Conveners:
Carlos Martinis (martinis@bu.edu) CEDAR student co-representative
Jichun Zhang (jichunz@umich.edu) GEM student representative
2005 Sunday 26 June 1000 AM - 0415 PM
This year the theme of the student workshop was Magnetosphere-Ionosphere (MI) coupling. During the morning we held a joint session with the GEM community where two speakers invited to give tutorial talks. The plan was to look at this coupling from `above' (magnetospheric point of view) and from `below' (ionospheric point of view). The first speaker, Bob McPherron, from UCLA, talked about MI coupling from the magnetospheric point of view. Basic concepts were introduced as well as the processes that create magnetospheric electric fields and how these create field aligned currents that couple the magnetosphere to the ionosphere. The second speaker, Rod Heelis, from UT Dallas, gave a tutorial on MI coupling from the ionospheric point of view. He discussed the current systems connecting the ionosphere and magnetosphere and the electromagnetic and particle energy inputs. It was interesting to see how similar topics were presented with different perspectives. The active role of the ionosphere regulating the energy transfer from the magnetosphere to the ionosphere was clearly shown.
After lunch we held separate workshops, with the CEDAR workshop continuing with the MI coupling theme. The first speaker was John Foster from MIT Haystack, who stressed the importance of the use of distributed array of small instruments to study MI coupling and gave some example of space weather effects at mid-latitudes. His talk was followed by Cheryl Huang, from AFRL, who showed the presence of low energy electrons from DMSP, during superstorms. Ionospheric conductances calculations usually underestimate the observations during these events, with important consequences for modeling.
The second part of the afternoon session stared with a talk by Stan Sazykin, from Rice University. His focus was on ionospheric electric fields of magnetospheric origin and how they cause re-distribution of electron density at low- and mid-latitudes during geomagnetic storms. Shielding effects and Sub-Auroral Polarization Streams (SAPS) were also discussed. Finally, Dirk Lummerzehin, from the U. of Alaska, talked about MI coupling using the aurora as a typical example. The ionosphere is modified in the aurora, leading to upflowing heavy ions that move into the magnetosphere and provide a source of plasma. A comparative study with the aurora in Jupiter was also presented.
Evaluation forms were handed out to the attendees and the feedback from the students showed that in general they were pleased with the level and selection of topics presented. All the talks are available online at http://cedarweb.hao.ucar.edu/workshop/videolist.html#2005.