give himself more credibility despite only having a bachelor's in geology and zero research experience in geophysics is quite frankly completely ridiculous, and an insult to science. Even calling himself a geologist would be stretching it to the maximum. The vast majority of what he "explains" is just total nonsense with zero basis in reality. Even Tamitha Skov, whom Burns took the space weather courses of, has described him as having gone "to the dark side", and says that his primary value at this point is just making people aware of the fact that space weather exists, and hopefully sending them to sources of information that are actually accurate and useful.

It's telling that in that entire video he only devotes a tiny little segment to hydrocarbons, and rambles on about them releasing heat when burned as if that's how GHG emissions cause global warming, and only briefly mentioning that the atmosphere holds ~7% more moisture for every single °C of warming as per the C-C relation, which is known to be the by far dominant driver of intense rainfall events becoming more frequent and more severe over time. He's also talking as if the water released from combusting hydrocarbons somehow meaningfully contributes to atmospheric water vapor, and as if the heat released from the combustion reactions itself is even remotely comparable to the heat trapped by the GHE, which is one of the most scientifically illiterate statements I've seen in a while.

Then he tops that one by making the most scientifically illiterate statement regularly regurgitated by people with no idea what they're talking about, namely claiming that CO2 isn't the main driver of global warming and climate change, despite this being an extremely well-established fact, and something we've understood for over a century at this point. He doubles down on "the burning releases so much heat!", and then even tries to downplay cows belching (not farting, another in an endless series of typical misconceptions from people who are clueless on the subject, which he unquestionably is) methane despite this being a huge driver of global warming and climate change as well. He says those are "stupid things" that "political people bring up", highlighting only his own stupidity and ignorance of basic radiative and atmospheric physics.

No offense, but when you fall for people like him, you really need to get back to the basics. He's the kind of person that is able to pretend to know what he's talking about and fool people who have even less of a clue than himself, but when faced with various well-understood objective scientific facts of reality it's quickly seen that he's completely clueless. I would know, as I engage almost every single day with dozens of people who are blindly parroting many of these same exact misconceptions about climate science. The irony is that it's often they who are politically motivated, it being far more convenient for them to downplay human impacts, essentially giving them a "free pass" to keep doing more of what's causing the problems.

Thanks for the rant review on Stefan Burns, I have been curious as to what the spaceweatherlive community would make of him and Tamitha Skov for that matter too. That's funny she said "he went to the dark side" after he took her classes and actually wonder what that means considering I just learned Tamitha works for the military contractor Northrop Grumann. I actually like that Stefan has a background in geology because it requires an understanding of geophysics use measuring equipment and being able to explain to laymen how solar activity connects to activity on earth better. I think personally I have preferred his presentations over Tamitha's mostly because of his willingness to discuss topics not just related to aurora and radio, but also lower latitude effects that the majority of people might experience. I like that he uses accessible sources as a background on his computer to show listeners how to accesses sources transparently. I appreciate both of them and will probably watch more of Tamitha now to compare content and styles.

With regards to whether water or carbon dioxide is a more powerful greenhouse gas, I get that CO2 stays in the atmosphere longer and has a higher heat capacity than water like CFC's, but water is the most abundant molecule one earth, and increases to the water cycle have severe implications for earth's climate and weather patterns, namely by speeding up the water cycle and keeping water in its vapor form in the atmosphere reservoir. When i was in college, I especially remember this debate taking place when I took an undergrad non-science environmental policy course that claimed CO2 was the main driver of global warming, while also taking a graduate biogeochemical Cycle course where that geophyics professor said water was the main GHG... and then watched the public debate unfold and end with the geoscience professor and department head having to correct and review the environmental politics professors course material from then on for consistency.

I think the more important point is that when we used to burn mostly coal, very little water vapor was created in the combustion reaction, whereas today replacing half the coal with oil and natural gas produces more water molecules than carbon dioxide to our atmosphere and water cycle. I also think Stephan makes a good point that the exothermic heat produced from combustion of all sources (and even water reduction apparently) is not negligible, especially as we turn to carbon free energy sources like nuclear where we might still be emitting vast amounts of heat and potentially still boiling water into vapor for the heat exchange into energy.

I got this from Grok:

"Let’s examine the main fossil fuels:a. Natural Gas (Methane, CH₄)

• Combustion Reaction:

  CH4+2O2→CO2+2H2O

• Ratio: For each molecule of methane burned, 1 CO₂ molecule and 2 H₂O molecules are produced.

• Notes: Natural gas is mostly methane, so this is a good approximation. Some natural gas contains small amounts of other hydrocarbons (e.g., ethane), but methane dominates.

b. Oil (Approximated as Octane, C₈H₁₈)

• Oil is a complex mixture, but for simplicity, we model it as octane (a common hydrocarbon in gasoline):

• Combustion Reaction:

  2C8H18+25O2→16CO2+18H2O2

• Per molecule of octane:

  C8H18+12.5O2→8CO2+9H2O

• Ratio: For each molecule of octane, 8 CO₂ molecules and 9 H₂O molecules are produced, or roughly 1 CO₂ : 1.125 H₂O.

• Notes: Different oils (e.g., diesel, kerosene) have varying carbon-to-hydrogen ratios, but this is a reasonable average.

c. Coal (Approximated as Carbon, C)

• Coal is primarily carbon with trace hydrogen, sulfur, and other elements. For simplicity, assume pure carbon combustion:

• Combustion Reaction:

  C+O2→CO2

• Ratio: 1 CO₂ molecule and 0 H₂O molecules per carbon atom burned.

• Notes: Real coal contains some hydrogen (e.g., in bituminous coal, ~5% hydrogen by weight), so small amounts of H₂O are produced, but CO₂ dominates. For anthracite (nearly pure carbon), H₂O production is minimal.

Summary of Molecular Ratios

• Natural Gas: 1 CO₂ : 2 H₂O

• Oil: ~1 CO₂ : 1.125 H₂O

• Coal: ~1 CO₂ : 0–0.1 H₂O (depending on hydrogen content)

2. Quantifying EmissionsTo estimate the relative amounts of H₂O and CO₂ produced globally, we consider the global consumption of fossil fuels. According to 2023 data (e.g., from the International Energy Agency):

• Natural Gas: ~4,000 billion cubic meters/year, equivalent to ~2.8 billion metric tons of methane.

• Oil: ~4.5 billion metric tons/year.

• Coal: ~8 billion metric tons/year."

On 7/6/2025 at 5:14 PM, Alphane said:

If ionised gases are the cause of aurora and ionised gases can form liquids like water , why is it assumed that the mass ionisation of the atmosphere during aurora doesn't create water vapour , therefore humidity , therefore effect the weather systems of the earth .

Most people seem to believe aurora have no effect in the weather systems of our planet. How is it that aurora doesn't create water vapour from the ionised gases involved ?

Can anyone explain more to me why the charging of hydrogen and oxygen particles isn't thought to effect the water vapour content of the air ?

I used Grok to answer your question and they thought this was a very insightful question, as did I. But alas, it does seem like there is not enough H and O atoms to form much water near the ionosphere. However, considering the hallmark of global warming is an increased concentration of water ions and vapor, I think its safe to say that solar activity ionization is having an increased affect on water formation over time. I think Stefan Burns says in the video i shared that since more water has been added to the atmosphere due to fossil fuel combustion, that enhances conductivity and weather formation, and thus more hydrogen and oxygen ions are likely to reduce to form water over time as well. Also, ionization would change ozone formation temporarily, which might affect temperature increases in space and on earth to change water vapor density with pressure changes.

On 7/8/2025 at 9:18 AM, Alphane said:

Energy Release:

The formation of water from hydrogen and oxygen is an exothermic reaction, meaning it releases energy, often in the form of heat and light. 

I didn't realize water formation was an exothermic reaction, and this made me wonder if the heat released from water forming near the ionosphere or thermosphere might contribute to the aurora light show?

Edited July 10Jul 10 by Bry

41 minutes ago, Bry said:

With regards to whether water or carbon dioxide is a more powerful greenhouse gas, I get that CO2 stays in the atmosphere longer and has a higher heat capacity than water like CFC's, but water is the most abundant molecule one earth, so changes to the water cycle have severe implications for earth's climate and weather patterns. When i was in college, I especially remember this debate taking place when I took an undergrad non-science environmental policy course that claimed CO2 was the main driver of global warming, while also taking a graduate biogeochemical Cycle course where that geophyics professor said water was the main GHG... and then watched the public debate unfold and end with the geoscience professor and department head having to correct and review the environmental politics professors course material from then on for consistency.

I think the more important point is that when we used to burn mostly coal, very little water vapor was created in the combustion reaction, whereas today replacing half the coal with oil and natural gas produces more water molecules than carbon dioxide to our atmosphere and water cycle. I also think Stephan makes a good point that the exothermic heat produced from combustion of all sources (and even water reduction apparently) is not negligible, especially as we turn to carbon free energy sources like nuclear where we might still be emitting vast amounts of heat and potentially still boiling water into vapor for the heat exchange into energy.

Several egregious misconceptions here.

To take the most obvious one first: water vapor being the most abundant greenhouse gas does not make it a driver of warming. If the people from the geoscience department couldn't understand something that simple they did not belong in that room. There's always a huge distinction between forcing and feedbacks. As water vapor demonstrably is set by the underlying temperature, as shown clearly in the post you replied to, it exclusively acts as a feedback to actual forcings. It's only what produces the forcings which is referred to as a driver. This is very basic climate science and explained quite explicitly in many places, such as e.g. here:

And of course, temperatures today are rising, thanks to humans’ emissions of longer-lasting greenhouse gases like CO2. Water vapor amplifies that effect. “If the temperature rises, the amount of water vapor rises with it,” says Emanuel. “But since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, rising water vapor causes yet higher temperatures. We refer to this process as a positive feedback, and it is thought to be the most important positive feedback in the climate system.”

Or here:

Water vapor is fundamentally different from the other greenhouse gasses which directly cause global warming. It leaves the atmosphere in a matter of days and its atmospheric concentration is ultimately governed by temperature. It is critical for the natural greenhouse effect, but it is a negligible contributor to the enhanced greenhouse effect.

There there's also a very important diagram showing the actual forcings, which I have an updated version of that also includes the time evolution:

Furthermore, what you consider "the more important point" is not important whatsoever, and completely irrelevant. I made this explicitly clear in the post you replied to, so either you didn't read it very carefully, or decided to just completely ignore it. As shown even more explicitly in the two explainers I've linked to above, the amount of water vapor we emit is completely negligible when it comes to this. It does not add water to the atmosphere in any meaningful way, and relative to how rapid the water cycle itself is it's even more negligible. There's on the order of ~10-15 trillion tonnes of water vapor in the atmosphere at any given time, and the amount of water resulting from all the fossil fuels we combust in a year amounts to only ~15 billion tonnes; so even if we combusted all of them in a single instant it'd only increase atmospheric water vapor by ~0.1%, but as explained vapor cycles so rapidly that it doesn't accumulate in that manner regardless.

The exact same is true for the heat, as I also mentioned. Its contribution is completely negligible, and would not cause meaningful warming on its own. As you can see from some of the calculations in the references shown here, it constitutes only a measly ~1-2% of the warming. This wouldn't be remotely sufficient to even offset the orbital forcing that causes the interglacial cycle and which would've sent us back into the next glacial period within 10,000 years or so.

So the idea that the self-aggrandizing media personality Burns is making any good or important points here is just nonsense, as he's not only blatantly wrong on the points he tries to make, but as he also explicitly neglects the real causes at work, evidently because he doesn't even remotely understand the subject matter at all.

On 7/4/2025 at 2:07 PM, Echound said:

I was browsing the "Top 25 sunspot regions" list on SWL and came across region AR11967.
Purely based on the continuum and magnetogram images, I would've guessed this region fired strong X-class flares.
Though it did fire plenty M-class flares, it didn't fire a single X-class flare across the visible disk to my surprise, nor did it cause any geomagnetic storms.

It had a very large (squished) delta and a few smaller ones, it had a size of 1500MH, and it was fairly magnetically complex.
For comparison, AR13842 fired the largest X-flare (X9.0) of this solar cycle (so far!) with a smaller delta that wasn't even that close to the leader spot.

Now, I guess the magnetograms and continuum images don't always tell the full story (see recent discussions about sigmoids and all).
We all know how unpredictable solar activity can be. But are there any better/more in-depth explanations as to why this region didn't fire any major flares?

This is a good question. Was is just randomness or were there other factors that prevented large flares? It is worth pointing out that AR11967 was just one designation of a long lived region that did produce X flares during a previous and a subsequent passage across the Earth facing disk as AR11944 and AR11990 respectively, so if there was some factor that prevented 11967 from producing X flares it did not persist for the entire lifespan of the region.

Despite shrinking substantially by the time it reemerged as AR11990, the region produced a pretty spectacular X7 flare and fast cme on Feb 25th 2014:

Edited July 10Jul 10 by Aten

Probably a taboo subject because I feel like we learn more during maximum periods and it's exciting but what can we newer members expect in the years ahead with heading towards solar minimum besides the lack of sunspots? More CHs? Will we be excited to see an A flare or does the sun never really go that low?

39 minutes ago, Mikotos said:

Probably a taboo subject because I feel like we learn more during maximum periods and it's exciting but what can we newer members expect in the years ahead with heading towards solar minimum besides the lack of sunspots? More CHs? Will we be excited to see an A flare or does the sun never really go that low?

Heading from a maximum towards a minimum is exciting in its own way. It'll mean fewer but larger CH, fewer regions but more often having an anti-Hale configuration or forming deltas. There was an awesome graph overlayed the butterfly diagram someone posted recently that showed this in great detail but I've been unable to find it again. Hopefully someone has it in their back pocket 😉

However the actual solar minimum is unfortunately fairly boring. December 2019 had 0 visible sunspots and looked like this:

2 hours ago, Mikotos said:

Probably a taboo subject because I feel like we learn more during maximum periods and it's exciting but what can we newer members expect in the years ahead with heading towards solar minimum besides the lack of sunspots? More CHs? Will we be excited to see an A flare or does the sun never really go that low?

In the years ahead there are a few possibilities. Geoeffective CHs will indeed likely be a key player in geomagnetic activity for this period, especially around the equinoctes. That being said hope is still not lost for this cycle with regards to CMEs, as there often forms a few highly complex regions in the declining half, often closer to the solar equator too, which can end up producing some hefty storms; nothing certain about it though, but despite the current lull the cycle is likely still very much alive.

As for when we do approach and reach minimum itself, at that point there will indeed be significantly lower levels of activity. The so-called polar coronal holes will be more fixed around the poles, but there is the occasional hole at lower latitudes too. The X-ray flux does indeed go that low, and there will be A-flares, but I'm not so sure how excited I'd get for it, heh. Typically the flux dips down into the level even below A, which is known as A0 (probably should be renamed at some point), and you can even get A0-flares within that level; see e.g. these beautiful A0.88- and A0.45-flares from the depths of the minimum we just left:

So it'll definitely be a slow period when we get there, but until then the declining phase will probably have more in store for us. Usually there are still regions to drive occasional bouts of activity up until ~2 years before minimum from what I've seen, so this would likely be a fair threshold for "the last great flare" (which checks out over the last couple of cycles at least, with 2006 and 2017 respectively having big bursts of activity, both ~2 years before minimum in 2008 and 2019 respectively). This also checks out with findings like those of Owens et al. here about ~60% of the cycle being more active and the remaining ~40% being less active, with the "switch" around ~0.2 before and after minimum (so for a typical ~11-year cycle this would indeed be ~2.2 years or so, though these are just estimates). If we were to assume SC25 to be exactly 11 years in length and thus end in December of 2030, this would mean we'd likely see the last big bouts of activity in 2028. Even if it were to end earlier I'd at least say well into 2027 would be a reasonable guess, so hopefully the next 2-3 years we'll get ourselves a good storm on occasion.

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

It'll mean fewer but larger CH, fewer regions but more often having an anti-Hale configuration or forming deltas. There was an awesome graph overlayed the butterfly diagram someone posted recently that showed this in great detail but I've been unable to find it again. Hopefully someone has it in their back pocket 😉

Likely referring to this, I presume (which I posted in the 4130 thread):

16 hours ago, Bry said:

With regards to whether water or carbon dioxide is a more powerful greenhouse gas, I get that CO2 stays in the atmosphere longer and has a higher heat capacity than water like CFC's, but water is the most abundant molecule one earth, and increases to the water cycle have severe implications for earth's climate and weather patterns, namely by speeding up the water cycle and keeping water in its vapor form in the atmosphere reservoir.

This cycle doesn't reservoir it, the cycle increases, which means it rains more.

16 hours ago, Bry said:

When i was in college, I especially remember this debate taking place when I took an undergrad non-science environmental policy course that claimed CO2 was the main driver of global warming,

It still is, specifically from fossil fuels, deforestation, pollution, and reckless greed. History of climate change science - Wikipedia

It is likely the college teacher was using older terms/information, since water vapor was used to determine the energy exchange rate of the Earth system before mass fossil fuel usage.

16 hours ago, Bry said:

I think the more important point is that when we used to burn mostly coal, very little water vapor was created in the combustion reaction, whereas today replacing half the coal with oil and natural gas produces more water molecules than carbon dioxide to our atmosphere and water cycle. I also think Stephan makes a good point that the exothermic heat produced from combustion of all sources (and even water reduction apparently) is not negligible, especially as we turn to carbon free energy sources like nuclear where we might still be emitting vast amounts of heat and potentially still boiling water into vapor for the heat exchange into energy.

The total energy budget might not have been something they (Burns) explicitly knew, but now, the way to describe global heat exchange is through the Energy Budget: Earth's energy budget - Wikipedia

This means the entire system can be described, rather than grasping at straws to explain small differences. We can see the total radiative forcing, which is the total heat and energy exchange. Radiative forcing - Wikipedia

16 hours ago, Bry said:

I got this from Grok:

Booooo, please don't post AI dumps. It is just verbose stuff that may or may not be true, and I'm not going to fact check a low effort post from an AI bot.

16 hours ago, Bry said:

However, considering the hallmark of global warming is an increased concentration of water ions and vapor, I think its safe to say that solar activity ionization is having an increased affect on water formation over time.

It's not safe to say, and an increase of the water cycle might be an indicator, not a cause of a larger system dynamic.

Making conclusions and saying things like "it's safe to say." in response to an AI comment is not a conversation, it's you playing with a text bot on the forum, please don't.

16 hours ago, Bry said:

I think Stefan Burns says in the video i shared that since more water has been added to the atmosphere due to fossil fuel combustion, that enhances conductivity and weather formation, and thus more hydrogen and oxygen ions are likely to reduce to form water over time as well. Also, ionization would change ozone formation temporarily, which might affect temperature increases in space and on earth to change water vapor density with pressure changes.

Any description except actual science eh?

16 hours ago, Bry said:

I didn't realize water formation was an exothermic reaction, and this made me wonder if the heat released from water forming near the ionosphere or thermosphere might contribute to the aurora light show?

No, its nitrogen in the upper and oxygen in the lower, no water vapor required or found. Also, vapor is not a precise term. There are sparse atoms mediated by gaseous dynamics, but there are no CLOUDS or anything resembling a dense/sparse or watery mist in the thermosphere/ionosphere. (Maybe there is, but doubtful to be some rare cause of global climate change.)

I might be misunderstanding your point since it is buried with an AI post, so please let me know what your actual thoughts are.

Here is a link on which chemicals create which colors: Aurora - Wikipedia

(Colors and Aurora lights section)

Edited July 10Jul 10 by Archmonoth

AMEN on the AI stuff. Btw there is a funny thing that happened yesterday with recaptcha. When trying to access Tamitha Skov for a clarification on a recent YouTube thing, it decided I was a robot and froze me out. The irony struck me as hilarious. 😂

Edited July 10Jul 10 by hamateur 1953
AI decides Mikey was a robot. My cat will be surprised!

16 hours ago, Bry said:

I don't think I nor Stefan Burns are implying that carbon dioxide is not a concerning greenhouse gas in the least. It's more that as we look for carbon free alternatives for the future, its good to think about the long term effects of whatever else would be added to the system instead. Especially considering all of the other new sources of added entropy to our system from heat, chemicals, atmospheric effects of rocket launches, nuclear bombs, wireless communications, satellites, radar, etc after how bad even just refrigerants turned out to be like CFC to the ozone layer.

Even your own concept of banks being paramount would suggest that technology is not the issue, but the mass production of any technology will have unforeseen consequences. CFCs are were some of those unintended consequences, and companies changed due to policy changes.

16 hours ago, Bry said:

Even if we hypothetically switched to using hydrogen gas overnight,

What does this have to do with the current situation or Aurora?

16 hours ago, Bry said:

Even moving water locked up underground to the surface through well water extraction (just like fossil fuel extraction and combustion) has many drastic effects on earths geologic water reservoirs that cannot be ignored such as subsidence and sea level rise.

Why mention them? Are your trying to minimize fossil fuels? What is your point? There are lots of different sources of sea level rise. We look at major sources because we can see and measure them. It's not a conspiracy for scientists to make dozens of dollars.

Here is a link to the decaying Thwaites glacier with gifs of the shattering tongue. Thwaites Glacier Discussion - Page 19

We can see the ice melting in Greenland too. Greenland ice sheet - Wikipedia

"Currently, the Greenland ice sheet loses more mass every year than the Antarctic ice sheet, because of its position in the Arctic, where it is subject to intense regional amplification of warming.Ice losses from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet have been accelerating due to its vulnerable Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers, and the Antarctic contribution to sea level rise is expected to overtake that of Greenland later this century."

16 hours ago, Bry said:

The good news is every galactic orbit or 230-250 million years ago Earth's natural way

Are you suggesting climate change is a galactic cycle? Why bring up all this hand waving?

16 hours ago, Bry said:

In terms of gauging the largest driver of human caused climate change however, I still think debt and inflation from central banks has historically been the major driver of all human caused disasters, wars, famines, displacement, migration, commuting pollution and especially driving the over-consumption of burning fossil fuels purely to pay for the debt.

You are pointing at a different parts of civilization, to what end? Are you trying to say that fossil fuels aren't as serious of an issue?

16 hours ago, Bry said:

Esp since the 1970's when both temperatures & inflation took off with the USD becoming fiat instead of gold backed has likely contributed significantly to climate change.

Since 1970 there has been an explosion of technology and industry, including industry pollution. Lets not pretend the industrial world wasn't born from coal and oil. You are pointing at the same system I am, but you think it is somehow separate from fossil fuels.

16 hours ago, Bry said:

"Multiple types of measurements and observations show a warming imbalance since at least year 1970.^[4][5] The rate of heating from this human-caused event is without precedent." -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget

And especially more recently since 1996 when weather derivatives created an direct financial incentive for state and private utility, weather modification, & insurance companies to profit off of extreme weather disasters.

This is because many states have more weather issues, like Texas and Florida. These weather issues are caused directly from Climate change, not from a policy to leech money. What a reach!

Your comment strikes me as a criticism of a FEMA, if you are referring to American disaster response. This is terrible timing to stand on such a point, and it makes you look disconnected from the real world.

None of this straw grasping has anything to do with Aurora or Space weather, so unless you have a specific point/question, lets take this argument to DMs?

Edited July 11Jul 11 by Archmonoth

1 hour ago, Archmonoth said:

it makes you look disconnected from the real world

They appear to have lost all touch with reality. Not going to pursue it any further myself, as it's pigeon chess at this point. Given all the raving about politics and trying to make it out as if objective scientific facts are political I just reported it and moved on; would urge others to do the same, but I guess it's ultimately up to the admins/mods whether to do anything about it. This isn't really even a forum for climate science in the first place, only reason I provided some facts about it to begin with was to show how scientifically illiterate Burns is and that they're not even remotely a credible source of information about that, and certainly not about space weather either. They just ignore the facts and double down on the same nonsense anyway, but hopefully it was at least informative for others who are interested.

Edited July 11Jul 11 by Philalethes
phrasing

3 hours ago, Philalethes said:

They appear to have lost all touch with reality. Not going to pursue it any further myself, as it's pigeon chess at this point. Given all the raving about politics and trying to make it out as if objective scientific facts are political I just reported it and moved on; would urge others to do the same, but I guess it's ultimately up to the admins/mods whether to do anything about it. This isn't really even a forum for climate science in the first place, only reason I provided some facts about it to begin with was to show how scientifically illiterate Burns is and that they're not even remotely a credible source of information about that, and certainly not about space weather either. They just ignore the facts and double down on the same nonsense anyway, but hopefully it was at least informative for others who are interested.

I don’t follow Burns or any of the hypotheses tbh. Hadn’t even heard the name until you brought it up here. And you are absolutely correct. This ain’t the venue. 😊

5 hours ago, Philalethes said:

They appear to have lost all touch with reality. Not going to pursue it any further myself, as it's pigeon chess at this point. Given all the raving about politics and trying to make it out as if objective scientific facts are political I just reported it and moved on; would urge others to do the same, but I guess it's ultimately up to the admins/mods whether to do anything about it. This isn't really even a forum for climate science in the first place, only reason I provided some facts about it to begin with was to show how scientifically illiterate Burns is and that they're not even remotely a credible source of information about that, and certainly not about space weather either. They just ignore the facts and double down on the same nonsense anyway, but hopefully it was at least informative for others who are interested.

Burns is trying to be like Tamitha Skov, but he has much more of a Davidson vibe