Extreme Solar Storm Could Cause Widespread Disruptions on Earth

A burst of solar material leaps off the left side of the sun in what’s known as a prominence eruption. This image combines three images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on May 3, 2013, at 1:45 pm EDT.

WASHINGTON — If an extreme solar storm aimed at the Earth hits in just the right way, it could put interconnected electrical grids around the world at serious risk, experts say.

In addition to creating beautiful auroras, extreme solar stormscould knock out a wide range of electric utilities needed to keep life in the United States and around the world functioning normally, according to presenters here at the fourth annual Electrical Infrastructure Security Summit.

"What [a solar storm] can do — even if it isn't causing a continental-scale outage — it can really cause a regional blackout," said Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado."Imagine something like, for example, Superstorm Sandy. Imagine that kind of severe storm — but causing regional outages for weeks. Living without power really cascades and propagates in remarkable ways throughout our society." [The Worst Solar Storms in History]

As the sun reaches the peak in its 11-year cycle this year, scientists expect that active regions of the star — known as sunspots — will erupt, flinging streams of charged particles out into the solar system. Relatively minor storms can also create temporary radio blackouts and disrupt GPS navigation.

However, this doesn't necessarily mean that all solar eruptions will impact the Earth. Most coronal mass ejections are not aimed toward the planet, and instead shoot out harmlessly into other parts of the solar system. But once every century or so, an extreme solar storm is expected to impact theEarth, Baker told SPACE.com.

The last documented solar storm in this category is known as the Carrington event. Particles from a powerful coronal mass ejection overloaded telegraph wires, setting paper messages on fire in 1859.

These kinds of storms from the sun are notoriously difficult to predict. Experts understand the general conditions under which solar storms occur, but it's hard to forecast just how powerful the storm will be, said Karel Schrijver, a solar scientist and fellow at Lockheed Martin.

"A [coronal mass ejection] takes two to four days to get to the Earth, so if we had more observational resources, to map its motion — and if we had some measurements of the structure of what's going to hit you — there are ways by which we can certainly improve the forecast," Schrijver told SPACE.com.

Scientists can use sun-observing satellites like NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory to monitor, and possibly forecast, solar weather that could be heading toward the planet, Schrijver said.

"There's a lot of space to be explored in terms of computer models that are becoming ever more powerful," Schrijver added. "The heliophysics division at NASA has a wonderful fleet of observatories that looks at the space between the sun and the Earth and the Earth's environment."

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

Philippines protests Chinese warship's presence

Philippines protests presence of Chinese warship, fishing boats in disputed Spratly Islands

Associated Press -

CAVITE, Philippines (AP) -- The Philippines has protested the presence of a Chinese warship, two surveillance vessels and fishing boats off a shoal occupied by its military in the disputed Spratly Islands, in the latest territorial squabble between the Asian countries, officials said Tuesday.

President Benigno Aquino III warned, meanwhile, that the Philippines is ready to fight back against any threat and announced plans to buy more warships and aircraft for its ill-equipped military, including anti-submarine attack helicopters.

"Our message to the whole world is clear: what belongs to the Philippines belongs to the Philippines," Aquino said in a speech at a naval base in Cavite province south of Manila. "We can fight back and defend ourselves every time somebody will threaten us right in our own home ground."

Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said the Philippines denounced the "provocative and illegal presence" of Beijing's ships off Ayungin Shoal in the South China Sea, adding the area is "an integral part of our national territory."

"The Philippines calls on China to respect sovereign rights and jurisdiction," he said.

Chinese diplomats did not immediately react to the protest, which Hernandez said was filed two weeks ago at the Chinese Embassy in Manila.

The shoal, 196 kilometers (122 miles) from the southwestern Philippine province of Palawan, is guarded by a Filipino marine unit based in a rusty warship that ran aground on a coral outcrop several years ago. The shoal lies near Mischief Reef, which the Philippines has claimed but was occupied byChina in 1995, sparking intense protests from Manila.

By allowing fishermen in several boats to fish off the shoal, China has violated the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which grants coastal states exclusive right to exploit marine resources in waters within 370 kilometers (200 nautical miles) of their coast, Hernandez said.

It's the latest territorial rift between the Asian countries, which also are locked in other long-simmering disputes in the South China Sea. Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim parts of the Spratlys, a chain of islands, islets and reefs.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said another protest might be lodged if authorities confirm that two ships which chased a Philippine official's ferry boat last week near Ayungin Shoal were Chinese government vessels.

Eugenio Bito-onon, mayor of a chain of Philippine-occupied islands in the Spratlys, said he was traveling with 178 crewmen and companions on a boat to Palawan at night last week when two unidentified ships chased them away from Ayungin. The ships focused spotlights on Bito-onon's boat, preventing him and his companions from identifying the vessels, he said.

Syrian, Hezbollah troops fight rebels in key town

This citizen journalism image provided by Qusair Lens, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian citizens inspecting the rubble of damaged buildings that were damaged from a Syrian forces air strike in the town of Qusair, near the Lebanon border, Homs province, Syria, Tuesday, May 21, 2013. Several members of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group died of wounds sustained while fighting for control of a strategic Syrian town near the Lebanese border, activists said Tuesday, as the battle in the area raged for its third straight day. (AP Photo/Qusair Lens)

BEIRUT (AP) — Backed by elite troops of Lebanon's militantHezbollah group, Syrian government forces fought rebels in a strategic opposition-held Syrian town near the Lebanese border for the third straight day Tuesday.

Lebanese security officials said fighting between Syrian troops and rebels over the town of Qusair had spread to the village of Hit, on the Syrian side near the border with Lebanon. Two opposition fighters were killed and several others wounded, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army regulations.

The Syrian conflict also spilled into Lebanon as factions supporting opposing sides in Syria's civil war fought in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli. The National News Agency said one person was killed and two others, including a Syrian citizen, were wounded in the clashes. Earlier in the day, six people were wounded in another border area close to Qusair after Syrian shells landed on the Lebanese side, the Lebanese officials said.

Qusair, which had been in rebel hands for more than a year, has been the target of a government offensive in recent weeks, with the surrounding countryside engulfed in fighting as regime troops backed by Hezbollah fighters seized nearby villages and closed in. On Sunday, Assad's forces pushed deep inside the town, taking control of more than 60 percent of it, according to a Syrian official.

At least 31 fighters from the Hezbollah group, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, have been killed in the struggle for the town of Qusair since Sunday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The group, which relies on a wide network of activists on the ground in Syria, said at least 68 rebels and 9 army soldiers were also killed in fighting on Sunday and Monday. There were no reports of casualties in Tuesday's fighting in the area.

The government has not confirmed the soldiers' deaths because Damascus does not publicly acknowledge its own losses in the civil war. Now in its third year, the conflict has claimed more than 70,000 lives.

UNICEF said it was "extremely concerned" about the safety of civilians in Qusair. In a statement Tuesday, the UN child protection agency said up to 20,000 civilians, many of them women and children, could be trapped there by the fighting.

In recent days, hundreds of families have fled into Lebanon, while many others have sought shelter in safer parts of Syria, UNICEF said, adding that it and other aid agencies are providing much needed humanitarian assistance including food, clothes, water and hygiene kits to many of those who have been displaced.

The fighting in Qusair reflects the importance both sides attach to the area.

The town of about 40,000 residents lies along a strategic land corridor linking Damascus with the Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. For the rebels, who like the town are predominantly Sunni, the area has served as a conduit for shipments of weapons and supplies smuggled from Lebanon to the opposition inside Syria.

Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite movement, is heavily invested in the survival of the Damascus regime and is known to have sent fighters to aid government forces. The group's growing role in the conflict next door points to the deeply sectarian nature of the war in Syria, in which a rebellion driven by the country's Sunni majority seeks to overthrow a regime dominated by the Alawite minority.

Hezbollah's growing role in the Syrian war has raised tensions considerably in Lebanon and strengthened concerns of the conflict spilling over the country's volatile border.

The Observatory also reported clashes and shelling elsewhere on Tuesday, including in the north, where the opposition holds large swathes of territory and whole neighborhoods inside Aleppo, Syria's largest city. In Aleppo province, clashes were concentrated around the Kweiras and Mannagh military air bases, the Observatory said.

In Damascus province, three people were killed and 24 others were wounded in mortar attacks on the town of Mleiha, near the capital, state-run SANA news agency said. The report said "terrorist groups" operating near Damascus, the seat of Assad's government, were behind the attacks that also caused significant material damage.

The Syrian government refers to the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad's regime as terrorists and Islamic extremists that are part of a foreign-backed conspiracy against the country.

Also Tuesday, Syria said it destroyed an Israeli vehicle that crossed the cease-fire line in the Golan Heights overnight. The Israeli military however said gunfire from Syria had merely hit an Israeli patrol, damaging a vehicle and prompting its troops to fire back.

Sporadic fire from Syria has occasionally hit the Israeli-controlled area, a strategic plateau Israel captured in the 1967 war. Israel assumes most of the incidents are accidental but its forces have responded on several occasions. Tuesday's incident, however, was the first time the Syrian army acknowledged firing at Israeli troops across the frontier.

____

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

Oklahoma Tornado Leaves 'Very Graphic' Devastation at 'Pancaked' Elementary School

Why Was the Moore, Okla., Tornado So Severe?

A deadly tornado touched down around Oklahoma City, Okla., on May 20, 2013.

A monstrous tornado that ripped through Oklahoma Monday (May 20) piling cars on top of one another, demolishing an elementary school and killing several adults and children, may owe its power and deadliness partly to a convergence of jets of air, say meteorologists.

The preliminarily rated EF-4 tornado touched down at 2:56 p.m. CDT (3:56 p.m. ET) and was on the ground for 40 minutes as it tore a 20-mile-long (32 kilometers) path through Newcastle, Moore and South Oklahoma City, Okla., with winds likely up to 200 mph (320 km/h).

"I think from looking at the helicopter footage, it's safe to say at its strongest point it was probably 2 miles [3.2 km] across, that's a safe assumption," Kurt Van Speybroeck, a meteorologist with theNational Weather Service based in Fort Worth, Texas, told LiveScience. [Image Gallery: Moore, Okla., Tornado Damage]

'Perfect storm'

Moore, Okla., was undoubtedly hit the hardest.

"The debris ball from the tornado, as seen on Doppler radar, expanded to over 2 miles in diameter, and debris was carried over 100 miles [160 km] from Moore," Jeff Masters of Weather Underground wrote on his WunderBlog.

Tornado science is complex and several ingredients are needed to create a monster vortex like the one that spun through Moore; and even then, meteorologists say they can't identify exactly which storms will spawn tornadoes.

"The jet stream had a role, but of course, it is much more complex than that," Keith Brewster of the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms at the University of Oklahoma told LiveScience. "There are several ingredients involved in the creation of a tornado; these include a source of warm, moist air at the surface and colder, generally drier, air above."

Those ingredients were in place yesterday. Essentially, the perfect storm seemed to come together right over Moore.

"The atmosphere was just right in Moore, Oklahoma, for a violent tornado. If you'd gone 25 miles to the north, they had storms but no tornado," Van Speybroeck said. "Right in that location, we call that the local mescoscale, everything was just right in that storm for it to create that really violent vortex."

Tornado formation

To rev up a tornado, wind shear, or a change in wind speed and direction with height, is also needed. "Finally, you need some sort of triggering process to set it all off; in today's case, we had the convergence of air on the dryline southwest of Moore," Brewster told LiveScience on Monday night. That created the supercell storm that spawned Monday's devastating tornado.

The atmosphere above Oklahoma was set up perfectly to spawn tornadoes, due to the convergence of three jetlike streams, including the dry air from the southwest, Van Speybroeck said.

A low-level jet, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet (1,520 meters) was bringing warm, moist and unstable air up from the Gulf of Mexico. Just above that layer, from about 12,000 to 15,000 feet (about 3,700 to 4,600 m), a southwesterly jet of dry air blew in from the plateau of Mexico and northern Mexico. This southwesterly flow created the turning of the atmosphere above the unstable layer, Van Speybroeck said. The result can be a long-lasting supercell thunderstorm that is ripe for tornado spawning, which is what happened over Moore.

Adding to the mix, at about 20,000 to 25,000 feet (6,000 to 7,600 m), a high-speed jet of cold, dry air swooped west across the Rockies. This upper-level jet can reach speeds of 80 to 100 mph (130 to 160 km/h), and the air in it gets colder and drier with height, acting to pull the warmer, moist air upward and creating updrafts. Updrafts push storm winds that are rotating horizontally so that they are rotating vertically, creating a funnel cloud. Rains and hail in a storm then push the tail of the funnel cloud down until it touches the ground.

Follow Jeanna Bryner on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.