Downward stratospheric intrusions are well known as an important source of tropospheric ozone. In the light of the present understanding, several unanswered questions remain regarding the use of VHF radars to identify stratospheric intrusions. Our study found that the radar-observed strong downdrafts preceding the rapid tropopause ascent are a strong diagnostic for possible intrusions. This will have important implications for air-quality monitoring and long-term estimation of troposphere ozone.

A new plasma intrusion or preonset aurora scenario of substorm triggering proposed by Nishimura et al. (2010) needs to be tested. To test the scenario, we revisited three of their substorm events in detail, based on THEMIS ground-based all-sky imager data. We list a series of open questions for testing the scenario further in future studies.

The extraction of the magnetic signal induced by the oceanic M2 tide is typically based solely on the temporal periodicity of the signal. Here, we propose a system of tailored trial functions that additionally takes the spatial constraint into account that the sources of the signal are localized within the oceans. This construction requires knowledge of the underlying conductivity model but not of the inducing tidal current velocity.

Hall current variations in different time sectors during six magnetic storms of the summer seasons in 2003 and 2005 are examined. The sequence of the phenomena, their structure, positions and the strength of the polar and the auroral Hall electrojets were investigated using scalar magnetic field measurements obtained from the CHAMP satellite. We analyzed the correlations and the regression relations of the electrojets with auroral and ring current activity, the IMF, and solar wind parameters.

We present the first observations of perturbations in radio communications, the ionosphere, cosmic rays, and the geomagnetic field over Mexico due to space weather events.

The features of ULF waves are statistically studied on the magnetotail stretched magnetic field lines (8 RE < R < 32 RE) by using 8 years of THEMIS data. The occurrence rates of ULF waves are higher in the post-midnight region than pre-midnight region. The frequency decreases with increasing radial distance of 8–16 RE and could be explained by much more standing waves in this region than in the region of 16–32 RE. The wave frequency is higher after the substorm onset than before it.

We employ multipoint observations of the Van Allen Probes, THEMIS, GOES and Cluster to present case and statistical studies of the electromagnetic field, plasma and particle response to interplanetary (IP) shocks observed by Wind. We perform a statistical study of E_y variations of the electric field and associated plasma drift flow velocities for 60 magnetospheric events during the passage of interplanetary shocks.

We analysed the turbulent processes in the Earth's magnetotail in the regions of magnetic field dipolarization and compared them with known models. We used spectral and statistical methods for analysis measurements from the Cluster-II mission. We have obtained a significant difference for turbulent processes depending on observed scales. Our results can be interesting for classification of the turbulent processes in both hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics environments.

This paper describes "beam tracking", a new technology for measuring velocity distributions in the solar wind with a plasma spectrometer, that allows the order of magnitude speedup in data acquisition needed for studying ion-scale turbulence. The basic idea is that the spectrometer should only sample the energy–elevation–azimuth range where the solar wind is expected to reside. The paper shows how the technique can be implemented and illustrates its performance and robustness through simulation.

The variability of the Earth's ionosphere (the electrified region of the Earth's upper atmosphere) results from external forcing from above (through solar activity and space weather effects) and from below (via natural sources such as lightning storms and tectonics). Bombing raids over Europe during World War II were used to determine the quantitative impact of explosions on the ionosphere. It was found that raids using more than 300 tonnes of explosives weakened the ionosphere for up to 5 h.

This study shows the width of the meteor height distribution (FWHM) is well correlated with the atmospheric pressure, not only experimentally but theoretically. From the correlation analysis, we found that the FWHM provides the best estimation of the temperature at the height layer below the meteor peak height by 2–3 km. We also proved a meteor echo height ceiling effect (MHC) is primarily controlled by the atmospheric conditions, and this enables the FWHM to estimate the temperature accurately.

In this contribution, we analyse the performance of the Swarm onboard GPS receiver and present the approach for determination of the IfE Swarm kinematic orbit with PPP. The differences between our kinematic orbits and ESA reduced-dynamic orbits are at 1.5 cm, 1.5 cm and 2.5 cm level in along-track, cross-track and radial directions, respectively. A comparison with SLR underlines an accuracy of the kinematic orbits of 3–4 cm.

Data analysis of the geomagnetic field is needed for space weather prediction. Conventional techniques do not always provide sufficient efficiency. We suggest new techniques for processing and analyzing geomagnetic data based on the wavelet transform for studying the dynamics and spatiotemporal distribution of geomagnetic perturbations. The paper discusses prestorm short-term increases of geomagnetic activity and the features of different magnetospheric processes for increased solar activity.

A VLF chorus is a very intense electromagnetic plasma wave that is naturally excited as a succession of discrete emissions near the magnetic equatorial plane outside the plasmasphere. We introduce a mechanism of chorus excitation under conditions when known mechanisms become ineffective. This kind of excitation is related to the amplification of short electromagnetic pulses from the noise level even in a stable plasma. Obtained results can explain some important features of the chorus emissions.

The solar wind interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field, forming a magnetosphere. On the night side solar wind stretches the magnetosphere into a long tail. A process called magnetic reconnection opens the magnetic field lines and reconnects them, accelerating particles to high energies. We study this in the magnetotail using a numerical simulation model of the Earth’s magnetosphere. We study the motion of the points where field lines reconnect and the fast flows driven by this process.

Magnetosheath jets are high-velocity plasma structures that are commonly observed within the Earth's magnetosheath. Previously, they have mainly been investigated with spacecraft observations, which do not allow us to infer their spatial sizes, temporal evolution, or origin. This paper shows for the first time their dimensions, evolution, and origins within a simulation whose dimensions are directly comparable to the Earth's magnetosphere. The results are compared to previous observations.

Many studies carried out for model validation are realised under geomagnetically quiet conditions. For climatological models this is not an issue. But for models like NeQuick, which plays a crucial role in daily human activities, it has to be evaluated under different conditions. Our study, which is probably a preliminary study, shows the advantage of the ingestion of ionospheric data. Thus, through this technique, a model could be assessed regardless of the geomagnetic activity.

A record has been found of an "aurora" observed on 27 October 1856 in the Philippines, practically at the magnetic equator. An analysis of this report indicates that it could belong to a "sporadic aurora" because of low magnetic activity at that time. We provide a possible physical mechanism that could explain the appearance of this sporadic, low-latitude aurora, according to the analyses on the observational report and magnetic observations at that time.