[HN Gopher] Smartphones can detect solar storms
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Smartphones can detect solar storms
Author : quantum_fan
Score : 19 points
Date : 2021-04-18 19:44 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (academictimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (academictimes.com)
| mulmen wrote:
| Isn't that why solar storms are problematic?
|
| I only skimmed but I didn't see any suggestion of leveraging this
| capability for any benefit. Is there some advantage to making an
| array of solar storm detectors from cell phones instead of pre-
| existing and more capable specialized equipment?
| cryptoz wrote:
| I haven't studied the data that comes from crowdsourced phone
| magnetometers yet, but I expect it would follow some properties
| of other data I've studied, which is
|
| - There are vastly more of these sensors and they are located
| in places where specialized equipment is not
|
| - The data quality per sensor is very low. You typically need a
| lot of sensors in a nearby geography in order to get any kind
| of real data out of it
|
| - Often those geographies where you have lots of smartphones
| aren't covered by the specialized equipment, so you get new
| data that you otherwise didn't have
|
| What I don't know is how valuable that extra coverage is or how
| valuable solar storm data is in the first place.
| cryptoz wrote:
| I'm working on using smartphone sensors to detect anything they
| can relating to weather, including space weather - magnetic
| storms. I've been fascinated with crowdsourcing mobile sensor
| data for like 10 years now and it's only going to get more
| interesting: air quality sensors should be making their way to
| phones soon, others as well.
|
| My open source library with limited sensor features is here:
| https://github.com/JacobSheehy/AllClearSensorLibrary for Android
| 'background' access to sensors (using foreground library). I
| don't think that I've got magnetic data there yet but it's mostly
| a matter of adding another field.
|
| I've got this running live in an Android app if you want to check
| it out:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.allclearwe...
| (US-only for now, sorry about that, international weather data is
| pricey)
|
| I typically track hurricanes with obvious low-pressure curves but
| there's a lot more that can be done.
|
| Crowdsourcing sensor data from phones:
|
| Accelerometers can detect earthquakes, Microphones can detect
| noise pollution, Magnetometers can detect solar activity,
| Barometers can detect weather changes
|
| Most phones have those sensors now, and I'm looking out for UV
| sensors, air quality sensors, and more. The applications of
| crowdsourcing sensor data are immense and constantly improving as
| new sensors get added.
|
| --
|
| The main issues honestly are privacy and noise filtering.
| Ensemble kalman filters running on device can reduce noise
| dramatically, and you can use anonymizing features like
| geographic bounding boxes (where sensors can go in and out and
| only their bounding box is used as location data)
| mulmen wrote:
| I can see benefits for local phenomenon like air quality and
| even temperature. But what's the advantage for using cell phone
| arrays for cosmic scale events like solar storms? Are the
| effects of solar storms that different over small geographic
| areas?
| cryptoz wrote:
| I don't know, but there's only one way to find out!
|
| Lots of people told me that there was no use at all in
| measuring air pressure on scales smaller than the US already
| does with official measurements. But years later, there are
| multiple papers published and I think IBM now uses their
| mobile apps to crowdsource barometer data as it improves
| their weather forecasts.
|
| I'm sure there will be naysayers who even say crowdsourcing
| magnetometer data is useless, but I don't really care or
| think they're right.
|
| AFAIK there isn't a large-scale effort yet to study
| crowdsourced magnetometer data, so we really just don't know
| yet.
|
| > Are the effects of solar storms that different over small
| geographic areas?
|
| I don't know but now I'm extremely curious how small the
| measurable variations are in solar storm effects on Earth.
| And amazingly, there are _billions_ of deployed sensors all
| around Earth right now that are simply not contributing to a
| central network. A simple code library is all that 's needed
| to know this answer, which to me, is amazing, and a reason
| enough to try it out.
| mulmen wrote:
| Yeah after considering this for the last few minutes it
| makes more sense as just capturing all available sensor
| data in advance of any specific question.
|
| I'm not sure that solar storm data specifically is useful,
| maybe interesting. But widespread magnetometer data could
| have all kinds of unexpected applications.
|
| Detecting solar storms with such an array just seems like a
| proof of concept.
| wiml wrote:
| The article headline has been simplified a bit[1]; the storms
| in question are _geomagnetic_ storms[2]. Geomagnetic storms
| are perturbations of Earth 's magnetic field by changes in
| the solar wind (i.e. solar storms).
|
| Having a high-spatial-resolution record of the way the
| Earth's field changes when interacting with the plasma
| presumably yields extra insights into how space weather
| behaves.
|
| [1] The paper: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020SW002669 [2]
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms
| diegoperini wrote:
| I'm okay with giving up my privacy to produce public domain
| data for science.
| peter303 wrote:
| They are already used as earthquake detectors. Each one is not as
| sensitive as a professional seismograph. But thousands of times
| as many make up for that.
|
| https://blog.google/products/android/earthquake-detection-an...
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Smartphones are well-equipped these days with a variety of EMF
| sensors, such as magnetometers.
|
| Makes sense that they'd be good at measuring a powerful magnetic
| event such as a solar storm.
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(page generated 2021-04-18 23:00 UTC)