FG: Magnetospheric Sources of Particle Precipitation and Their Role on Electrodynamic Coupling of Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere Systems

The particles precipitating from the magnetosphere play an important role in the determination and modelling of ionospheric electrodynamics, especially conductance which modulates the magnetosphere’s response to the solar wind. Precipitation of magnetospheric particles and their energy deposition in the Earth’s upper atmosphere depend on a number of parameters including, but not limited to, their magnetospheric origin, energy range, flux, auroral display, spatiotemporal scale, etc. As a result, the ionospheric conductance can be modified in various ways further affecting the plasma convection, field-aligned (FAC) and ionospheric currents, and ionospheric/thermospheric temperature and densities. Therefore, understanding the properties of different sources of magnetospheric precipitation and their relative roles in the electrodynamic coupling of M-I across a broad range of spatiotemporal scales is crucial for improving predictive modelling capabilities. This broad topic necessitates the existence of a designated GEM focus group to achieve a community-wide collaboration.

🪑 Focus Group Chairs

• Doğacan Su Öztürk -- University of Alaska Fairbanks, 📨 to Doğa
  
• Dong Lin -- High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 📨 to Dong
  
• Yiqun Yu -- Beihang University
  
• Katherine Garcia-Sage -- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
  
• Stephen Kaeppler -- Clemson University
  

🗓 Focus Group Goals
To advance the physical knowledge and improve the numerical modelling of
- The magnetospheric particle precipitation (precipitation mechanism and characteristics, magnetospheric origin, auroral forms).
- The effects of particle precipitation on the ionospheric electrodynamics, with an emphasis on the ionospheric conductance.
- Response of the I-T system to precipitation and its feedback to the Magnetosphere.

🤝 Get Involved in MPEC FG
Please sign-up to our MPEC e-mail list to learn more about our FG activities and opportunities to participate at a greater capacity: https://forms.gle/BrsYo6LCewiysUij6.

GEM Workshops

2024 GEM Workshop Agenda

We have three stand-alone sessions and three joint sessions this year. The stand-alone sessions are as follows.

Session 1: Updates on observations and instruments

Day, Time: June 25, 2024, between 13.30-15.00 MDT
Location: Green and Gold

Schedule

1. Christine Gabrielse, Energy Flux and Conductance During the 2013 St. Patrick’s Day Storm from Auroral Precipitation
2. Sneha Yedav, Investigating the Spatiotemporal Development of Substorm Expansion Phase Aurora: Successive Onsets or Poleward-Boundary Intensifications?
3. Toshi Nishimura, Initial results of the SuperDARN high-resolution campaign: Rapid evolution of flows and aurora
4. Xueling Shi, Statistical Analysis of Ultra Low Frequency Total Electron Content Disturbances: Relationship to Magnetospheric Waves
5. Tetsuo Motoba, Dayside Shock Aurora on 10 May 2024: Preliminary results
6. Nick Bartel, Roles of Ionospheric Conductance in Dominant Modes of Field-Aligned Currents (FAC) Variability: Inter-hemispheric Analysis of AMPERE-Iridium Data
7. Paul Bernhardt, Active Remediation of Radiation Belts Using Intense Whistlers Generated by Ionospheric Amplification of VLF Signals
8. Asti Bhatt, RISR, PFISR, and MANGO Network
9. Elizabeth MacDonald, What a storm!

Session 2: Updates on numerical and empirical modelling

Day, Time: June 25, 2024, between 15.30-17.00 MDT
Location: Green and Gold

Schedule

1. Margaret Chen, Simulating Mesoscale Effects of Enhanced Ionospheric Conductance Associated with Auroral Precipitation
2. Bill Lotko, Dayside reconnection-induced Alfvénic power flowing into the low-altitude cusp
3. Dong Lin, The Dragon King auroral precipitation model in MAGE
4. Agnit Mukhopadhyay, Pauline Dredger, Modeling Auroral Conductance in the SWMF
5. Qingyu Zhu, ASHLEY and the impact of soft electron precipitation on the thermosphere
6. Yudi Pan, WACCM simulation of chemical effects brought by energetic electron precipitation
7. Shannon Hill, Implications of northward IMF reconnection with ionospheric convection reversal

Session 3: Collaboration session

Please fill out the link for us to better understand community expectations for this session: https://forms.gle/wb3g8A2QHx87FD8K7
Day, Time: June 26, 2024, between 10.30-12.00 MDT
Location: Green and Gold

Schedule

1. Asti Bhatt, RISR, PFISR, and MANGO Network
2. Liz MacDonald, Citizen Science Observations of Gannon Storm
3. Austin Cohen, Low-cost all-sky cameras and magnetometers for Geospace Research
Followed by community discussion (interactive).

2023 mini-GEM Workshop Agenda

The MPEC session will take place on Sunday, December 10th between 12.00-13.30 PST in Gold Rush A room at the Holiday Inn San Francisco – Golden Gateway in San Francisco, CA. There will also be a hybrid component accessible via Zoom. (https://alaska.zoom.us/j/82111328903?pwd=Ykg5Q2ZiZG9QN05kU1FkcElLTkhEUT09)

The meeting schedule is as follows.
1. Xiaochen Shen, Statistical Properties of Whistler Wave-Driven Electron Precipitation from ELFIN Observations
2. Dong Lin, Characterizing auroral precipitation and ionospheric conductance with the Dragon King model in MAGE
3. Gowtam Valluri, Machine Learning based Particle Precipitation Model (ML-PPM): Preliminary results and future directions
4. Pauline Dredger, Two-Way Coupling GITM into the SWMF for GMD Prediction
5. Shannon Hill, Theta aurora studies using SWMF FAC and JH Output
6. Christine Gabrielse, Meso-scale vs. Large-scale Precipitation During the 2013 St. Patrick’s Day Storm: A Focus on Energy Flux, Mean Energy, & Hall
7. Margaret Chen, Auroral Precipitation Effects on Ionospheric Conductivity and Conductance
8. Weijie Sun, The acceleration of relativistic electrons by magnetic reconnection in the near-Earth tail region
9. Astrid Maute, A new global electrodynamo model
10. Dan Welling, MAAX Mission Updates
11. Aaron Brenneman, AGU Chapman Conference

2023 GEM Workshop Agenda

This year we have overall six sessions, four of them being joint and two as stand-alone sessions. The stand-alone sessions are organized based on topical relevance. The sessions will feature talks on global precipitation and wave-driven precipitation and their effects.

1. COMP-MPEC joint session, Tuesday, 13 June, 10:30-12:00 PT, Room Pacific A

This joint session will focus on magnetospheric sources of particle precipitation at different planets.

1. George Clark, "Opening Remarks"
2. Bob Lysak, "MI-coupling w/ emphasis on comparative processes between Earth & Jupiter"
3. Shaosui Xu, "Magnetic topology of Mars vs Venus"
4. Jim Raines, "Cusp precipitation at Mercury"
5. Weijie Sun, "Flux transfer events in planetary magnetospheres"
6. Ryan Dewey, "Characteristics of Mercury's energetic electron environment"
7. Chuanfei Dong, "Electrodynamic coupling of magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere systems at Mars"
8. Dibyendu Sur, "Presence of Double Layers and Phase-Space Holes at Venus"
9. Harriet George, "Non-lightning-generated whistler wave in near-Venus space"
10. Walk-in, "Presentations/Poster Advertisements"

2. MPEC stand-alone session, Tuesday, 13 June, 13:30-15:00 PT, Room Pacific B

This stand-alone session will start with one invited talk followed by contributed talks and walk-in talks of 1-slide summaries. The session focuses on global magnetospheric precipitation.

1. Doga Ozturk - Dong Lin, "Introductory Remarks"
2. Tom Sotirelis, "Scene-setting Talk" (invited)
3. Angeline Burell, "Dual boundary coordinates in polar magnetosphere-ionosphere studies"
4. Gowtam Valluri, "ML-based Particle Precipitation Model"
5. Louis Ozeke, "RADICALS mission update"
6. Sneha Yadav, "Association of equatorward extended streamers with overshielding conditions at equatorial latitude"
7. Jeremiah Johnson, "Aurora Detection and Classification in THEMIS All-Sky Images via Self-Supervised Semi-Supervised Learning"
8. Jun Liang, "Green isolated proton auroras: Observations and proton-hydrogen-electron transport model simulation"
9. Poster Presenters, 1-slide walk-in poster advertisements

3. MPEC stand-alone session, Tuesday, 13 June, 15:30-17:00 PT, Room Pacific B

This stand-alone session will consist of contributed talks on magnetospheric precipitation due to waves and their effects on ionospheric conductances. The session will end with a discussion of plans for mini-GEM 2023 and GEM 2024.

1. Bill Lotko, "Poleward Propagating Alfvénic surges stimulated by FTEs"
2. Sheng Tian, "Conjunction observations on discrete auroras and Alfven waves: can auroral movies serve as an effective proxy for monitoring wave development in space?"
3. Dillon Gillespie, "Global Mapping of Diffuse Electron Aurora and Ionospheric Conductance from Electron Cyclotron Harmonic Waves"
4. Yiqun Yu, "Ionospheric modulation due to EMIC wave-driven proton precipitation"
5. Xiaojia Zhang, "Ionospheric plasma Density Gradients Associated With Night-Side Energetic Electron Precipitation"
6. Luisa Cappannolo, "Evaluating the atmospheric input and ionization from EMIC-driven electron precipitation"
7. Michael Hartinger, "ULF Wave modulation of Space Weather Significant TEC Events"
8. Steve Kaeppler, "Characteristics of Precipitation - TBD"
9. Doga Ozturk - Dong Lin, "Open Discussion Plans for Next Year and Mini-GEM"

4. IHMIC-GIC-MPEC joint session, Thursday, 15 June, 10:30-12:00 PT, Room Pacific A

This joint session consists of one invited talk followed by contributed talks and walk-in talks on poster summary. We will have follow-up discussions on available data base (GMD, geoelectric field, and GIC) and potential modeling challenge events.

1. Dogacan Ozturk: FG Introduction
2. Mark Engebretson: Solar cycle dependence of extreme GMDs occurrences
3. Michael Hartinger: ULF Wave Contributions to GIC
4. James Weygand: Mapping DFBs observed by THEMIS to GMDs observed on the ground
5. Juan Rodriguez-Zuluaga: Unraveling the coherence breakdown of ground-level geomagnetic disturbances
6. Shin Ohtani: The cause of the 1600 nT Colaba magnetic depression during the 1859 Carrington storm
7. Karl Laundal: How the ionosphere perturbs Earth’s magnetic field
8. Xin Cao: The Response of Ionospheric Currents to External Drivers Investigated Using a Neural Network-Based Model
9. Walk-in talks: 1-slide poster summary
10. Open discussion.

5. MPEC-MESO-DIP joint session, Thursday, 15 June, 13:30-15:00 PT, Room Pacific A

This joint session will focus on meso-scale precipitation due to dipolarization events. We will have a panel-led discussion on the following questions:

1. What can ground-based observations tell us about the mesoscale phenomena occurring in space?
2. How can we leverage the existing ground-based networks and operational spacecraft data we have for multi-scale coupling research without having the propelling effect of a big NASA mission (like THEMIS or GDC)?
3. How do model results of mesoscale dynamics translate to ground-based observations in the nightside? Do the model results present similar ground-based signatures in terms of scale size, temporal evolution, and overall dynamics?

After the panel provides their thoughts, we will open up the discussion to the room. Please join in! We wish to run it "workshop style", so please bring a slide if you want to help with the discussion, or just your thoughts.

Panelists:

1. Kareem Sorathia (Modeling)
2. Bashi Ferdousi (Modeling)
3. Toshi Nishimura (Data)
4. Sneha Yadav (Data)
5. Emma Spanswick (Data)

6. MPEC-SCIMM-ML joint session, Thursday, 15 June, 15:30-17:00 PT, Room Pacific A

This joint session will focus on precipitation from the inner magnetosphere using ML models.
1. Alfredo Cruz: Emulating the RAM-SCB and CIMI ring current models
2. Sheng Huang: Machine learning of hiss waves in the plumes
3. Xiaochen Shen: Large-amplitude whistler waves in plasmasphere and plumes
4. Qianli Ma: Performance of empirical models of total electron density and whistler-mode waves
5. Xin Cao: The response of ionospheric currents to external drivers investigated using a neural network-based model
6. Cristian Ferradas: Modeling the effects of field line curvature scattering on the ring current and the atmosphere

2022 mini-GEM Workshop Agenda

The MPEC session will take place on Sunday, December 11th between 15.30-17.00 CT in Williford B Room of the Hilton Chicago Hotel (720 South Michigan Avenue). There will also be a hybrid component accessible via Zoom. (https://alaska.zoom.us/j/87956087298?pwd=ZnY2cUExeVFHV0djcmxKOTBUTm9HQT09)

The tentative meeting schedule is as follows.
1. Jim Raines, "Space weathering on airless bodies: Ion precipitation at Mercury"
2. Louis Ozeke, "The Relationship between Intense Electron Precipitation and Electron Injections"
3. Alexa Halford and Kyle Murphy, "NASA Space Precipitation Impacts Group"
4. Tian Sheng, "Auroral Beads in Conjunction With Kinetic Alfvén Waves in the Equatorial Inner-Magnetosphere"
5. Margaret Chen, "Diffuse Auroral Precipitation Effects on Ionospheric Conductance, Particle, and Joule Heating During the 17 March 2015 Storm"
6. Lonxing Ma, "Simulating the Global Distribution of particle precipitation in response to ULF waves"

2022 GEM Workshop Agenda

There will be 2 stand-alone and 2 joint MPEC sessions. Please follow our slack channel for notifications and discussions: https://gemworkshop.slack.com/archives/C03GNRQAYCF

MPEC Stand-alone session on Monday, June 20, 2022, 13:30-15:00 HDT, at Bluefin

This session will focus on observational studies of magnetospheric sources of particle precipitation.

1. Allison Jaynes, "Rocket Missions and the Energetic Content of Pulsating Aurora"
2. Riley Troyer, "Substorm Activity as a Driver of Energetic Pulsating Aurora"
3. Mykhaylo Shumko, "The Association of Relativistic Electron Microbursts With the Aurora"
4. Jone Peter Reistad, "Origins of keV Electron Precipitation in the Summer Hemisphere Polar Cap: On the Structure and Dynamics of High Latitude Dayside Aurora"
5. Christine Gabrielse, "Estimating Precipitating Energy Flux, Average Energy, and Hall Auroral Conductance in 2D From THEMIS All-Sky-Imagers With Focus on Mesoscales"
6. Jiang Liu, "Embedded R1 and R2 Currents: a Source of Intense Precipitation, and Their Preferred Condition"
7. Harneet Sangha, "An Analysis of Region 2 Field-Aligned Current Bifurcations"

MPEC Stand-alone session on Tuesday, June 21, 2022, 10:30-12:00 HDT, at Alohilani II

This session will focus on numerical studies of magnetospheric sources of particle precipitation.

1. Bill Lotko, TBD (Modelling of Magnetospheric Particle Precipitation)
2. Eftyhia Zesta, "Role of Ion Precipitation in M-I Coupling and Electron Upflow"
3. Yu Lin, "Cusp Ion Precipitation Associated with Magnetopause Reconnection Viewed from Global Hybrid Simulation"
4. Yann Pfau-Kempf, "Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling in Vlasiator"
5. Maxime Grandin, "First 3D Results with Vlasiator on Auroral Proton Precipitation During Southward Interplanetary Magnetic Field Driving"
6. Shanshan Bao, "Gray-box Modeling of Particle Scattering and Auroral Precipitation"
7. Zihan Wang, "COMPASS: A New COnductance Model Based on PFISR And SWARM Satellite Observations"

MPEC-SCIMM joint session on Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 13:30-15:00 HDT, at Alohilani II

1. Raluca Ilie, "Ionospheric Feedback to the Magnetosphere"
2. Michael Hartinger, "ULF Wave Modulation of Total Electron Content"
3. Mei-Ching Fok, TBD (Particle precipitation with the CIMI model)
4. Yongliang Zhang, "Ring Current Aurora"
5. Qianli Ma, "Electron Precipitation and Ionospheric Density Enhancements due to Hiss"
6. Dillon Gillespie, "Global Statistics of Diffuse Electron Aurora and Ionospheric Conductance Directly Derived from Whistler-mode Chorus Waves"
7. Dong Lin, "Origin of the Dawnside SAPS During Major Geomagnetic Storms"

MPEC-IEMIT joint session on Thursday, June 23, 2022, 13:30-15:00 HDT, at Alohilani II

1. Emma Spanswick, "Proposed Upgrades to UCalgary & UAlberta Ground Arrays in Advance of GDC"
2. Hyomin Kim, "Riometer Observations of Particle Precipitation During the LAMP Mission"
3. Jeremiah Johnson, "Understanding Auroral Morphology Through Self-Supervised Machine Learning"
4. Margaret Chen, "Effects of Diffuse Auroral Precipitation on Ionospheric Conductivity and Joule Heating During Storms: Simulation and Data Comparisons"
5. Agnit Mukhopadhyay, "Global Driving of Auroral Precipitation"
6. Eftyhia Zesta, "Impact of the Precipitation Energy Distribution on the I-T system"