The March 2012 Heat Wave in Northeast America as a Possible Effect of Strong Solar Activity and Unusual Space Plasma Interactions

Abstract

In the past two decades, the world has experienced an unprecedented number of extreme weather events, some causing major human suffering and economic damage. The March 2012 heat wave is one of the most known and broadly discussed events in the Northeast United States (NE-USA). The present study examines in depth the possible influence of solar activity on the historic March 2012 heat wave based on a comparison of solar/space and meteorological data. Our research suggests that the historic March 2012 heat wave (M2012HW) and the March 1910 heat wave (M1910HW), which occurred a century earlier in NE-USA, were related to Sun-generated special space plasma structures triggering large magnetic storms. Furthermore, the largest (Dst = −222 nT) magnetic storm during solar cycle 24 in March 2015 (only three years later than the March 2012 events) occurred in relation to another heat wave (M2015HW) in NE-USA. Both these heat waves, M2012HW and M2015HW, resemble each other in many ways: they were characterized by extremely huge temperature increases ΔΤΜ = 30° and 32° (with maximum temperatures ΤΜ = 28° and 23°, respectively) during a positive North Atlantic Oscillation index, the high temperatures coincided with large-scale warm air streaming from southern latitudes, they were accompanied by superstorms caused by unexpected geoeffective interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), and the ICME-related solar energetic particle (SEP) events were characterized by a proton spectrum extending to very high (>0.5 GeV) energies. We infer that (i) all three heat waves examined (M2012HW, M2015HW, M1910HW) were related with strong magnetic storms triggered by effective solar wind plasma structures, and (b) the heat wave in March 2012 and the related solar activity was not an accidental coincidence; that is, the M2012HW was most probably affected by solar activity. Future case and statistical studies are needed to further check the hypothesis put forward here, which might improve atmospheric models in helping people’s safety, health and life.