The effect of the characteristics of solar flares on the thermospheric response

Understanding of the thermospheric reaction to a solar flare is difficult because of the lack of comprehensive data sets for a wide variety of flares. Previous and current satellite missions offer some observations that assist in the understanding, but they are typically not in advantageous locations when the flare erupts or the behavior is in contradiction with other, similar, flares. This leads us to turn to models, which can simulate each flare, but often do not show the same behavior as some data sets. Still, models are an important tool to understanding the thermospheric and ionospheric reaction to solar flares. In this study, we present results from the Global Ionosphere-Thermosphere Model (GITM) that show how the important characteristics of solar flares, such as energy, magnitude, and timing, affect the thermospheric response. The results indicate that the global average density response following a flare is linearly related to the time-integrated energy being input into the system by the flare, and that the timing of the global response is mainly dependent on the decay time of the flare.