All articles tagged with #agu advances
New research maps how a Carrington-scale geomagnetic storm could disrupt North American power grids, with the Northeast and Northern Plains most at risk and daily economic losses around $1.5–$2 billion; outages could last from hours to weeks, though forewarnings and grid hardening—illustrated by the May 2024 Gannon storm—could help mitigate impacts.
New AGU Advances research using Juno data directly estimates the power of Jupiter’s lightning and finds its storms unleash far more energetic discharges than on Earth, likely due to Jupiter’s tall, hydrogen-rich atmosphere and deep moist convection that store energy before release, revealing different lightning physics and making Jupiter a natural laboratory for extreme weather.
A study using NASA’s Juno data suggests Jupiter’s lightning may be enormously more powerful than Earth’s—potentially up to a million times stronger. By analyzing the planet’s radio emissions rather than optical flashes and focusing on long-lived “stealth” storms in Jupiter’s belts, researchers estimated lightning pulses with power ranging from Earth-like bolts to far more powerful discharges. The findings, which consider Jupiter’s hydrogen-dominated atmosphere and towering storm clouds (up to ~62 miles tall), aim to explain why Jovian lightning is so energetic and were published in AGU Advances.