| Session Details | |
| Section | ST - Solar & Terrestrial Sciences |
| Session Title | Ionosphere And Thermosphere Dynamics And Coupling |
| Main Convener | Dr. Shunrong Zhang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Liu Libo (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Dr. Yongliang Zhang (Johns Hopkins University, United States) Dr. Jiuhou Lei (University of Science and Technology of China, China) Dr. Huixin Liu (Kyushu University, Japan) |
| Session Description | Mass, momentum, and energy exchanges between the ionosphere and thermosphere (IT) are some of the key subject areas in aeronomy. These processes are know to be fundamental, and may become intensified due to enhancements of direct and indirect impacts from the sun emitting UV radiation and energetic particles. As a result, the ionosphere and thermosphere exhibit strong variability on various spatial and temporal scales, varying with latitudes and disturbance development stages. Characteristic IT variations, in the form of disturbance winds and composition in neutral particles, ionospheric dynamo fields as well as polarization fields, traveling atmospheric/ionospheric disturbances, etc, have long been the very active research focuses in our community. We are organizing this session for the purpose of promoting analysis, observation, and modeling leading to the enhanced understanding of ionospheric and thermospheric dynamics and coupling. Topic areas of particular interest to this session include, but not limited to, 1) correlation between EIA and Equatorial Thermospheric Anomaly (ETA); 2) storm-time ionosphere and thermosphere variations; 3) traveling ionospheric and atmospheric disturbances (TIDs/TADs) in general and, in particular, during magnetic storms; 4) IT perturbations originated from the below; and 5) magnetospheric inputs to the IT system and the IT feedback. |