Magnetopause position as an important index of the space weather

The Sun and the solar wind variability of different time-scales and the climate dynamics

“…1 demonstrate that the short-term variations of the stratospheric temperature are under influence of the solar wind energy changes (Makarova et al, 1997(Makarova et al, , 2000. Furthermore it was found that the same relation could be traced in the long-term (several cycles of the solar activity) variations of stratospheric temperature in the polar atmosphere (Makarova and Shirochkov, 2002).…”

“…It was shown previously that the solar wind energy evaluated in the subsolar distance between the Earth and magnetopause (expressed in the Earth's radius units) is connected closely with the thermal regime of stratosphere at the polar and middle latitudes (Makarova et al, 2000). Although these results were based on statistical studies, the authors proposed a reasonable physical mechanism capable to explain such connections.…”

“…It seems that this systematic change of the degree of correlation between the solar wind energy and stratospheric temperature has a solid physical foundation. The main feature of the version of the global electric circuit developed by (Makarova et al, 1997(Makarova et al, , 2000 is existence of the conducting layer in the middle atmosphere at the height of about 23 km.…”

“…3. As a characteristic of the solar wind dynamic pressure a subsolar distance between the Earth and the magnetopause is taken (Makarova et al, 2000). The diurnally averaged values of the both parameters for period from 01.12.1981 till 31.01.1982 were taken for this analysis.…”

“…Quantitatively this energy could be evaluated crudely as the dynamic pressure of the solar wind. More accurately influence of the solar wind on the Earth's magnetosphere-ionosphere-atmosphere system could be expressed by means of a new index-a subsolar distance between the Earth and external boundary of the terrestrial magnetosphere-magnetopause (Makarova et al, 2000).…”