DATA ASSIMILATION FOR THE STUDY OF MAGNETOSPHERE-IONOSPHERE-ATMOSPHERE COUPLING

Lead Research Organisation: University of Bath
Department Name: Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Abstract

State-of-the-art ionospheric imaging techniques use Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite data. In a similar manner to medical imaging, where the patient is examined by X-rays, in ionospheric imaging the upper atmosphere (ionosphere) is examined by radio waves. The next big step for ionospheric imaging is to combine it with models of the ionosphere. The reason to do this is to discover the underlying physics, which we cannot do very well by just looking at the images. We need to link the images to models of winds, solar radiation and electric fields in order to understand what causes the upper atmospheric environment to behave as it does during extreme events called storms. These are not the weather storms we are familiar with but rather these space-weather storms are caused by the bombardment of the outer realms of the atmosphere with particles and radiation from the Sun. The mathematics we need to link the measurements to the models is called data assimilation. Data assimilation has already been strikingly successful in meteorology. The data assimilation to be developed under this grant is for much higher up in the atmosphere (above 100 km) and will be used to investigate the coupling between the neutral and ionized atmosphere and to determine the relationships between ionosphere-atmosphere dynamics and magnetosphere dynamics.

Publications

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Pengpan T (2010) A dual modality of cone beam CT and electrical impedance tomography for lung imaging in Journal of Physics: Conference Series

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Pokhotelov D (2008) Ionospheric storm time dynamics as seen by GPS tomography and in situ spacecraft observations in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics

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Pokhotelov D (2010) High-latitude ionospheric response to co-rotating interaction region- and coronal mass ejection-driven geomagnetic storms revealed by GPS tomography and ionosondes in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

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Pokhotelov D (2009) Ionospheric response to the corotating interaction region-driven geomagnetic storm of October 2002 in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics

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Rose J (2014) Ionospheric corrections for GPS time transfer in Radio Science

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Smith N (2010) Image-model coupling: application to an ionospheric storm in Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics

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Soleimani M (2009) Medical imaging and physiological modelling: linking physics and biology. in Biomedical engineering online

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Soleimani M (2009) FOUR-DIMENSIONAL ELECTRICAL CAPACITANCE TOMOGRAPHY IMAGING USING EXPERIMENTAL DATA in Progress In Electromagnetics Research

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Yin P (2009) Imaging of the Antarctic ionosphere: Experimental results in Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics

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Zapfe B (2006) Imaging of the equatorial ionospheric anomaly over South America-A simulation study of total electron content in Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics