DETERMINING AND PREDICTING THE SIZE AND ONSET TIMES OF SUBSTORMS

确定和预测亚风暴的规模和爆发时间

基本信息

批准号：
NE/N014480/1
负责人：
Colin Forsyth
金额：
$ 61.32万
依托单位：
University College London
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2016 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FN014480%2F1
关键词：
DETERMINING PREDICTING SIZE ONSET TIMES

项目摘要

The Sun's influence on the Earth goes well beyond gravitational attraction and shiny light and heat down on the Earth's surface; the Sun and Earth are connected by a stream of charged particles that is constantly flowing off the Sun and becoming trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. These charged particles bring with them the Sun's magnetic field, which can join up with the Earth's field, causing those trapped charged particles to become energised and to fly along the Earth's magnetic field into the atmosphere. When these particles hit the atmosphere, they cause it to glow in spectacular light displays that we call the aurora. The Earth is protected from most of the particles coming off the Sun by its magnetic field. As it expands out into space, it is deformed by the charged particles flowing off the Sun impacting upon it. It forms a bullet-like shaped region extending 60,000 km in front of the Earth, and over 600,000 km behind the Earth and known as the magnetosphere. As the solar particles and magnetic field hit the magnetosphere, it absorbs energy, storing that energy in the magnetic field behind the Earth. This store of energy is unstable, and eventually it is released, energising charged particles in the magnetosphere to create bright aurora in a process known as a substorm. These substorms happen three to four times per day, lighting up the night sky in the northern and southern polar regions for hours on end. To an observer in the right place on the ground, the whole of the night sky will light up over half-an-hour, before slowly fading for another hour or so.Whilst displays of substorm aurora are stunningly beautiful, they are far from benign. The particles associated with them can drive extremely large currents through the atmosphere that can cause other currents to flow on the ground. These currents can cause damage to electrical equipment and power networks, potentially leading to blackouts across large swathes of the Earth's surface. The energisation of charged particles in space can be hazardous to spacecraft, potentially causing millions of pounds worth of damage in a matter of seconds. As such, in a world that is increasingly reliant on space-based and electrical technology, these substorms represent a very real risk. Scientists also believe that these events can cause changes in the upper atmosphere that can affect its chemistry and potentially impact on climate, but as yet this effect is poorly understood owing to a lack of necessary observations.Despite being known about for thousands of years and studied in detail since the turn of the last century, we still are unable to accurately predict when and where these space weather events will occur. This is a major hurdle in space weather science that has remained a problem in this field due to a combination of lack of data and lack of the necessary tools to properly analyse this data. However, we are now in the best position to date to address these issues. The new research proposed in this project will combine datasets that have been collected over the last 20 years and answer the questions "when will these events occur?", "what will their impact be?" and "what controls them?". By answering these questions, we will be able to understand what we need to know in order to predict when these events will occur and what there impact will be.

太阳对地球的影响远远超出了重力吸引力，地球表面上的光线和闪亮的光线和热量。太阳和地球是通过不断从太阳流出并被困在地球磁场中的一系列带电颗粒的连接的。这些带电的颗粒带来了太阳的磁场，可以与地球场相连，从而导致那些被困的带电的颗粒变得燃烧，并沿着地球的磁场飞向大气。当这些颗粒碰到大气时，它们会在我们称为Aurora的壮观光线下发光。地球受到通过磁场从太阳上散发出的大多数颗粒。当它扩展到太空中时，它会被从太阳上流出的带电颗粒造成影响。它形成了一个像子弹状的区域，该区域在地球前延伸了60,000公里，在地球后落后60万公里，被称为磁层。当太阳颗粒和磁场撞击磁层时，它会吸收能量，并将该能量存储在地球后面的磁场中。这种能量存储是不稳定的，最终它被释放出来，在磁层中充满电的带电颗粒，在称为实量的过程中产生明亮的极光。这些体系每天发生三到四次，在北极地区和南极地区的夜空中点燃了几个小时。对于地面上正确位置的观察者来说，整个夜空将在半小时内亮起，然后慢慢褪色又一个小时左右。与它们相关的颗粒可以使极大的电流穿过大气，从而导致其他电流在地面上流动。这些电流会损害电气设备和电力网络，可能导致地球表面大块的大片停电。空间中带电颗粒的能量可能会对航天器危害，可能在几秒钟内造成数百万磅的损害。因此，在一个越来越依赖太空技术和电气技术的世界中，这些质量是一种非常真实的风险。科学家还认为，这些事件可能会导致上层大气的变化，可能会影响其化学反应并可能影响气候，但是由于缺乏必要的观察，这种影响还很糟糕。尽管有数千年的了解，并且自上世纪之交以来已经进行了详细研究，但我们仍然无法准确预测这些太空天气事件的何时何地。这是太空天气科学的主要障碍，由于缺乏数据和缺乏正确分析该数据的必要工具的结合，该领域仍然存在问题。但是，迄今为止，我们现在处于解决这些问题的最佳位置。该项目中提出的新研究将结合过去20年中收集的数据集并回答“这些事件何时发生？”，“它们的影响是什么？”和“是什么控制它们？”。通过回答这些问题，我们将能够理解我们需要知道的知识，以预测这些事件何时会发生以及将会产生什么影响。