SA24B-01
Geospace Imaging: The Big Picture
Various regions of the geospace environment have been named and are often studied as if they exist in isolation. Yet emerging high quality multidisciplinary global datasets clearly demonstrate the complex and highly variable synergy among traditional space physics regimes. As a result, interdisciplinary endeavors, such as for example, magnetospheric-ionospheric coupling studies, are growing rapidly but face difficult challenges in understanding just how the various geospace regions interact. The recent progression of global imaging missions and the encouraging efforts to interface models of the various geospace regions give hope that one day we may actually be able to literally see "the big picture" that is crucial for understanding the space environment as a whole system. Ultimately we may be able to trace the paths of radiation and plasma eruptions from their origins at the Sun through to the responsive interactions among the magnetosphere, plasmasphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere. This lecture will trace the evolution of global imaging, from the initial measurements, to what we are learning now, to innovative prospects for developing new understanding from big pictures of the neutral and ionized components of geospace.