A Comparison of the Impacts of CMEs and CIRs on the Martian Dayside and Nightside Ionospheric Species

Abstract

Solar energetic events, namely coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and Stream Interaction regions/corotating interaction regions (SIRs/CIRs), are the principal drivers of the major space weather phenomena in the planetary atmosphere. CMEs are defined as a huge burst of plasma and magnetic field originating from the outer surface of the sun (Gopalswamy, 2006;Gosling, 1990;Jian et al., 2006). CMEs traverse all the way from the solar corona to interplanetary space, preceded by forward shock (Chen, 2011;Tousey, 1973). They are commonly characterized by a strong rotating magnetic field, low β (ratio of plasma pressure and magnetic pressure), low ion temperature, high proton density, and enhancement in velocity (