HR: 10:35h
AN: SA42A-02    [Abstracts]
TI: Challenges and Opportunities for Ionospheric-Thermospheric Research
AU: * Kintner, P M
EM: pmk1@cornell.edu
AF: Cornell University, 302 Rhodes Hall, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ithaca, NY 14853
AB: Over the past five years our understanding and appreciation of the ionosphere and thermosphere have changed dramatically with the realization that they are strongly coupled to each other and the magnetosphere. The experimental technology that made this advance possible is chains of GPS receivers and imaging, both from the ground and from space. Added to this technology is the progress of modeling the ionosphere and thermosphere and the promise of modeling the magnetosphere including its interaction with the ionosphere. With these tools we now know that the mid-latitude ionosphere, once thought to inactive, is the home to vast movements of ionization during magnetic storms followed by global changes in thermospheric winds and chemistry leading to a complex ionosphere during the recovery period. At the regional scale TIDS, electrobouyancy waves, and irregularities indicate that ionosphere is even more complex than these early results suggest. Given this progress now is an appropriate time to inquire and debate what is required for future progress. Three major goals come to mind. First a global understanding of the thermosphere and how it responds to magnetic storms is essential. In part this will be achieved through modeling but obtaining the required inputs and validating the models will be a challenge. No in situ measurements of thermospheric winds and composition outside the tropics is currently planned although thermospheric composition through imaging from MEO or GEO may be possible. Next a global understanding of the inner magnetosphere, the (partial) ring current, electric fields, and the interaction of currents with ionospheric conductivity gradients is required. The inner magnetosphere is likely responsible for the process called positive-phase ionospheric storms but the combination of measurements plus models has yet to reproduce the existing observations. The Radiation Belt Storm Probes may be able to contribute to this goal with an electric field instrument. Lastly an investigation of the ionosphere at the regional scale will require imaging either by dense arrays of GPS receivers or by regional imagers in orbit with a resolution of 10 km. The DASI program and narrow field imagers from GEO may contribute to this goal. Finally one should keep in mind that much of positive-phase ionospheric storms occur on the dayside where we have the least information and the greatest difficulty in imaging the ionosphere.
DE: 2443 Midlatitude ionosphere
DE: 6929 Ionospheric physics (1240, 2400)
DE: 7949 Ionospheric storms (2441)
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005