Development of an Ionosphere-Plasmasphere-Polar Wind Model and Studies of Storms and Substorms

The focus of this project was on the development of an ionosphere- plasmasphere-polar wind model to study storms and substorms. Four papers were published in the scientific literature, with the titles and abstracts listed below. The topics studied include polar patch formation and dynamics, including their role in neutral stream particle production. The final paper covers a simulation of the May 4 1998 magnetic storm using realistic inputs to drive the model. By using realistic inputs during storms, there is a more realistic, changing character to the model inputs, thereby showing more of the dynamic, changing nature that should be associated with storm, and substorm simulations. The results of the current studies show that in order to model the near earth environment, realistic inputs are necessary, and with the realistic drivers the model produces a more spatially and temporally varying output. This then shows that to model the magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions, the dynamical nature of the ionspheric flows must be taken into account to accurately portray magnetosphere- ionosphere coupling. More detail on this study is included in the appendix in the form of a powerpoint poster which will be displayed at the Fall AOU meeting.