[1] The seasonal and interannual variability of migrating (Sun-synchronous) and nonmigrating solar atmospheric tides at altitudes between 100 and 116 km are investigated using temperature measurements made with the SABER instrument on the TIMED spacecraft during [2002][2003][2004][2005][2006]. Quasi-biennial variations of order ±10-15% in migrating diurnal and semidiurnal tidal amplitudes are found, presumably due to modulation by the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) as the tides propagate from their troposphere and stratospheric sources to the lower thermosphere. A number of nonmigrating tidal components are found that have the potential to produce significant longitudinal variability of the total tidal fields. The most prominent of these, i.e., those that appear at amplitudes of order 5-10 K in a 5-year mean climatology, include the zonally symmetric (s = 0) diurnal tide (D0); the eastward propagating diurnal and semidiurnal tides with zonal wave numbers s = À2 (DE2 and SE2) and s = À3 (DE3 and SE3); and the following westward propagating waves: diurnal s = 2 (DW2); semidiurnal s = 1 (SW1), s = 3 (SW3), and s = 4 (SW4); and terdiurnal s = 5 (TW5). These waves can be plausibly accounted for by nonlinear interaction between migrating tidal components and stationary planetary waves with s = 1 or s = 2 or by longitudinal variations of tropospheric thermal forcing. Additional waves that occur during some years or undergo phase cancellation within construction of a 5-year climatology include DW5, SE1, SE4, SW6, TE1, TW1, and TW7. It is anticipated that the winds that accompany all of these waves in the 100-170 km region will impose longitudinal variability in the electric fields produced through the ionospheric dynamo mechanism, thereby modulating vertical motion of the equatorial ionosphere and the concomitant plasma densities. In addition to the wave-4 modulation of the equatorial ionosphere that has recently been discovered and replicated in modeling studies, the waves revealed here will generate wave-1 (SW1, SW3, D0, DW2), wave-2 (SW4, TW1), wave-3 (DE2, SE1), wave-4 (DE3, SE2, DW5, SW6, TE1, TW7), wave-5 (SE3), and wave-6 (SE4) components of this ionospheric variability, depending on year and time of year. However, the absolute and relative efficiencies with which these waves produce electric fields remains to be determined.

The International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) project was established jointly by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) and the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) in the late sixties with the goal to develop an international standard for the specification of plasma parameters in the Earth's ionosphere. COSPAR needed such a specification for the evaluation of environmental effects on spacecraft and experiments in space, and URSI for radiowave propagation studies and applications. At the request of COSPAR and URSI, IRI was developed as a data-based model to avoid the uncertainty of theory-based models which are only as good as the evolving theoretical understanding. Being based on most of the available and reliable observations of the ionospheric plasma from the ground and from space, IRI describes monthly averages of electron density, electron temperature, ion temperature, ion composition, and several additional parameters in the altitude range from 60 km to 2000 km. A working group of about 50 international ionospheric experts is in charge of developing and improving the IRI model. Over time as new data became available and new modeling techniques emerged, steadily improved editions of the IRI model have been published. This paper gives a brief history of the IRI project and describes the latest version of the model, IRI-2012. It also briefly discusses efforts to develop a real-time IRI model. The IRI homepage is at http://IRImodel.org.

[1] The dramatic solar storm events of April 2002 deposited a large amount of energy into the Earth's upper atmosphere, substantially altering the thermal structure, the chemical composition, the dynamics, and the radiative environment. We examine the flow of energy within the thermosphere during this storm period from the perspective of infrared radiation transport and heat conduction. Observations from the SABER instrument on the TIMED satellite are coupled with computations based on the ASPEN thermospheric general circulation model to assess the energy flow. The dominant radiative response is associated with dramatically enhanced infrared emission from nitric oxide at 5.3 mm from which a total of $7.7 Â 10 23 ergs of energy are radiated during the storm. Energy loss rates due to NO emission exceed 2200 Kelvin per day. In contrast, energy loss from carbon dioxide emission at 15 mm is only $2.3% that of nitric oxide. Atomic oxygen emission at 63 mm is essentially constant during the storm. Energy loss from molecular heat conduction may be as large as 3.8% of the NO emission. These results confirm the ''natural thermostat'' effect of nitric oxide emission as the primary mechanism by which storm energy is lost from the thermosphere below 210 km.

[1] At low latitudes to midlatitudes the Earth's magnetic field usually shields the upper atmosphere and spacecraft in low Earth orbit from solar energetic particles (SEPs). During severe geomagnetic storms, distortion of the Earth's field suppresses geomagnetic shielding, allowing SEPs access to the midlatitudes. A case study of the 26-31 October 2003 solar-geomagnetic event is used to examine how a severe geomagnetic storm affects SEP access to the Earth. Geomagnetic cutoffs are numerically determined in model geomagnetic fields using code developed by the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling (CISM) at Dartmouth College. The CISM-Dartmouth geomagnetic cutoff model is being used in conjunction with the High Energy and Charge Transport code (HZETRN) at the NASA Langley Research Center to develop a real-time data-driven prediction of radiation exposure at commercial airline altitudes. In this work, cutoff rigidities are computed on global grids and along several high-latitude flight routes before and during the geomagnetic storm. It is found that significant variations in SEP access to the midlatitudes and high latitudes can occur on time scales of an hour or less in response to changes in the solar wind dynamic pressure and interplanetary magnetic field. The maximum suppression of the cutoff is ∼1 GV occurring in the midlatitudes during the main phase of the storm. The cutoff is also significantly suppressed by the arrival of an interplanetary shock. The maximum suppression of the cutoff due to the shock is approximately one half of the maximum suppression during the main phase of the storm.

Temperature observations between 20 and 120 km from the SABER instrument on the TIMED spacecraft are used to investigate the nature of planetary wave activity during the 60 days prior to the midwinter stratospheric warming that commenced on 26 September, 2002 in the Southern Hemisphere. The primary wave components consist of eastward‐propagating quasi‐10‐day waves with zonal wave numbers s = 1 and s = 2, and a stationary planetary wave with s = 1. The waves are found to extend from the lower stratosphere to the 100–120 km height region with surprisingly little amplitude attenuation, although wave amplitudes oscillate with altitude like a standing wave pattern. Time evolution of the waves is also addressed with emphasis on 86 km altitude, where temperature observations from three Antarctic stations at Davis (69°S, 78°W), Rothera (68°S, 68°W) and Syowa (69°S, 40°E) are available during the same period. We demonstrate that the temporal evolution of temperature obtained by superposition of the waves derived from SABER measurements accounts for nearly all the temperature variability observed at the longitudes of the three Antarctic stations.