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Solar flare is one of the severest solar activities on the sun, and it has many important impacts on the near-earth space. It has been found that flight arrival delays will increase during solar flare. However, the detailed intrinsic mechanism of how solar flares influence the delays is still unknown. Based on 5-years huge amount of flight data, here we comprehensively analyze the flight departure delays during 57 solar flares. It is found that the averaged flight departure delay time during solar flares increased by 20.68% (7.67 min) compared to those during quiet periods. It is also shown that solar flare related flight delays reveal apparent time and latitude dependencies. Flight delays during dayside solar flares are more serious than those during nightside flares, and the longer (shorter) delays tend to occur in the lower (higher) latitude airport. Further analyses suggest that flight delay time and delay rate would be directly modulated by the solar intensity (soft X-ray flux) and the Solar Zenith Angle. For the first time, these results indicate that the communication interferences caused by solar flares will directly affect flight departure delay time and delay rate. This work also expands our conventional understandings to the impacts of solar flares on human society, and it could also provide us with brand new views to help prevent or cope with flight delays., Comment: submitted to APJL

Although the sun is really far away from us, some solar activities could still influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems on Earth. Those time-varying conditions in space caused by the sun are also called space weather, as the atmospheric conditions that can affect weather on the ground. It is known that aviation activities can be affected during space weather events, but the exact effects of space weather on aviation are still unclear. Especially how the flight delays, the top topic concerned by most people, will be affected by space weather has never been thoroughly researched. By analyzing huge amount of flight data (~5X106 records), for the first time, we demonstrate that space weather events could have systematically modulating effects on flight delays. The average arrival delay time and 30-minute delay rate during space weather events are significantly increased by 81.34% and 21.45% respectively compared to those during quiet periods. The evident negative correlation between the yearly flight regularity rate and the yearly mean total sunspot number during 22 years also confirms such delay effects. Further studies indicate that the interference in communication and navigation caused by geomagnetic field fluctuations and ionospheric disturbances associated with the space weather events will increase the flight delay time and delay rate. These results expand the traditional field of space weather research and could also provide us with brand new views for improving the flight delay predications., Comment: submitted to science advances

Analyzing the effects of space weather on aviation is a new and developing topic. It has been commonly accepted that the flight time of the polar flights may increase during solar proton events because the flights have to change their route to avoid the high-energy particles. However, apart from such phenomenon, researches related to the flight time during space weather events is very rare. Based on the analyses of 39 representative international air routes around westerlies, it is found that 97.44% (94.87%) of the commercial airplanes on the westbound (eastbound) air routes reveal shorter (longer) flight time during solar proton events compared to those during quiet periods, and the averaged magnitude of change in flight time is ~10 min or 0.21%-4.17% of the total flight durations. Comparative investigations reassure the certainty of such phenomenon that the directional differences in flight time are still incontrovertible regardless of over-land routes (China-Europe) or over-sea routes (China-Western America). Further analyses suggest that the solar proton events associated atmospheric heating will change the flight durations by weakening certain atmospheric circulations, such as the polar jet stream. While the polar jet stream will not be obviously altered during solar flares so that the directional differences in flight time are not found. Besides the conventional space weather effects already known, this paper is the first report that indicates a distinct new scenario of how the solar proton events affect flight time. These analyses are also important for aviation since our discoveries could help the airways optimize the air routes to save passenger time costs, reduce fuel costs and even contribute to the global warming issues., Comment: submitted to Scientific Reports

Turbulence is a chaotic flow regime filled by irregular flows. The dissipation of turbulence is a fundamental problem in the realm of physics. Theoretically, dissipation cannot be ultimately achieved without collisions, and so how turbulent kinetic energy is dissipated in the nearly collisionless solar wind is a challenging problem. Wave particle interactions and magnetic reconnection are two possible dissipation mechanisms, but which mechanism dominates is still a controversial topic. Here we analyze the dissipation region scaling around a solar wind magnetic reconnection region. We find that the magnetic reconnection region shows a unique multifractal scaling in the dissipation range, while the ambient solar wind turbulence reveals a monofractal dissipation process for most of the time. These results provide the first observational evidences for the intermittent multifractal dissipation region scaling around a magnetic reconnection site, and they also have significant implications for the fundamental energy dissipation process., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

Turbulence is a chaotic flow regime filled by irregular flows. The dissipation of turbulence is a fundamental problem in the realm of physics. Theoretically, dissipation cannot be ultimately achieved without collisions, and so how turbulent kinetic energy is dissipated in the nearly collisionless solar wind is a challenging problem. Wave particle interactions and magnetic reconnection are two possible dissipation mechanisms, but which mechanism dominates is still a controversial topic. Here we analyze the dissipation region scaling around a solar wind magnetic reconnection region. We find that the magnetic reconnection region shows a unique multifractal scaling in the dissipation range, while the ambient solar wind turbulence reveals a monofractal dissipation process for most of the time. These results provide the first observational evidences for the intermittent multifractal dissipation region scaling around a magnetic reconnection site, and they also have significant implications for the fundamental energy dissipation process., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

The Magnetic cloud boundary layer (BL) is a dynamic region formed by the interaction of the magnetic cloud (MC) and the ambient solar wind. In the present study, we comparatively investigate the proton and electron mean flux variations in the BL, in the interplanetary reconnection exhaust (RE) and across the MC-driven shock by using the Wind 3DP and MFI data from 1995 to 2006. In general, the proton flux has higher increments at lower energy bands compared with the ambient solar wind. Inside the BL, the core electron flux increases quasi-isotropically and the increments decrease monotonously with energy from ~30% (at 18 eV) to ~10% (at 70 eV); the suprathermal electron flux usually increases in either parallel or antiparallel direction; the correlation coefficient of electron flux variations in parallel and antiparallel directions changes sharply from ~0.8 below 70 eV to ~0 above 70 eV. Similar results are also found for RE. However, different phenomena are found across the shock where the electron flux variations first increase and then decrease with a peak increment (>200%) near 100 eV. The correlation coefficient of electron flux variations in parallel and antiparallel directions is always around 0.8. The similar behavior of flux variations in BL and RE suggests that reconnection may commonly occur in BL. Our work also implies that the strong energy dependence and direction selectivity of electron flux variations, which are previously thought to have no enough relevance to magnetic reconnection, could be considered as an important signature of solar wind reconnection in the statistical point of view., Comment: Flux variations, which are previously thought to have no enough relevance to magnetic reconnection, could be considered as an important signature of solar wind reconnection in the statistical point of view; The Astrophysical Journal(2012)

Here is reported in situ observation of energetic electrons (~100-500 keV) associated with magnetic reconnection in the solar wind by the ACE and Wind spacecraft. The properties of this magnetic cloud driving reconnection and the associated energetic electron acceleration problem are discussed. Further analyses indicate that the electric field acceleration and Fermi type mechanism are two fundamental elements in the electron acceleration processes and the trapping effect of the specific magnetic field configuration maintains the acceleration status that increases the totally gained energy., Comment: First observational evidence of energetic electrons associated with magnetic reconnection in the solar wind; Physical Review Letters(2010)

The Magnetic cloud boundary layer (BL) is a dynamic region formed by the interaction of the magnetic cloud (MC) and the ambient solar wind. In the present study, we comparatively investigate the proton and electron mean flux variations in the BL, in the interplanetary reconnection exhaust (RE) and across the MC-driven shock by using the Wind 3DP and MFI data from 1995 to 2006. In general, the proton flux has higher increments at lower energy bands compared with the ambient solar wind. Inside the BL, the core electron flux increases quasi-isotropically and the increments decrease monotonously with energy from ~30% (at 18 eV) to ~10% (at 70 eV); the suprathermal electron flux usually increases in either parallel or antiparallel direction; the correlation coefficient of electron flux variations in parallel and antiparallel directions changes sharply from ~0.8 below 70 eV to ~0 above 70 eV. Similar results are also found for RE. However, different phenomena are found across the shock where the electron flux variations first increase and then decrease with a peak increment (>200%) near 100 eV. The correlation coefficient of electron flux variations in parallel and antiparallel directions is always around 0.8. The similar behavior of flux variations in BL and RE suggests that reconnection may commonly occur in BL. Our work also implies that the strong energy dependence and direction selectivity of electron flux variations, which are previously thought to have no enough relevance to magnetic reconnection, could be considered as an important signature of solar wind reconnection in the statistical point of view., Comment: Flux variations, which are previously thought to have no enough relevance to magnetic reconnection, could be considered as an important signature of solar wind reconnection in the statistical point of view; The Astrophysical Journal(2012)

Here is reported in situ observation of energetic electrons (~100-500 keV) associated with magnetic reconnection in the solar wind by the ACE and Wind spacecraft. The properties of this magnetic cloud driving reconnection and the associated energetic electron acceleration problem are discussed. Further analyses indicate that the electric field acceleration and Fermi type mechanism are two fundamental elements in the electron acceleration processes and the trapping effect of the specific magnetic field configuration maintains the acceleration status that increases the totally gained energy., Comment: First observational evidence of energetic electrons associated with magnetic reconnection in the solar wind; Physical Review Letters(2010)