Atmospheric vertical coupling and space weather in the solar-terrestrial system
Liu Huixin
Ph.D. from Max-Planck-Institute for Aeronomy in Germany in 2001. Research Associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, US; Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the German Research Center for Geosciences, Germany; JSPS fellow in Hokkaido University, JSPS RPD fellow in Kyoto University before taking up Associate Professor position at Kyushu University in 2011.
Research keywords: space weather, atmosphere-ionosphere coupling, thermosphere, ionosphere, satellite drag, magnetic storms, EISCAT radar, planetary atmosphere
Research Summary
The area between about 80-1000 km above the Earth surface is called the upper atmosphere, including the ionosphere and thermosphere. This is the region where International Space Station, satellites, and rockets fly, hence is the gateway to space. Distrubances of the ionosphere and thermosphere can have severe societal impact on radio communications, gobal positioning system, satellite orbit control and lifetime, space debris, and so on. This is why ionosphere/thermosphere research is the core part of "space weather" research. Space weather eveovles processes along the Sun-Earth chain, which can be roughly divided into "downward coupling processes driven by the Sun", "upward coupling processes driven by the meteorological weather", "plasma-neutral coupling". We study these coupling processes using ground, satellite observations, along with numerical simulations using whole atmosphere models.
