The proposed ISSI team will advance the understanding of the physical connections between the ionosphere and the magnetosphere using magnetotail–ionosphere–ground conjugate observations from past and present multi-point missions. Exploiting the 10 years overlap of large quantities of Swarm–THEMIS/MMS/Cluster–ground geomagnetic data we will study the connections between FACs and ground magnetic perturbations during explosive processes in the terrestrial magnetotail. This observational study will be complemented with numerical simulations using the space weather modeling framework (SWMF) Geospace model.
This will enable the proposed team to make significant advances towards a better understanding of magnetosphere–ionosphere interactions and the consequences for space weather. Specifically, the two main scientific questions to be addressed during the two-year project will be:
- SQ1: How do Bursty Bulk Flows properties relate to the field-aligned current density at their ionospheric footprint? What is the response in the Earth’s ground magnetic field?
- SQ2: What are the key parameters involved in the energy transfer between the ionosphere and the magnetosphere during magnetotail activity that drive localized field-aligned currents