Processes generated by terrestrial weather in the lower atmosphere (i.e., troposphere and stratosphere, altitudes less than ~50 km) are increasingly recognized by the research community as sources of variability in both the structure and composition of the ionosphere-thermosphere-mesosphere (ITM) region over a broad range of time scales. Focused Science Topic (FST) 1 will target both observational and modeling studies that investigate ITM variability coupled to terrestrial weather.
Within the FST, we want to advance the understanding of whole atmosphere interconnections between terrestrial and space weather through combined modeling and observations across different spatial and temporal scales.
Toward this objective, we seek to close on the following sub-goals:
Quantify the variability of relevant neutral and ionospheric parameters on different spatio-temporal scales, from regional to global, and from hours to inter-annual: the observational baseline data sets.
Develop a set of metrics to evaluate data-model comparisons.
Evaluate state-of-the-art models across different spatio-temporal scales and assess the impact of data assimilation on model performance.
Identify the important mechanisms that connect terrestrial variability with space weather on daily, sub-seasonal, inter-annual scales; and how they vary with altitude and geographic regions.
Our paper presenting the initial findings from the LWS-FST1 project has been published in Surveys in Geophysics.
Citation: Oberheide, J., Aggarwal, D., Bergsson, B. et al. Impact of Terrestrial Weather on the Space Weather of the Ionosphere-Thermosphere: Initial Results from a NASA Living with a Star Focused Science Topic. Surv Geophys (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-025-09895-7
CEDAR Grand Challenge A: Impact of Terrestrial Weather on the Space Weather of the Ionosphere-Thermosphere-Mesosphere. View the recording of the Plenary session here.
AGU session SA13C (F. Gasperini, J. Oberheide, X. Lu, L. Goodwin) Response of the Ionosphere-Thermosphere-Mesosphere to Terrestrial Weather and Connections to External Drivers.