RUI: The Role of the Ionosphere in Determining Magnetospheric Dynamics

该补助金支持在私立本科院校的研究。这笔资金的大部分用于支持学生参与基础空间气象研究。具体来说，他们将研究高海拔非中性大气层（电离层）如何影响地球磁场（磁层）中的传输模式。这涉及到将极光数据纳入现有的预测模型。这将提高公众理解和预测空间天气的能力，最终通过帮助保护人类技术免受空间天气现象的损害而提供更广泛的社会效益。 许多研究都集中在太阳风驱动来解释磁层传输的不同模式，而忽略了电离层的作用。该项目将调查电离层反馈是否有助于确定磁层进入何种模式。该团队将结合极光数据和建模来计算这些事件期间的电离层电导，焦耳加热和其他参数。通过使用极地紫外线可见光极光图像作为全球电离层-热层模型的输入，预计将对这些模式期间的电离层关键参数进行精确模拟，这是此类研究中的第一次。

This grant supports research at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution. The majority of this funding goes to supporting the students to participation in fundamental space weather research. Specifically, they will investigate how the high altitude, non-neutral atmosphere (the ionosphere) affects modes of transport in Earth's magnetic field (the magnetosphere). This involves incorporating auroral data into an existing predictive model. This will improve the community's ability to understand and predict space weather ultimately providing a broader societal benefit by helping to protect human technology from damage due to space weather phenomenon. Many studies have focused on the solar wind driving to explain the different modes of magnetospheric transport, while ignoring the role of the ionosphere. This project will investigate if ionospheric feedback helps determine what mode the magnetosphere enters. The team will incorporate both auroral data and modeling to calculate the ionospheric conductance, Joule heating, and other parameters during these events. By using Polar UVI auroral images as an input to the Global Ionosphere-Thermosphere Model (GITM), accurate simulations of key ionospheric parameters during these modes are anticipated, making this the first study of its kind.