HR: 1400h
AN: SA33A-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Coupling a polar wind model to the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF)
AU: Glocer, A
EM: aglocer@umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, 2455 Hayward St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2143, United States
AU: * Gombosi, T
EM: tamas@umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, 2455 Hayward St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2143, United States
AU: Toth, G
EM: gtoth@umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, 2455 Hayward St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2143, United States
AU: Hansen, K
EM: kenhan@umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, 2455 Hayward St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2143, United States
AU: Ridley, A
EM: ridley@umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, 2455 Hayward St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2143, United States
AB: Polar wind and other ionospheric outflows are a vital source of plasma to the magnetosphere. Ambipolar electric fields, Field Aligned Currents (FACs), Joule heating, centrifugal acceleration, wave-particle interactions, and other physical phenomenon accelerate plasma and can lead to mass flow from the ionosphere to the magnetosphere. Most Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (MIC) in models ignores these processes instead relying on pressure gradient terms to draw plasma off the inner boundary of the magnetosphere. We present preliminary results of new efforts to incorporate this important physics into the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF). In particular, we use the Polar Wind Outflow Model (PWOM), a field-aligned multi-fluid polar wind code, and describe efforts to couple it to the Upper Atmosphere (UA), Ionosphere Electrodynamics (IE), and Global Magnetosphere (GM) components of the SWMF. We present our methodology for the MIC, as well as several controlled numerical experiments demonstrating the importance of different physical processes.
DE: 2431 Ionosphere/magnetosphere interactions (2736)
DE: 2451 Particle acceleration
DE: 2475 Polar cap ionosphere
DE: 2481 Topside ionosphere
DE: 2499 General or miscellaneous
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly