Position-Dependent Space Weather Hazards of Societal Significance in the Earth-Ionosphere Waveguide

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The goal of the proposed research is to greatly improve our ability to understand and predictspace weather hazards to (1) electric power grids; and (2) electromagnetic wave propagation inthe Earth-ionosphere waveguide up to ~20 kHz. The methodology of the proposed work is toadvance and apply detailed, high-resolution Maxwell's equations models of the Earth-ionospherewaveguide developed by the project over the past decade. The project's three-dimensional (3-D) modelsuniquely include such details as the Earth?s complete topography, oceans, lithospherecomposition, geomagnetic field, and ionospheric plasma. The proposed research study is unique as existing analytical formulations or computationalapproaches applied to the investigated topics above do not solve the complete Maxwell'sequations while also accounting for all of the 3-D geometrical details and time variability aspermitted by the project's models.A 2008 National Academies report indicates that extreme spaceweather events, "though rare, are likely to occur again some time in the future." However, a re-occurrenceof an 1859-magnitude CME-driven geomagnetic storm could disrupt today's humansociety to a much greater degree than in 1859 due to the proliferation of vital but vulnerableelectro-technologies. The first goal of the proposed modeling is to help individual power gridstations understand their specific vulnerability to space weather. The second goal of theproposed modeling is to help improve our understanding of electromagnetic propagation in theEarth-ionosphere waveguide under disturbed conditions. Applications that may benefit from thiswork include: remote sensing of the lower ionosphere, hypothesized electromagnetic earthquakeprecursors, propagation from lightning, geolocation, communications, and even globaltemperature change.