Dan Welling Group

My research focuses on developing a method to determine dayside reconnection potential from magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models, unambiguously. Magnetic reconnection is the main mechanism for energy transfer in the Earth-space system, but it is still unclear what controls reconnection on the dayside!

My objective is to develop and apply a robust method to obtain total reconnection potential in global MHD models, allowing us to explore how plasma populations impact energy transfer from the solar wind to the magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere (MIT) system and gain deeper insights into this fundamental plasma process.

#Reconnection #Modeling

My research focuses on studying differences in the northern and southern auroras that we'd normally expect to be identical. We call these interhemispheric asymmetries. 

Previous scientific work has identified some specific drivers of interhemispheric asymmetries based on solar and geomagnetic conditions. The main goal with my research is to identify the effects of these on the location and strength of the aurora, and how different combinations of the drivers may amplify the effects.

#Auroras #Modeling