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1. Long-term geospace climate monitoring

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2023.1139230  

   Zhang, Shun-Rong; Cnossen, Ingrid; Laštovička, Jan; Elias, Ana G.; Yue, Xinan; Jacobi, Christoph; Yue, Jia; Wang, Wenbin; Qian, Liying; Goncharenko, Larisa (February 2023, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences)

   Climate change is characterized by global surface warming associated with the increase of greenhouse gas population since the start of the industrial era. Growing evidence shows that the upper atmosphere is experiencing appreciable cooling over the last several decades. The seminal modeling study by Roble and Dickinson (1989) suggested potential effects of increased greenhouse gases on the ionosphere and thermosphere cooling which appear consistent with some observations. However, several outstanding issues remain regarding the role of CO 2 , other important contributors, and impacts of the cooling trend in the ionosphere and thermosphere: for example, (1) what is the regional variability of the trends? (2) the very strong ionospheric cooling observed by multiple incoherent scatter radars that does not fit with the prevailing theory based on the argument of anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases, why? (3) what is the effect of secular changes in Earth’s main magnetic field? Is it visible now in the ionospheric data and can it explain some of the regional variability in the observed ionospheric trends? (4) what is the impact of long-term cooling in the thermosphere on operational systems? (5) what are the appropriate strategic plans to ensure the long-term monitoring of the critical space climate? 

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2. Mesoscale and Small-Scale Structure of the Subauroral Geospace

   https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119815617.ch8  

   E.V. Mishin and A.V. Streltsov (March 2021, Ionosphere Dynamics and Applications)

   :Chaosong Huang, Gang Lu (Ed.)

   A review is given of the current state-of-the-art of experimental studies and the theoretical understanding of meso-scale and small-scale structure of the subauroral geospace, connecting ionospheric structures to plasma wave processes in the turbulent plasmasphere boundary layer (TPBL). Free energy for plasma waves comes from diamagnetic electron and ion currents in the entry layer near the plasma sheet boundary and near the TPBL inner boundary, respectively, and anisotropic distributions of energetic ions inside the TPBL and interior to the inner boundary. Collisionless heating of the plasmaspheric particles gives downward heat and suprathermal electron fluxes sufficient to provide the F-region electron temperature greater than 6000 K. This leads to the formation of specific density troughs in the ionospheric regions in the absence of strong electric fields and upward plasma flows. Small-scale MHD wave structures (SAPSWS) and irregular density troughs emerge on the duskside, coincident with the substorm current wedge development. Numerical simulations show that the ionospheric feedback instability significantly contributes to the SAPSWS formation. Antiparallel temperature and density gradients inside the subauroral troughs lead to the temperature gradient instability. The latter and the gradient-drift instability lead to enhanced decameter-scale irregularities responsible for subauroral HF radar backscatter 

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3. Crucial future observations and directions for unveiling magnetopause dynamics and their geospace impacts

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2024.1430099  

   Archer, Martin O; Shi, Xueling; Walach, Maria-Theresia; Hartinger, Michael D; Gillies, D Megan; Di_Matteo, Simone; Staples, Frances; Nykyri, Katariina (August 2024, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences)

   The dynamics of Earth’s magnetopause, driven by several different external/internal physical processes, plays a major role in the geospace energy budget. Given magnetopause motion couples across many space plasma regions, numerous forms of observations may provide valuable information in understanding these dynamics and their impacts.In-situmulti-point spacecraft measurements measure the local plasma environment, dynamics and processes; with upcoming swarms providing the possibility of improved spatiotemporal reconstruction of dynamical phenomena, and multi-mission conjunctions advancing understanding of the “mesoscale” coupling across the geospace “system of systems.” Soft X-ray imaging of the magnetopause should enable boundary motion to be directly remote sensed for the first time. Indirect remote sensing capabilities might be enabled through the field-aligned currents associated with disturbances to the magnetopause; by harnessing data from satellite mega-constellations in low-Earth orbit, and taking advantage of upgraded auroral imaging and ionospheric radar technology. Finally, increased numbers of closely-spaced ground magnetometers in both hemispheres may help discriminate between high-latitude processes in what has previously been a “zone of confusion.” Bringing together these multiple modes of observations for studying magnetopause dynamics is crucial. These may also be aided by advanced data processing techniques, such as physics-based inversions and machine learning methods, along with comparisons to increasingly sophisticated geospace assimilative models and simulations. 

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4. Crucial future observations and directions for unveiling magnetopause dynamics and their geospace impacts

   Archer, Martin O; Shi, Xueling; Walach, Maria-Theresia; Hartinger, Michael D; Gillies, D Megan; Matteo, Simone D; Staples, Frances; Nykyri, Katarina (August 2024, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences)

   The dynamics of Earth’s magnetopause, driven by several different external/internal physical processes, plays a major role in the geospace energy budget. Given magnetopause motion couples across many space plasma regions, numerous forms of observations may provide valuable information in understanding these dynamics and their impacts. In-situ multi-point spacecraft measurements measure the local plasma environment, dynamics and processes; with upcoming swarms providing the possibility of improved spatiotemporal reconstruction of dynamical phenomena, and multi-mission conjunctions advancing understanding of the “mesoscale” coupling across the geospace “system of systems.” Soft X-ray imaging of the magnetopause should enable boundary motion to be directly remote sensed for the first time. Indirect remote sensing capabilities might be enabled through the field-aligned currents associated with disturbances to the magnetopause; by harnessing data from satellite mega-constellations in low-Earth orbit, and taking advantage of upgraded auroral imaging and ionospheric radar technology. Finally, increased numbers of closely-spaced ground magnetometers in both hemispheres may help discriminate between high-latitude processes in what has previously been a “zone of confusion.” Bringing together these multiple modes of observations for studying magnetopause dynamics is crucial. These may also be aided by advanced data processing techniques, such as physics-based inversions and machine learning methods, along with comparisons to increasingly sophisticated geospace assimilative models and simulations. 

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5. Reproducible Software Environment: a tool enabling computational reproducibility in geospace sciences and facilitating collaboration

   https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2020011  

   Bhatt, Asti; Valentic, Todd; Reimer, Ashton; Lamarche, Leslie; Reyes, Pablo; Cosgrove, Russell (January 2020, Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate)

   The Reproducible Software Environment (Resen) is an open-source software tool enabling computationally reproducible scientific results in the geospace science community. Resen was developed as part of a larger project called the Integrated Geoscience Observatory (InGeO), which aims to help geospace researchers bring together diverse datasets from disparate instruments and data repositories, with software tools contributed by instrument providers and community members. The main goals of InGeO are to remove barriers in accessing, processing, and visualizing geospatially resolved data from multiple sources using methodologies and tools that are reproducible. The architecture of Resen combines two mainstream open source software tools, Docker and JupyterHub, to produce a software environment that not only facilitates computationally reproducible research results, but also facilitates effective collaboration among researchers. In this technical paper, we discuss some challenges for performing reproducible science and a potential solution via Resen, which is demonstrated using a case study of a geospace event. Finally we discuss how the usage of mainstream, open-source technologies seems to provide a sustainable path towards enabling reproducible science compared to proprietary and closed-source software. 

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