Heliosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere Coupling and Energy Budget in Geomagnetic Storms.
Friday, 27 May 2016: 8:50 AM
Olga P Verkhoglyadova1, Anthony J Mannucci1, Xing Meng1, Attila Komjathy1, Martin G Mlynczak2, Linda A Hunt3 and Bruce Tsurutani1, (1)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)NASA Langley Research Ctr, Hampton, VA, United States, (3)SSAI, Hampton, VA, United States
Abstract:
We discuss estimates for the ionosphere-thermosphere (IT) energy budget of several recent CME and CIR/HSS-driven geomagnetic storms. Ionospheric current dissipation and Joule heating play a critical role in storm-time energy transport. However, differences exist in energetics of high-latitude currents for different storm types and they are currently poorly understood. We use the GITM model to estimate energy input (heating) and energy output (cooling) terms in the IT system for several storms. The model is driven by solar wind OMNI data, the OVATION Prime empirical model for particle precipitation and the Weimer 2005 model for high-latitude electrodynamics. Model estimates for Joule heating are compared with their corresponding observational proxy in thermospheric nitric oxide cooling emission from TIMED/SABER and empirical proxies. Challenges in estimation and forecasting of the high-latitude IT energy budget (including Joule heating, Poynting flux and particle precipitation) during geomagnetic storms are discussed.
