IONOSPHERE-THERMOSPHERE SPACE WEATHER ISSUES

Weather disturbances in the ionosphere-thermosphere system can have a detrimental effect on both ground-based and space-based systems. Becau se of this impact and because our field has matured, it is now appropr iate to develop specification and forecast models, with the aim of eve ntually predicting the occurrence, duration, and intensity of weather effects. As part of the new National Space Weather Program, the CEDAR community will focus on science issues concerning space weather, and t his tutorial/review is an expanded version of a tutorial presentation given at the recent CEDAR annual meeting. The tutorial/review provides a brief discussion of weather disturbances and features, the causes o f weather, and the status of weather modeling. The features and distur bances discussed include plasma patches, boundary and auroral blobs, s un-aligned polar cap arcs, the effects of traveling convection vortice s arid SAID events, the lifetime of density structures, sporadic E and intermediate layers, spread F and equatorial plasma bubbles, geomagne tic storms and substorms, traveling ionospheric disturbances (TID's), and the effects of tides and gravity waves propagating from the lower atmosphere. The tutorial/review is only intended to provide an overvie w of some of the important scientific issues concerning ionospheric-th ermospheric weather, with the emphasis on the ionosphere. Tutorials on thermospheric and magnetospheric weather issues are given in companio n papers. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd