Jie Zhang | Department of Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University

Thursday March 22, 4:30 PM | Research 1 Room 301

Space Weather and Its Solar and Interplanetary Drivers

Space weather describes the conditions in space that affect Earth and its technological systems. Our space weather is a consequence of the behavior of the sun, the nature of Earth's magnetic field, and our location in the solar system. Following an overview of the space weather system, I will present a comprehensive statistical study on the observations of the sequence of the activities from the Sun to the geo-space, which ultimately leads to geomagnetic storms on the Earth. During 1996 -- 2005 (most of the 23rd solar cycle), there were in total 88 major geomagnetic storms (defined by Disturbance Storm Index < -100 nT). In this period and up to date, there is a suite of spacecraft monitoring the Sun-Earth system, including SOHO, ACE and WIND, which have provided an unprecedented database for systematic space weather study. I will present different types of drivers, including coronal mass ejections (CMEs and their upstream shock sheath regions) and corotating interaction regions (CIRs, produced by fast solar wind originating from coronal hole compressing the preceding slow solar wind). The properties of the solar surface source regions of these drivers will be presented. Compared with terrestrial troposphere weather prediction, space weather prediction is still in its infancy. The challenges as well as promising opportunities will be discussed.

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