Research Highlights

Storm-induced ionospheric density variations are a major concern of near-Earth space environment as they could drastically disrupt satellite navigation and telecommunication systems. Although ionospheric disturbances such as traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) and storm enhanced density (SED) are commonly observed during geomagnetic storms, accurate specification of these phenomena remains a great challenge for geospace models.

This work reveals the pathway through which the lower atmosphere impacts the ionosphere weather at mid and low latitudes. An interesting ionospheric phenomena at low to mid-latitudes is the development of the so-called equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs)--the rapid depletion of plasma density during night time.

The ionosphere is different from one day to the next, even under geomagnetic and solar quiet condition. The vertical E×B drift at the geomagnetic equator is a key parameter that influences the state of the ionosphere and atmosphere. In this paper, we study the quiet-time day-to-day variability of the equatorial vertical E×B drift by ROCSAT-1 observations and the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with thermosphere and ionosphere eXtension (WACCM-X) v2.1 simulations.

The Earth’s atmosphere is coupled at high latitude to the magnetosphere. This is a crucial region since energy is put into the upper atmosphere of Earth and is redistributed globally. Numerical models such as general circulation models (GCMs) simulate the effects of the high latitude energy input on the thermosphere-ionosphere system.

GOLD measurements provide the first observational proof of model predictions that the break up of the stratospheric polar vortex changes the composition of the thermosphere.

We examine spectropolarimetric data from the CoMP instrument, acquired during the evolution of the September 10th 2017 X8.2 solar flare on the western solar limb. CoMP captured linearly polarized light from two emission lines of Fe XIII at 1074.7 and 1079.8 nm, from 1.03 to 1.5 solar radii. We focus here on the hot plasma-sheet lying above the bright flare loops and beneath the ejected CME.

We report observations of small-scale swirls seen in the solar chromosphere. They are typically 2 Mm in diameter and last around 10 minutes. Using spectropolarimetric observations obtained by the CRisp Imaging Spectro- Polarimeter at the Swedish 1 m Solar Telescope, we identify and study a set of swirls in chromospheric Ca II 8542 Å and Hα lines as well as in the photospheric Fe I line.

HIWIND (High altitude Interferometer WIND experiment) is a balloon borne Fabry Perot interferometer (FPI) for daytime thermospheric wind observations. In this paper, we examine the summer polar cap thermospheric winds observed by HIWIND with the RISR-C (Resolute Incoherent Scatter Radar-Canada) observed ion drifts and electron densities.

We use the CESM2-WACCM, to study the importance of ozone in the vertical coupling between lower and upper atmosphere during SSWs. During SSWs, the build-up of stratospheric ozone concentrations at tropical latitudes and its increased asymmetrical distribution carries the potential to affect the generation of migrating and non-migrating semidiurnal solar tides.