Research Highlights

Research Highlights

A selection of highlights culled from publications by HAO staff.

Simulations of hemispherically integrated Joule heating [GW] polewardd

Magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling via prescribed field-aligned current simulated by the TIEGCM

A. Maute, A.D. Richmond, G. Lu, D. Knipp, Y. Shi, B. Anderson assert that the magnetosphere-ionosphere (MI) coupling is crucial in modeling the thermosphere-ionosphere (TI) response to geomagnetic activity. They introduce a new method  using observed FAC and solve for the interhemispherically asymmetric electric potential distribution. 

3D MHD simulation of the emergence of a twisted magnetic flux tube

Validation of the PDFI SS method for electric field inversions using magnetic flux emergence simulations

A.N. Afanasyev, M.D. Kazachenko, Y. Fan, G.H. Fisher, and B. Tremblay further validate the PDFI SS method, using approximately one–hour long MHD simulation data of magnetic flux emergence from the upper convection zone into the solar atmosphere. They reconstruct photo- spheric electric fields and calculate the Poynting flux, and compare those to the actual values from the simulations.

Coupled model of thermosphere-ionosphere-magnetosphere system

Thermospheric Impact on the Magnetosphere through Ionospheric Outflow

Kevin Pham, William Lotko, Roger Varney, Binzheng Zhang, Jing Liu have taken a key step in evaluating the importance of ionospheric outflows relative to electrodynamic coupling in the thermosphere’s impact on geospace dynamics.  Their simulation results identify a variety of observed magnetospheric features that are attributable directly to the thermosphere’s material influence.

Altitudinal and Latitudinal Images

Neutral composition and temperature responses to the 20-21 November 2003 Superstorm from GUVI dayside limb measurements

Tingting Yu, Wenbin Wang, Zhipeng Ren, and Jia Yue use TIMED/GUVI limb measurements of FUV airglow emission to investigate thermospheric composition and temperature responses to the 20-21 November 2003 (day of year (DOY) 324 and 325) superstorm. The storm-time composition and temperature responses were global and evolved continuously as the storm progressed.

Two rows of colorful squares, 8 total, showing coronal geyser jet action

Thermal and Non-thermal Properties of Active Region Recurrent Coronal Jets Publication Name

Alin R. Paraschiv, Alina C. Donea, and Philip G. Judge present comprehensive observations of recurrent active region coronal jets, and derive their thermal and non-thermal properties. We discuss a peculiar penumbral magnetic reconnection site, which we previously identified as a "Coronal Geyser".

6 blue earth images showing the progression of nightside vertical ion drift

Penetrating Electric Field Simulated by the MAGE and Comparison with ICON Observation

Qian Wu, Wenbin Wang, Dong Lin, Chaosong Huang, and Yongliang Zhang use the newly developed, Multiscale Atmosphere-Geospace Environment (MAGE) model to simulate the penetrating electric field in the equatorial region under different interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) BZ conditions during September 2020.

Lower-atmosphere processes in the ionosphere-thermosphere

Scientific Motivations and Future Directions of Whole Atmosphere Modeling

Dr. Nick Pedatella asserts that the advancement of whole atmosphere models has contributed to understanding the significant role terrestrial weather has on generating variability in the ionosphere-thermosphere.

Daily averaged TEC

On the variability of total electron content over Europe during the 2009 and 2019 Northern Hemisphere SSWs

T. A. Siddiqui, Y. Yamazaki, C. Stolle, A. Maute, J. Lastovicka , I. K. Edemskiy, Z. Mosna investigated the variations of the TEC over Europe during two northern hemisphere SSWs events in 2009 and 2019 examining the dominant drivers and their respective contributions to TEC changes during both SSW events.

CPU-GPU strong scaling of a multi-band 288x288x288 dataset

Refactoring the MPS/University of Chicago Radiative MHD (MURaM) Model for GPU/CPU Performance Portability Using OpenACC Directives

E. Wright, D. Przybylski, M. Rempel, C. Miller, S. Suresh, S. Su, R. Loft and S. Chandrasekaran present challenges and strategies to accelerate a multi-physics, multi-band MURaM using a directive-based programming model, OpenACC in order to maintain a single source code across CPUs and GPUs.