Observations of Solar and Magnetospheric Inputs and Atmospheric Responses to the January 2005 Long Duration Flares and Fast Coronal Mass Ejections

We report observations by the TIMED GUVI instrument of magnetospheric inputs and atmospheric responses to the remarkable series of four long-duration X-class flare events and fast coronal mass ejections that occurred from 15-22 January 2005. Magnetic activity included two magnetic storm intervals (the second accompanied by a large enhancement in solar wind dynamic pressure), and two high speed stream intervals. Unusual features seen by TIMED and discussed here include: (1) the ionospheric response to long intervals of high-energy intense polar rain (2) an excess in the mid-to-low latitude nightside atomic oxygen emissions at 130.4 and 135.6 nm and (3) enhancements in auroral electron and proton precipitation during the high dynamic pressure intervals. The intense polar rain was correlated with extremely low solar wind densities in the high-speed streams. An initial look at the observations indicates that during intervals of quieting magnetic activity (i.e., January 19-20), the polar rain was the largest energy input at high latitudes. This introduces important asymmetries into the magnetosphere-ionosphere system since the intense polar rain was confined to the northern hemisphere for the first high speed stream interval and to the southern hemisphere for the second. The excess oxygen emissions are quite extraordinary. They were seen during the 21 January magnetic storm in the high dynamic pressure interval. Similar emissions have previously been observed by TIMED but only rarely during extreme magnetic storm events.. Two possible sources of this excess emission are energetic ion and neutral precipitation from the ring current and/or a large-scale and relatively uniform enhancement in ionospheric density. Significant and correlated changes were observed in the ring current ENA by IMAGE/HENA at this time. On the other hand, DMSP observations indicate an increase in the ionospheric density most likely associated with penetration electric fields at the onset of the magnetic storm activity.. This paper will evaluate the relative contributions of these emission sources.