The coupling of the solar wind to the Earth’s magnetosphere

2007 ◽  
pp. 103-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher T. Russell
Keyword(s):  
Solar Wind ◽  
Earth’S Magnetosphere ◽  
Earth's Magnetosphere

scholarly journals Space Weather, SuperDARN and the Tasmanian Tiger

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond A. Greenwald
Keyword(s):  
Solar Wind ◽  
Electric Fields ◽  
Space Weather ◽  
Interplanetary Space ◽  
Rapid Evolution ◽  
Upper Atmosphere ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Pressure Gradients ◽  
Earth’S Magnetosphere ◽  
Earth's Magnetosphere

The plasma environment extending from the solar surface through interplanetary space to the outermost reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field is dynamic, often disturbed, and capable of harming humans and damaging manmade systems. Disturbances in this environment have been identified as space weather disturbances. At the present time there is growing interest in monitoring and predicting space weather disturbances. In this paper we present some of the difficulties involved in achieving this goal by comparing the processes that drive tropospheric-weather systems with those that drive space-weather systems in the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The former are driven by pressure gradients which result from processes that heat and cool the atmosphere. The latter are driven by electric fields that result from interactions between the streams of ionised gases emerging from the Sun (solar wind) and the Earth’s magnetosphere. Although the dimensions of the Earth’s magnetosphere are vastly greater than those of tropospheric weather systems, the global space-weather response to changes in the solar wind is much more rapid than the response of tropospheric-weather systems to changing conditions. We shall demonstrate the rapid evolution of space-weather systems in the upper atmosphere through measurements with a global network of radars known as SuperDARN. We shall also describe how the SuperDARN network is evolving, including a newly funded Australian component known as the Tasman International Geospace Environmental Radar (TIGER).

A UNIFYING THEORY OF HIGH-LATITUDE GEOPHYSICAL PHENOMENA AND GEOMAGNETIC STORMS

1961 ◽  
Vol 39 (10) ◽  
pp. 1433-1464 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. I. Axford ◽  
C. O. Hines
Keyword(s):  
Solar Wind ◽  
Steady State ◽  
High Latitude ◽  
Geomagnetic Storms ◽  
High Latitudes ◽  
Full Understanding ◽  
Earth’S Magnetosphere ◽  
Trapped Particles ◽  
Outer Portion ◽  
Earth's Magnetosphere

This paper is concerned with the occurrence at high latitudes of a large number of geophysical phenomena, including geomagnetic agitation and bay disturbances, aurorae, and various irregular distributions of ionospheric electrons. It shows that these may all be related in a simple way to a single causal agency, namely, a certain convection system in the outer portion of the earth's magnetosphere. The source of this convection is taken to be a viscous-like interaction between the magnetosphere and an assumed solar wind, though other sources of an equivalent nature may also be available. The model is capable of accounting for many aspects of the phenomena concerned, including the morphology of auroral forms and the occurrence of 'spiral' patterns in the loci of maximum intensities of several features. It also bears directly on the steady state of the magnetosphere, and in particular on the production of trapped particles in the outer Van Allen belt. In short, it provides a new basis on which a full understanding of these several phenomena may in time be built.

scholarly journals Solar wind interaction with the Earth's magnetosphere: the role of reconnection in the presence of a large scale sheared flow

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Califano ◽  
M. Faganello ◽  
F. Pegoraro ◽  
F. Valentini
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Solar Wind ◽  
Magnetic Reconnection ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Magnetic Layer ◽  
Magnetic Islands ◽  
Solar Wind Interaction ◽  
Earth’S Magnetosphere ◽  
Earth's Magnetosphere

Abstract. The Earth's magnetosphere and solar wind environment is a laboratory of excellence for the study of the physics of collisionless magnetic reconnection. At low latitude magnetopause, magnetic reconnection develops as a secondary instability due to the stretching of magnetic field lines advected by large scale Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices. In particular, reconnection takes place in the sheared magnetic layer that forms between adjacent vortices during vortex pairing. The process generates magnetic islands with typical size of the order of the ion inertial length, much smaller than the MHD scale of the vortices and much larger than the electron inertial length. The process of reconnection and island formation sets up spontaneously, without any need for special boundary conditions or initial conditions, and independently of the initial in-plane magnetic field topology, whether homogeneous or sheared.

scholarly journals Interplanetary magnetic field rotations followed from L1 to the ground: the response of the Earth's magnetosphere as seen by multi-spacecraft and ground-based observations

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 1549-1569 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Volwerk ◽  
J. Berchem ◽  
Y. V. Bogdanova ◽  
O. D. Constantinescu ◽  
M. W. Dunlop ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Solar Wind ◽  
Dynamic Pressure ◽  
Earth’S Magnetosphere ◽  
Solar Wind Magnetic Field ◽  
Earth's Magnetosphere ◽  
High Dynamic ◽  
First Time ◽  
Current Systems ◽  
The Magnetic Field

Abstract. A study of the interaction of solar wind magnetic field rotations with the Earth's magnetosphere is performed. For this event there is, for the first time, a full coverage over the dayside magnetosphere with multiple (multi)spacecraft missions from dawn to dusk, combined with ground magnetometers, radar and an auroral camera, this gives a unique coverage of the response of the Earth's magnetosphere. After a long period of southward IMF Bz and high dynamic pressure of the solar wind, the Earth's magnetosphere is eroded and compressed and reacts quickly to the turning of the magnetic field. We use data from the solar wind monitors ACE and Wind and from magnetospheric missions Cluster, THEMIS, DoubleStar and Geotail to investigate the behaviour of the magnetic rotations as they move through the bow shock and magnetosheath. The response of the magnetosphere is investigated through ground magnetometers and auroral keograms. It is found that the solar wind magnetic field drapes over the magnetopause, while still co-moving with the plasma flow at the flanks. The magnetopause reacts quickly to IMF Bz changes, setting up field aligned currents, poleward moving aurorae and strong ionospheric convection. Timing of the structures between the solar wind, magnetosheath and the ground shows that the advection time of the structures, using the solar wind velocity, correlates well with the timing differences between the spacecraft. The reaction time of the magnetopause and the ionospheric current systems to changes in the magnetosheath Bz seem to be almost immediate, allowing for the advection of the structure measured by the spacecraft closest to the magnetopause.

scholarly journals Chasing Down the Slow Solar Wind

Eos ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Kepko
Keyword(s):  
Solar Wind ◽  
Slow Solar Wind ◽  
Earth’S Magnetosphere ◽  
Earth's Magnetosphere

The Sun's plasma blasts Earth's magnetosphere at more than a million miles per hour. The fastest pours from holes in the corona, but until recently the source of the "slow" solar wind was a mystery.

scholarly journals XFTRISTAN: A program to visualize the interaction between solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere

2008 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Blanco-Benavides ◽  
F. Frutos-Alfaro
Keyword(s):  
Solar Wind ◽  
Earth’S Magnetosphere ◽  
Particle In Cell ◽  
Earth's Magnetosphere

XFTRISTAN es una interfaz gráfica para el programa TRISTAN, un código basado en el método PIC (particle in cell) tridimensional. Este código ha sido ampliamente usado para investigar la naturaleza cinética de los procesos de plasmas espaciales que van desde aplicaciones relacionadas con la interacción de viento solar con la tierra hasta la topología de la reconexión magnética. La primera versión del XFTRISTAN provee un camino fácil para la introducción de parámetros de entrada, visualizaciones de campos y partículas, varias herramientas de diagnóstico y generación automática de imágenes. En este artículo presentamos las ventajas y virtudes de nuestra interfaz gráfica y los primeros resultados de las simulaciones.

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