Collaborative Research: Understanding the Asymmetric Thermospheric Response to Polar Driving

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). his effort seeks to develop a better understanding of how the nonlinearly coupled thermosphere and ionosphere are driven asymmetrically in polar storm events, and how coupling between these domains affects overall system-level response. Goals of the project are to a) specify electrodynamic drivers in the northern and southern hemispheres during specific storms with newly available Antarctic data, b) investigate how the hemispherically asymmetric magnetic field configuration controls system-level response to strong driving, c) examine the hemispheric asymmetric energy and momentum transfer between the ionosphere and thermosphere and how these processes affect the global response to different driving conditions, and d) understand how the polar thermospheric background and disturbance neutral winds asymmetrically develop under different driving conditions. Along with furtherance of space-weather objectives, the training of graduate students provides the broader impact to this proposed research grounding this effort in an educational mission.