Coupling a polar wind model to the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF)
Abstract
Polar wind and other ionospheric outflows are a vital source of plasma to the magnetosphere. Ambipolar electric fields, Field Aligned Currents (FACs), Joule heating, centrifugal acceleration, wave-particle interactions, and other physical phenomenon accelerate plasma and can lead to mass flow from the ionosphere to the magnetosphere. Most Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (MIC) in models ignores these processes instead relying on pressure gradient terms to draw plasma off the inner boundary of the magnetosphere. We present preliminary results of new efforts to incorporate this important physics into the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF). In particular, we use the Polar Wind Outflow Model (PWOM), a field-aligned multi-fluid polar wind code, and describe efforts to couple it to the Upper Atmosphere (UA), Ionosphere Electrodynamics (IE), and Global Magnetosphere (GM) components of the SWMF. We present our methodology for the MIC, as well as several controlled numerical experiments demonstrating the importance of different physical processes.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUSMSA33A..05G
- Keywords:
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- 2431 Ionosphere/magnetosphere interactions (2736);
- 2451 Particle acceleration;
- 2475 Polar cap ionosphere;
- 2481 Topside ionosphere;
- 2499 General or miscellaneous