LWS TR&T Focus
Teams:
Storm effects on
global electrodynamics and middle and low latitude ionosphere
Team Chair:
Tim Fuller-Rowell
Next Team Meeting: September 14, 2007 at NCAR in Boulder,
CO
Team-Maintained
Web Site:
Team Publications:
Team Members:
- Akmaev, Rashid
- Brandt, Pontus
- Fejer, Bela
- Foster, John
- Greenwald, Raymond
- Mannucci, Anthony
- Sazykin, Stanislav
- Talaat, Elsayed
Target description:
Magnetic storms cause large departures of electric field from their
quiet values and large changes in the mid and low latitude ionosphere.
The electric field perturbations cover a broad range of spatial and
temporal scales and strongly affect plasmaspheric erosion and reconfiguration,
ionospheric
dynamics and plasma distribution, and the occurrence of ionospheric
plasma instabilities which can severely disrupt communication and navigation
systems over a large area of the Earth. Significant progress has been
achieved in our understanding of mid and low latitude storm-time electrodynamics
and their effects on the ionosphere by the use of TEC and global imaging,
but there are fundamentally important unresolved questions dealing with
their large spatial and temporal variability. A global understanding
of this variability and of the processes involved is essential for realistic
storm time ionospheric forecasting,
which is increasingly important for a number of space based systems.
Goals and
measures of success: The goal of this targeted research is
to produce improved understanding and forecasting capabilities of storm
electrodynamics from subauroral to equatorial latitudes and their effects
on the ionosphere in response to different solar wind and magnetospheric
conditions. The forecasting of these storm effects from numerical models
will be validated against global electric field and ionospheric measurements,
taking into account variations with longitude, season, and solar flux.
Types of solicited investigations: Proposals that address
this topic are encouraged to consider storm electrodynamics from a global
ionosphericmagnetospheric perspective. The research objectives of proposals
will include modeling and empirical investigations that deal with (1)
techniques to improve the specification and forecasting of magnetospheric
parameters that play fundamental roles in middle and low latitude storm
electrodynamics; (2) techniques that substantially enhance the database
of global mid and low latitude electric field measurements; (3) the
generation of mid-latitude polarization electric fields, their temporal
and global spatial dependence, and their relationship to lower latitude
storm electrodynamics; and (4) the storm time dependence and global
distribution of prompt penetration electric fields from subauroral to
equatorial latitudes under different solar, ionospheric, and magnetospheric
conditions and their effects on the ionosphere.
