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

地球空间环境的能量收支在很大程度上受太阳风和磁层之间能量转移的控制。高度变化的太阳风耦合到磁层的程度由行星际磁场和地球磁场之间的磁重联控制。重连驱动耦合磁层-电离层系统中的大尺度等离子体循环，即，在地球空间。地球空间是人类进行空间探索和空间商业开发的区域。拟议的研究方案旨在调查太阳风、磁层和高层大气，特别是电离层之间的耦合，方法是同时进行地面和空间观测：上游太阳风状况、电离层和热层状况、磁层中等离子体的循环、磁场变化和产生极光的磁层电流。对电离层进行地面研究的好处是费用相对低廉，而且能够覆盖广大地区。由于磁层中的所有点都通过地球磁场线与电离层相连，电离层就像一个大屏幕，磁层动态被投射到上面，使得地面仪器能够遥感几乎整个地球空间。相比之下，卫星的优点是能够高精度地就地测量磁层现象，但通常是在高度局部化的区域。地面和空间数据集合在一起提供了关于磁层等离子体物理过程的基本补充信息。对粒子、电磁场和电流的地面和空间联合研究是了解太阳活动对地球空间环境影响的关键。

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.