Space Weather Month Workshop, Ionospheric and Atmospheric Activity

Cesar Valladares (valladar@bc.edu), Boston College
Alan Burns (aburns@ucar.edu), HAO/NCAR
Apache Group, 4:00-6:00 PM
Thursday, June 21, 2001

Space Weather Month is a month-long campaign interval during September 1999, that was conceived and coordinated under the auspices of SCOSTEP's S-RAMP program. The campaign studies are structured into 6 sub-workshops, each of which communicate and share information within a main campaign workshop (chaired by Janet Kozyra (jukozyra@engin.umich.edu). The 6 sub-workshops and corresponding chairpersons are: Prediction (G. Heckman), Solar/Solar Wind (D. Webb), Magnetosphere (N. Fox), Ionosphere (C. Valladares and P. Wilkinson), Atmosphere (A. Burns), and Effects (D. Boteler). Unique aspect of the campaign are the close involvement of both the effects and predictions communities and the close electronic collaboration between diverse science communities necessary to investigate complex coupling processes in the sun-Earth chain. It is intended that this workshop will be run largely on an electronic basis through the web site (http://worktools.si.umich.edu) with supplementary face-to-face meetings in appropriate existing meeting venues. Participants are encouraged to register at the UM worktools web site and to contact the chairs of sub-workshops in which they would like to participate to be added to the participant lists within these sub-workshops. All participants will automatically become members of the main campaign workshop.

The campaign as a whole has the following 3 aims:

1. To investigate the dynamical response of the magnetosphere-ionosphere-atmosphere system to various solar and solar wind drivers.
2. To trace identified geoeffective solar wind drivers to their sources at the Sun
3. To identify the resulting effects on technological systems in space and on the ground

Geoeffectiveness of storm drivers: To address this issue, we plan on comparing the response of the MIA system to solar wind drivers during the 15-17 September 1999 (S1), 19 October 1999 (S2), April 2000 (S3) and July 2000 (S4) magnetic storms. S2 and S3 had similar solar wind drivers yet produced different storm intensities (as defined by Dst*). Whereas, S3 and S4 had very different solar wind drivers yet produced similar magnetic storm intensities. Of interest is how other geoeffectiveness measures rank these events. The intended comparisons raise questions about the roles of preconditioning and the saturation of the polar cap potential drop, among other issues, and about how energy is apportioned throughout the entire Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Atmosphere (MIA) system in response to different solar wind drivers. This apportionment underlies variations in technological system effects.

Storm-Substorm Coupling: One plan to address this issue in the campaign is a comparison of the small magnetic storm on Sept 15-17,1999 with a steady magnetospheric convection event. The goal is to examine the response of the MIA system to storms with and without simultaneous substorm activity. Included in this work will be studies of the effects of prompt penetrating electric fields on the onset of scintillations at equatorial latitudes and the distribution and effect of the disturbance dynamo on the occurrence of scintillation. These effects occur during major storms; do they also occur during substorms and the small storms discussed in the next paragraph.

Relative geoeffectiveness of high speed streams during different IMF BZ orientations: Two high speed streams were seen between 23 Sept 1999 and 30 Sept 1999. During the first, fluctuating IMF Bz was mostly positive, whereas in the second it frequently reached negative values. There were significant radiation belt fluxes in the second event but fluxes were weak in the first. One question for this workshop is: what were the ionospheric and atmospheric effects of the two events.

This workshop will concentrate on the ionospheric and atmospheric aspects of Space Weather Month, although the discussion of linkages with other disciplines is encouraged. It will be comprised of: a short introduction to the Space Weather Month campaign, a demonstration of the electronic tools that will be used during the campaign, short presentations and finally a discussion period at the end of the workshop.

If you wish to make a presentation or if you have any questions please contact Alan Burns (aburns@ucar.edu) or Cesar Valladares (valladar@bc.edu)