For the above internal button please use earthplasma as username. And the password given out during the workshop.

ISSI Local Organisation:

Jennifer Zaugg

Telephone +41 31 631 48 96

Fax +41 31 631 48 97

Email:

ISSI Computer Administrator:

Saliba F. Saliba

Email:

Location of ISSI >>
 
 
 
 
 

Workshop Objectives:

Two environments of Earth permeate the near-Earth space: the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's plasma envelope. The atmosphere extends out from Earth's surface up to an altitude of – very roughly – below ~1000 km. The Earth's plasma environment starts from altitudes – also very roughly – above ~50-70 km and stretches out far into space.

While the Earth's atmosphere forms – again very roughly – an about spherical shell around Earth, with its extended uppermost layer the thermosphere, the Earth's plasma environment is about spherical only at its bottom layer, the ionosphere. At altitudes above about ~1000 km it becomes completely ruled by the geometry and dynamics of Earth's magnetic field, forming a spatially inhomogeneous and asymmetric and temporarily highly variable envelope that, from mid- to low latitudes and geocentric distances below roughly ~4-5 Earth radii, forms the plasmasphere that is attached to the closed low latitude geomagnetic field lines. At high latitudes, on the open auroral and polar geomagnetic field lines, it connects to the magnetosphere und is subject to its violent dynamics.

Both Earth's envelopes are usually treated as separate entities. Their interaction has for long time and for historical reasons been considered only in the context of the physics of the ionosphere, with the atmosphere acting as the source of ionization that is due to solar UV irradiance plus a small contribution from occasional particle precipitation from the radiation belts and in the aurora.

The present Workshop

* intends to closer investigate the interrelationship between the two environments based on the increase of knowledge in both, atmospheric and space plasma physics;

* in pioneering this widely unexplored area, intends to bring together experts from both fields for mutual information and selecting promising areas for further investigation;

* it intends to find out up to what degree it can be expected that the dynamics of the atmosphere – and possibly the climate – affect the dynamics and "climate" of Earth's plasma environment, e.g. contributing to Space Weather;

* vice versa, it intends to identify those areas in which the plasma envelope of Earth may possibly affect the dynamics of the Earth's atmosphere, contributing to its chemistry, temperature structure and balance, and its radiative and absorptive properties as well as its long-term trends.

Topics to be discussed:

    * Long-term trends and solar cycle variations in the atmosphere-ionosphere transition (AIT) region

    * Tides, planetary waves, seasonal variations and stratospheric heating

    * Gravity wave effects and their role in the coupling

    * Joule and other ways of heating by plasma effects

    * NOx, transport and the role of SEP effects

    * Lightning associated coupling phenomena, TLEs, TGFs

    * VLF-ULF phenomena of possible importance in the coupling

Workshop Convenors:  

Tilman Bösinger, University of Oulu, Finland
Bodil Karlsson, LASP, CU, Boulder CO, USA
James LaBelle, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH, USA
Hermann Opgenoorth, ESTEC, Nijmegen, Holland and University of Uppsala, Sweden
Jean-Pierre Pommereau, Universite de Paris VII, Jussieu, Paris, France
Kazuo Shiokawa, STELAB, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Stanley Solomon, NCAR, Boulder CO, USA
Lennart Bengtsson, ISSI director Earth Sciences, ISSI connection
Rudolf Treumann, Munich University, Munich, Germany, ISSI connection

 

last update 14 October 2010