This paper describes an algorithm that automatically detects vortices around the Earth's magnetosphere using the velocity field from simulated data. It also describes how the tool can be used to analyze further properties of the vortices including the velocity changes within their motion across the magnetosheath. Vortices developed at the magnetopause boundary contribute to the process of mass, momentum and energy transfer from the solar wind into the Earth's magnetosphere.

We used sounding rockets to obtain four high-resolution temperature profiles in the mesosphere over a limited area. We found consistent deep isothermal and adiabatic layers, but variable and finely structured turbulence preferentially in the lower stable mesosphere. Accompanying tracer releases showed horizontal winds in the lower thermosphere with extreme shears and 200 m  s⁻¹ winds under moderately disturbed geomagnetic conditions, and convection-like structures just below the mesopause.

At the bow shock the solar wind is slowed down in front of Earth's magnetosphere. This is accompanied by a gain in strength of the magnetic field, which implies that the bow shock carries electric currents. We present the a comprehensive statistical study of bow shock currents making use of multi-point data collected by Cluster spacecraft. We find that the currents depend on the shock geometry and the interplanetary magnetic field and are in good accordance with theory and simulation results.

We use the Vlasiator code to study the characteristics of transient structures that exist in the Earth's foreshock, i.e. upstream of the bow shock. The structures are cavitons and spontaneous hot flow anomalies (SHFAs). These transients can interact with the bow shock. We study the changes the shock suffers via this interaction. We also investigate ion distributions associated with the cavitons and SHFAs. A very important result is that the arrival of multiple SHFAs results in shock erosion.

Does the reformation of perpendicular shocks really exist in the real space plasma? The reformation was first reported in numerical simulations in one spatial dimension, and then was indicated by in situ observation by the Cluster spacecraft. The present study aimed to answer this question by performing advanced numerical simulations in two spatial dimensions. The present study suggests that the reformation exists under a limited plasma condition.

This paper proposes an optimal tropospheric tomography approach with the support of an auxiliary area, which has the ability to use the signals crossing out from the top boundary of the tomographic area. Additionally, the top height of the tomography body is determined based on the average water vapour distribution derived from the COSMIC data. The compared result reveals the superiority of the proposed method when compared to the conventional method.

The Earth's magnetic field is shaped by the solar wind. On the dayside the field is compressed and on the nightside it is stretched as a long tail. The tail has been observed to occasionally undergo flapping motions, but the origin of these motions is not understood. We study the flapping using a numerical simulation of the near-Earth space. We present a possible explanation for how the flapping could be initiated by a passing disturbance and then maintained as a standing wave.

The physics of the magnetic mirror mode in its final state of saturation, the thermodynamic equilibrium, is re-examined to demonstrate that the mirror mode is the classical analogue of a superconducting effect in an anisotropic-pressure space plasma. Three different spatial correlation scales are identified which control the behaviour of its evolution into large-amplitude chains of mirror bubbles.

By induction, ocean tides generate electromagnetic signals. Since the launch of magnetometer satellite missions, these signals are increasingly used to infer electromagnetic properties of the Earth. In many of these inversions, ocean tide models are used to estimate oceanic tidal electromagnetic signals which are generated via electromagnetic induction. This study's goal is to provide tide model errors for electromagnetic inversion studies.

Based on comparisons of meteor radar measurements with HAMMONIA model simulations, we show that the differences exhibited by the semidiurnal solar tide (S2) observed at middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere between equinox times are mainly due to distinct behaviors of the migrating semidiurnal (SW2) and the non-migrating westward-propagating wave number 1 semidiurnal (SW1) tidal components.

The novelty of this paper lies in the fact that it addresses the thermosphere–ionosphere coupling in a midlatitude site in north Africa. We have used Fabry–Perot measurements of thermospheric winds and wide-angle camera detection of ionospheric structures at an altitude of about 250 km. We have also used GPS data to extract the TEC over the studied area. We have focused our study on the 27 February geomagnetic storm.

We proposed a new method to determine the scale height of water vapor, which will improve the quality of vertical constraints. Then, the smoothing factor in the horizontal constraint was determined based on ERA-Interim products. The evaluation results show that the water vapor density quality obtained by the optimized technique is 13.8 % better below 3.8 km and 8.1 % better above 3.8 km than that obtained by the traditional technique.

GREEN (Global Radiation Earth ENvironment) is a new model providing particle fluxes at any location in the radiation belts, for energy between 1 keV and 10 MeV for electrons and between 1 keV and 800 MeV for protons. This model is composed of global models (AE8 and AP8, and SPM) and local models (SLOT model, OZONE and IGE-2006 for electrons; OPAL and IGP for protons).

The magnetospheric response to the solar wind is nonlinear. Information theoretical tools are able to characterize the nonlinearities in the system. We show that nonlinear significance of D_st peaks at lags of 3–12 hours which can be attributed to VB_s, which also exhibits similar behavior. However, the nonlinear significance that peaks at lags of 25, 50, and 90 hours can be attributed to internal dynamics, which may be related to the relaxation of the ring current.

We reveal previously unknown quasi-periodic (QP) VLF emissions at the unusually high-frequency band of ~ 7–11 kHz by applying the digital filtering of strong sferics to the ground-based VLF data recorded at Kannuslehto station (KAN). In one event, the spectral–temporal forms of the emissions looked like a series of giant bullets, with very abrupt cessation. In the second event, the modulation period was about 3 min under the absence of the simultaneous geomagnetic pulsations.

Present work reports seasonal characteristics of small- and medium-scale gravity waves in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere region. All-sky images of the hydroxyl airglow emission layer over São João do Cariri (7.4° S, 36.5° W) were observed from September 2000 to December 2010, during a total of 1496 nights and obtained 2343 SSGW and 537 MSGW events. The horizontal propagation directions of SSGWs and MSGWs showed clear seasonal variations based on the influence of the wind filtering process.

The solar wind reshapes Earth's magnetic field to create our magnetosphere and powers many dynamic processes in our plasma-filled environment, some of which produce the aurora. Networks of ground-based all-sky cameras are valuable tools that offer a large field-of-view with which to study the aurora. Using sequences of auroral images, this study defines criteria for differentiating an important type of aurora whose subcategories are often conflated.