Overview of a Graduate Course Delivered in Turkey, Emphasizing Solar-Terrestrial Physics and Space Weather

Abstract

Space physics is a young discipline in Turkey. Since 1970 various national nearEarth space research activities and several international collaborations have been conducted in Turkey and some of these are continuing. In May 2004 a four-week Graduate Course on ''Space and Atmospheric Physics I and II'' was held at the Tu¨bitak Feza Gu¨rsey Institute in Istanbul, Turkey. This paper explains the background behind this initiative, and gives an introduction to the topics that were covered during the course, especially emphasizing how solar-terrestrial physics is applied to space weather. During the course the students, in parallel with the lectures delivered, performed projects based on the curriculum, and using information available on the Internet and in the literature. A resume´of their results concerning the wellknown ''space weather'' event at the end of 2003 is given.

Space Weather: Physics, Effects and Predictability

“…Table 1 depicts the domain-oriented catalogue of the systems affected by space weather, their effects and their measurable parameters, in tabular form (Koskinen et al 2001). Single Event Effect (SEE) refers to soft (nondestructive) or hard (destructive) damage caused to electronic equipment onboard a spacecraft or aircraft by high energy charged particles, which may be in the form of either or both an induced transient pulse causing a soft error in logic or support circuitry and a transient current leading to soft/hard damage to the power supply (Crosby et al 2006). Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) refers to the spark on a satellite which occurs when its surfaces or interior elements become highly charged relative to the space plasma or to neighbouring satellite components.…”

“…Radiation effects depend on the energy of the radiation, from galactic cosmic rays, solar energetic particles and radiation trapped in the Earth's Van Allen belts (Bourrieau et al 1996;Crosby et al 2006). A number of spacecraft anomalies and failures following significantly enhanced fluxes of high energy radiation during interplanetary disturbances have been identified (Baker et al 1996, Reeves et al 1998Barbieri and Mahmot 2004 and references therein).…”

“…The intensities of these particles may change by many orders of magnitude over the course of minutes. The penetrating charged particles produce transient electrical pulses leading to upsets and latchups in the signal and control electronics of satellites (Crosby et al 2006). Such particles may also cause the build up of electrical charges on insulating (dielectric) materials such as those used in coaxial cables.…”

“…Flares that occur in magnetic arcades and show two regions of particle emission on both sides of a magnetic inversion line in the lower atmosphere are called two parallel flare/ribbon flares. The solar flare observed during the Halloween event of October and November 2003 was a parallel ribbon flare (Crosby et al 2006). Different kinds of radiation emanate from different parts of the flare and are released at different times of the flare process (Schwenn 2006a).…”

“…4. The storm was classified as X17.2, corresponding to the measured power of 1.72 mW m -2 (Crosby et al 2006; http://www.sec.noaa.gov/sxi/ index.html). Apart from the soft X-rays, the extreme ultra violet EUV (10-125 nm) emissions are among the most geoeffective parameters of the solar electromagnetic spectrum.…”