HR: 14:25h
AN: AE43A-04 INVITED [Abstracts]
TI: Non-classical Generators in the Global Electric Circuit
AU: * Wiltberger, M
EM: wiltbemj@ucar.edu
AF: NCAR/HAO, 3080 Center Green, Boulder, CO 80301, United States
AB:
The electrodynamics of the Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere has been a topic of considerable interests for
many decades. There are three main sources of current in this circuit, thunderstorms, the ionospheric dynamo,
and the magnetospheric dynamo. This presentation will begin with a review of the both the ionospheric and
magnetospheric dynamos. The ionospheric dynamo primarily operates at equatorial latitudes and is driven by
tidal motions of the neutral atmosphere. The magnetospheric dynamo is driven by the coupling between the
Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind. Current modeling of these systems is primarily global scale and does
not consider coupling with the thunderstorm sources, but we will discuss some of the early work in this area and
pathways for including this modeling in global scale models.
DE: 2409 Current systems (2721)
DE: 2427 Ionosphere/atmosphere interactions (0335)
DE: 2431 Ionosphere/magnetosphere interactions (2736)
SC: Atmospheric and Space Electricity [AE]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting