British Colombians can expect to see more northern lights dancing in the sky over the next three years.
Bill Mertag, a space weather forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States, says more images of aurora borealis will be visible before the 2025 solar maximum.
The sun’s maximum, which occurs every 11 years, is when the sun is at its most active and has the most sunspots, leading to more solar flares.
The aurora borealis and its southern equivalent aurora australis are geomagnetic storms caused by collisions of gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere and electrically charged particles released by the sun.
Aurora borealis is caused by particles emitted by the sun colliding with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
The Northern Lights come in different colors due to variations in gaseous particles and their altitude.
The most common color, pale green, is caused by oxygen molecules located about 97 kilometers above the ground, while the less common red glow is the result of oxygen about 322 kilometers above the ground. Nitrogen produces blue or purple-red glows.
Merta spoke with host Chris Walker at CBC’s Daybreak South about what lies behind the increased manifestations of aurora borealis, their impact on Earth, and space work.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
What is behind this increase in aurora borealis over the next three years?
We will see more and more activity of sunspots. When the poles of the sun are established and things are quiet, we go through what is called a [solar] minimum and we see very few sunspots. But now we see a lot of sunspots. Even this week we will see a lot of eruptions in the sun.
The more sunspots we see, the more eruptions are likely, and therefore the more likely the Northern Lights are.
What causes these sunspots in the first place?
When these sunspots appear, they are just visible manifestations where the magnetic fields are really loaded. It’s like taking the rubber band and twisting it, and finally it clicks. These sunspots show us where these magnetic fields are really twisted and stretched.
WATCH What causes the Northern Lights?
Do these eruptions of magnets have an effect on the Earth other than the Northern Lights? Can they affect electronics or even pose a risk to the Earth?
At the Boulder Space Forecast Center in Colorado, we warn satellite companies, power grids, GPS operators, users of GPS communications systems, and aviators who fly, especially in high latitudes over Canada and the poles. All of these technologies can be significantly affected by space weather.
When we have a big space weather event, we advise all the big airlines and they start redirecting flights away from the polar regions. The most critical thing is that we advise the owners and operators of the electricity grid in Canada and the United States so that they know that this magnetic storm will happen.
This will cause unwanted current in your network and can cause major problems, so they need to take action to protect their critical assets.
Staff at the NOAA Space Weather Forecasting Center in Boulder, Colorado, are monitoring solar activity. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / YouTube)
What a fascinating job you have! How do you work in space time?
We have diverse experience: we have solar physicists, ionospheric physicists, geomagnetic scientists, statisticians, mathematicians and astrophysicists.
We obviously work with a lot of space, 93 million miles, and there are a lot of domains out there, so we have a lot of different scientists working together to better understand and predict what’s going to happen in these particular areas.
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