Solar Wind Influences on the Earth's Space Environment: Solar Wind-Magnetosphere-Atmosphere Coupling

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The energy budget of Earth's space environment is controlled largely by the energy transfer between the solar wind and the magnetosphere. The degree to which the highly variable solar wind couples to the magnetosphere is controlled by magnetic reconnection between the interplanetary magnetic field and the Earth's magnetic field. Reconnection drives large-scale plasma circulation in the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere system, i.e., in geospace. Geospace is the region where human space exploration and commercial exploitation of space takes place. The proposed research program aims to investigate the coupling of the solar wind, the magnetosphere and the upper atmosphere, particularly the ionosphere, via simultaneous ground- and space-based observations of: the upstream solar wind conditions, the state of the ionosphere and thermosphere, the circulation of plasma in the magnetosphere, magnetic field variations, and the magnetospheric currents that produce aurora. Ground-based studies of the ionosphere have the advantages of being relatively inexpensive and able to cover vast areas. Since all points in the magnetosphere are linked to the ionosphere by the Earth's magnetic field lines, the ionosphere acts as a large screen onto which magnetosphere dynamics are projected, allowing ground based instrument to remotely sense nearly the entirety of geospace. Satellites, in contrast, have the advantage of being able to measure magnetospheric phenomena in situ with high precision but usually in highly localized regions. Taken together, ground- and space-based datasets provide essential complementary information on plasma physics processes in the magnetosphere. Joint ground- and space-based studies of particles, electromagnetic fields, and currents hold the key to understanding the influence of solar activity on the Earth's space environment.