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。高度变化的太阳风与磁层的耦合程度是由行星际磁场和地球磁场之间的磁重联控制的。在磁层-电离层耦合系统中，即地球空间中，重联驱动大规模等离子体循环。地球空间是人类空间探索和空间商业开发的区域。提出的研究计划旨在研究太阳风、磁层和上层大气，特别是电离层的耦合，通过地面和空间同步观测：上游太阳风条件、电离层和热层的状态、磁层中等离子体的循环、磁场变化和产生极光的磁层电流。基于地面的电离层研究具有相对便宜和能够覆盖广大地区的优点。由于磁层中的所有点都通过地球的磁力线与电离层相连，电离层就像一个大屏幕，将磁层动力学投射到上面，使地面仪器能够远程感知几乎整个地球空间。相比之下，卫星的优点是能够高精度地就地测量磁层现象，但通常是在高度局域化的区域。综合起来，地面和空间数据集提供了磁层中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天基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.