Space Weather, SuperDARN and the Tasmanian Tiger

Abstract

The plasma environment extending from the solar surface through interplanetary space to the outermost reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field is dynamic, often disturbed, and capable of harming humans and damaging manmade systems. Disturbances in this environment have been identified as space weather disturbances. At the present time there is growing interest in monitoring and predicting space weather disturbances. In this paper we present some of the difficulties involved in achieving this goal by comparing the processes that drive tropospheric-weather systems with those that drive space-weather systems in the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The former are driven by pressure gradients which result from processes that heat and cool the atmosphere. The latter are driven by electric fields that result from interactions between the streams of ionised gases emerging from the Sun (solar wind) and the Earth’s magnetosphere. Although the dimensions of the Earth’s magnetosphere are vastly greater than those of tropospheric weather systems, the global space-weather response to changes in the solar wind is much more rapid than the response of tropospheric-weather systems to changing conditions. We shall demonstrate the rapid evolution of space-weather systems in the upper atmosphere through measurements with a global network of radars known as SuperDARN. We shall also describe how the SuperDARN network is evolving, including a newly funded Australian component known as the Tasman International Geospace Environmental Radar (TIGER).