The Ionosphere – Theremosphere – Magnetosphere coupling during Storm and Substorm Recovery Phases -project (ITM Recovery, PI Tuija Pulkkinen) is a collaboration within CLaSP with Professor Mike Liemohn and Professor Shasha Zou. The project focuses on processes during substorm and storm recovery phases, especially addressing why and how geomagnetic activity subsides. The project also addresses the effects of Subauroral Polarization Streams (SAPS) on the electrodynamics at the interface between the hot and cold particle populations in the inner magnetosphere as well as the conjugate ionosphere and thermosphere.
The research employs the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF) Geospace model especially focusing on the newly implemented two-way coupling with the Global Ionosphere-Thermosphere Model (GITM).
One of the interesting features of magnetospheric activity are the sawtooth events, which never have time to recover as the activations follow one another. A distinguishing characteristic between sawtooth events and substorms is the very strong eastward electrojet seen in the figure below. The SMU measures the eastward electrojet which is much stronger during sawteeth. The SML measures the westward electrojet, which is slightly broader during sawteeth. The SME is the combined effect of SMU and SML. Figure credit Connor DiMarco (manuscript in preparation).
 Research funded by NASA |
