The Earth and the Sun each have magnetic fields, and it was thought that they had a somewhat continuous interaction -- With charged particles flowing from the Sun to Earth in a steady stream. But new data and theories from the THEMIS satellite constellation has shown this to not be so! It turns out that there are“portals“ that open and close. These portals are called Flux Transfer Events (FTE`s) by the scientists involved, the Earth and Sun momentarily merge their magnetic fields to form a conduit for the ionized particles from the sun to the Earth.
Researchers have long known that the Earth and sun must be connected, but didn't understand exactly how. Earth's magnetosphere (the magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet) is filled with particles from the sun that arrive via the solar wind and penetrate the planet's magnetic defenses. They enter by following magnetic field lines that can be traced from terra firma all the way back to the sun's atmosphere.
"We used to think the connection was permanent and that solar wind could trickle into the near-Earth environment anytime the wind was active," says Sibeck. "We were wrong. The connections are not steady at all. They are often brief, bursty and very dynamic."
Amazing, and unexpected discovery. How do FTE`s effect the Earth`s climate? Have they slowed as a result of the weakening solar wind or the Earth`s weakening magnetic field? Maybe they have speeded up, with more forming? We simply don't know what is the ramifications of all this, how the Earth's climate is affected, we just know something is happening.
Yet more climate complexity NOT figured into the IPCC report and Al Gore`s Global Warming hoax.
There is a short NASA video about the THEMIS Constellation, and the science involved, here.
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