The Challenge of Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere Coupling: Communicating and Implementing Progress in Predictive Modeling

Garcia-Sage, Katherine

The Challenge of Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere Coupling: Communicating and Implementing Progress in Predictive Modeling

Tuesday, 12 February 2019: 09:40

Fountain I/II (Westin Pasadena)

Katherine Garcia-Sage¹, Jared Micheal Bell², Hyunju KIM Connor³, Alexa Jean Halford⁴, Adam C Kellerman⁵, Masha Kuznetsova⁶, Michael Warren Liemohn⁷, Asher D. Pembroke¹, Lutz Rastaetter¹, Robert J Redmon⁸, Robert M Robinson⁹ and Ja-Soon Shim¹⁰, (1)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (2)National Institute of Aerospace, Hampton, VA, United States, (3)University of New Mexico Main Campus, Albuquerque, NM, United States, (4)Aerospace Corporation Chantilly, Chantilly, VA, United States, (5)University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (6)Community Coordinated Modeling Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (7)University of Michigan, Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, (8)Natl Geophysical Data Ctr, Boulder, CO, United States, (9)Catholic University of America, Physics, Washington, DC, United States, (10)Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, United States

Abstract:

The interdisciplinary nature of Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere coupling presents challenges of communication and implementation between different regions. Feedback between these three systems is complex, and extreme events - in particular - are rarely captured by commonly-used empirical relationships. A full, physics-based, and coupled model that can account for these complexities and handle extreme cases, remains impractical. Improving predictive space weather modeling requires (1) improved communication between these three fields, (2) improved coordination, and (3) implementation of cutting-edge results in easy-to-work-with formats that promotes use by other researchers within, and across research fields. The CCMC provides useful frameworks for these efforts such as the iCCMC-LWS Working Team-developed Application Usability Level (AUL) framework, and the Kameleon framework for model coupling and analysis. We show how these frameworks are currently being implemented for predictions of orbit propagation, and we demonstrate potential uses for improving physics-based conductivity calculations for the GEM Conductance Challenge.