A1S2WP4
From Soteria
In order to be able to predict the impact of solar activity on the Earth space environment it is necessary to understand all parts in the chain from the Sun to the Earth:
- How the solar events propagate from the Sun to the Earth as solar wind disturbances,
- how they interact with the surrounding heliospheric medium and change as they propagate,
- how they interact with the Earth magnetosphere,
- and how the magnetosphere responds by building up intense current systems and space radiation and by changing the size and location of the magnetospheric boudaries the auroral oval the and radiation belts and ring current regions
- how the magnetosphere is coupled to the ionosphere and influences ionospheric electron content and disturbances
- and finally the resulting impact on communication systems and spacecraft
The workpackages consists of three elements:
- A set of basic scientific studies adressing different specific issues within this complex physical chain of events.
- Development of new and improved methods to monitor the state of the magnetosphere and space weather based geomagnetic variations
- Validation of and improvement of space weather models and development of new online tools for forecasting.
The basic science studies are grouped in three main tasks:
- Interplanetary propagation
- Solar wind – magnetosphere coupling and the terrestrial impact
- Ionospheric storms and scintillations and the effect on technological systems
To take the full advantage of this interdisciplinary setup, an important organizational objective for the first year was to coordinate and focus the research activities and initiate collaborations.
