CAWSES

Climate And Weather of the Sun-Earth System

Theme Two: Space Weather: Science and Applications

Co-Chairs: Janet Kosyra and K. Shibata

"Space Weather" is a term that encompasses the science and applications arising from short-term variations of the Sun, propagation of energetic particles and electromagnetic emissions through interplanetary space, and effects on technology and humans orbiting in geospace and on the Earth's surface. It includes rapid phenomena such as solar flares and coronal mass egections, effects of shock waves at the magnetosphere, short-lived magnetic substorms at auroral latitudes and longer-lasting global magnetic storms, as ell as large and small scale ionospheric structures driven by internal atmospheric processes. These can affect satellites and humans in orbit, interrupt telecommunications, and degrade power distributions systems. The goals of the project are to develop dependable, robust deterministic end-to-end models that predict conditions in geospace from a quantitative understanding of the observed phenomena including multi-scale coupling between different plasma regions of the Sun-Earth system. A desired outcome will be identification of critical inputs to specify the geospace environment to minimize impacts of solar disturbances and geomagnetic storms on technology, human society, and all life.