MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

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Call for applications for STFC Public Engagement Early-Career Researcher Forum

 

The STFC Public Engagement Early-Career Researcher Forum (the ‘PEER Forum’) will support talented scientists and engineers in the early stages of their career to develop their public engagement and outreach goals, to ensure the next generation of STFC scientists and engineers continue to deliver the highest quality of purposeful, audience-driven public engagement.

Applications are being taken until 4pm on 3 June 2021. If you would like to apply, visit the PEER Forum website, and if you have queries This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The PEER Forum aims:

  • To foster peer learning and support between early career scientists and engineers with similar passion for public engagement and outreach, thus developing a peer support network that goes beyond an individual’s term in the forum 
  • To foster a better knowledge and understanding of the support mechanisms available from STFC and other organisations, including funding mechanisms, evaluation, and reporting. As well as how to successfully access and utilise this support 
  • To explore the realities of delivering and leading public engagement as an early career professional and build an evidence base to inform and influence STFC and by extension UKRI’s approaches to public engagement, giving an effective voice to early career researchers

What will participation in the Forum involve?

Participants in the PEER Forum will meet face-to-face at least twice per year to share learning and to participate in session that will strengthen the depth and breadth of their understanding of public engagement and outreach.

Who can apply to join the Forum?

The PEER Forum is for practising early-career scientists and engineers who have passion and ambition for carrying out excellent public engagement alongside, and complementary to, their career in science or engineering. We are seeking Forum members from across the breadth of STFC’s pure and applied science and technology remit.

The specific personal requirements of PEER Forum membership are that members:

  • Have completed (or currently studying for – including apprentices and PhD students) their highest level of academic qualification within the last ten years (not including any career breaks)
  • Are employed at a Higher Education Institute, or a research-intensive Public Sector Research Organisation or Research Laboratory (including STFC’s own national laboratories)
  • Work within a science and technology field in STFC’s remit, or with a strong inter-disciplinary connection to STFC’s remit, or use an STFC facility to enable their own research
  • Clearly describe their track record of experience in their field, corresponding to the length of their career to date
  • Clearly describe their track record of delivering and leading, or seeking the opportunity to lead, public engagement and/or outreach
  • Can provide insight into their experiences in public engagement and/or outreach and also evidence one or more of
  • Inspiring others
  • Delivering impact
  • Demonstrating creativity
  • Introducing transformative ideas and/or inventions
  • Building and sustaining collaborations/networks
  • Are keen communicators with a willingness to contribute to the success of a UK-wide network

    • https://stfc.ukri.org/public-engagement/training-and-support/peer-forum/  

    Astronet Science Vision & Infrastructure Roadmap

     

    Astronet is a consortium of European funding agencies, established for the purpose of providing advice on long-term planning and development of European Astronomy. Setup in 2005, its members include most of the major European astronomy nations, with associated links to the European Space Agency, the European Southern Observatory, SKA, and the European Astronomical Society, among others. The purpose of the Science Vision and Infrastructure Roadmap is to deliver a coordinated vision covering the entire breadth of astronomical research, from the origin and early development of the Universe to our own solar system.

    The first European Science Vision and Infrastructure Roadmap for Astronomy was created by Astronet, using EU funds, in 2008/09, and updated in 2014/15. Astronet is now developing a new Science Vision & Infrastructure Roadmap, in a single document with an outlook for the next 20 years. A delivery date to European funding agencies of mid-2021 is anticipated. 

    The Science Vision and Infrastructure Roadmap revolves around the research themes listed below:

    • Origin and evolution of the Universe
    • Formation and evolution of galaxies
    • Formation & evolution of stars
    • Formation & evolution of planetary systems
    • Understanding the solar system and conditions for life

    but will include cross-cutting aspects such as computing and training and sustainability.

     

    After some delays due to the global pandemic, the first drafts of the chapters for the document are now available from the Panels asked to draft them, for you to view and comment on. For the Science Vision & Roadmap to be truly representative it is essential we take account of the views of as much of the European astronomy and space science community as possible – so your input is really valued by the Panels and Astronet. Please leave any comments, feedback or questions on the site by 1 May 2021.

    It is intended that a virtual “town hall” style event will be held in late Spring 2021, where an update on the project and responses to the feedback will be provided.

    Equitable Letters in Space Physics (ELSP)

    Equitable Letters for Space Physics (ELSP) is a project to encourage merit-based recommendations and nominations in the space physics community by providing resources for letter writing and reviews of recommendation and nomination letters. You can learn more about ELSP's mission and find both letter writing and implicit bias resources at the ELSP website.

    ELSP seeks to achieve this goal by:

    1. Providing resources for people writing letters of recommendation and award nomination at the undergraduate level and above.
    2. Providing resources for people wishing to learn about different implicit biases and lessen their manifestation.
    3. Providing reviews of recommendation and nomination letters, with the goal of lessening implicit bias in these letters.

    At the moment, ELSP is seeking volunteers to participate as reviewers in the letter submission system. This system will function similarly to double-blind journal article reviews, with the ELSP executive director acting as editor.The ELSP board of directors is Angeline G. Burrell; John Coxon; Alexa Halford; McArthur Jones Jr.; and Kate Zawdie. If you have more questions or would like to participate, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

    Call for proposals for ESA's Living Planet Fellowship

    ESA is currently inviting proposals for their Living Planet Fellowship with a deadline of 15 March 2021. These fellowships, worth a maximum of €110k, are intended:

    To support young scientists, at post-doctoral level, to undertake cutting-edge research in Earth Observation, Earth System Science or Climate Research, maximising the scientific return of ESA and European EO missions and datasets through the development of novel EO methods, techniques and products, and by delivering excellent scientific results addressing the grand Earth Science challenges of the next decade, enabling improved predictions of the physical interaction of society with the Earth system.

    Interested candidates need to propose a two-year-long research plan which contributes to either of the two themes of the fellowship: "Advancing novel methods and techniques" or "Advancing Earth system science". The call also includes opportunities in the use of cloud computing capabilities; to support small ground-based experiments and in situ data collection; and a visiting scientist scheme to join the new ESA Earth System Science Hub.

    Questions related to the call can be submitted via email, and must be "not later than two weeks before the Closing Date" (i.e. by the end of February 2021). The timeline for the fellowships is as follows:

    Milestone Date
    Submission of proposals 15 March 2021 
    Communication of results* Q2 2021
    Beginning of activities* Q3 2021

    *tentative

    "Mental Health and Wellbeing in the MIST Community": A series of panel discussions

    We are hosting a series of pre-recorded panel discussions on the topic of "Mental Health and Wellbeing in the MIST Community", exploring the sources and impacts within our community as well as discussing ways to move forwards. The discussions will focus on both individual and community-wide perspectives, and will consider perspectives from a range of career stages. The panel discussions will separately focus on views from a) PhD students, b) PDRAs, and c) Tenure positions. 
     
    To ensure that the discussion focuses on the needs and issues most important to the MIST Community, we request your input on questions that you would like to pose to the panel, as well as specific topics that you would like to see covered. To suggest questions & topics, please use the following form: https://forms.gle/J4QS5JdaVCo1hF6z7 and submit your suggestions by Friday 26 February. Please note that any responses on the form are completely anonymous.
     
    For support with mental health and wellbeing concerns, we recommend the following resources: https://ras.ac.uk/education-and-careers/places-you-can-find-support.
     
    If you have any other questions, concerns, or would like to discuss anything in further detail, please get in touch at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

    Nuggets of MIST science, summarising recent MIST papers in a bitesize format.

    If you would like to submit a nugget, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will arrange a slot for you in the schedule. Nuggets should be 100–300 words long and include a figure/animation. Please get in touch!

    Solar Wind Dependence of Magnetospheric Ultra-Low Frequency Plasma Waves

    By Sarah Bentley, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK

    Ultra-low frequency plasma waves (ULF, 1-15 mHz) are implicated in the energisation and transport of radiation belt electrons. Therefore a description of magnetospheric ULF wave power in terms of driving parameters is highly desirable for radiation belt forecasting; in particular, we want to describe power in terms of solar wind properties, as the solar wind is the dominant driver behind these waves.

    However, identifying solar wind driving parameters is severely hampered by the nature of the solar wind. All solar wind parameters are highly interrelated due to their common solar sources and the interactions within the solar wind between the Sun and Earth, resulting in the effect that all solar wind properties correlate so strongly with speed vswthat investigating their relationship to magnetospheric properties is difficult.

    To circumvent analysis techniques that require properties such as a linear interdependence between these parameters, we use a series of simple yet systematic two-parameter plots (e.g. Figure 1) to identify which parameters are causally correlated to ULF wave power, rather than just correlated via a relationship with speed vsw. We find that speed, the southward component of the interplanetary magnetic field and summed power in proton number density perturbations (vsw, Bz < 0 and δNp) are the three dominant parameters driving power in magnetospheric ultra-low frequency waves. These parameters can be used in future modelling but are also of interest because there is clearly a threshold at Bz = 0, and because ULF wave power depends more on perturbations δNp than the number density Np itself.

    For more information, see the paper below or an informal blog post here.

    Bentley, S. N., Watt, C. E. J., Owens, M. J., & Rae, I. J. (2018). ULF wave activity in the magnetosphere: Resolving solar wind interdependencies to identify driving mechanisms. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 123. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JA024740

    Figure 1: A two-parameter plot taken from Bentley et al., 2018. We bin the ULF power observed at one station (roughly corresponding to geostationary orbit) at one frequency (2.5mHz) and observe whether it increases with increases in solar wind speed vswand/or the component Bz of the interplanetary magnetic field, using fifteen years of data. Cut-throughs at constant speed and Bz are shown in (b) and (c). ULF power increases with speed and with more strongly negative Bz for Bz<0, but only with speed for Bz>0.  

    The Role of Proton Cyclotron Resonance as a Dissipation Mechanism in Solar Wind Turbulence

    By Lloyd Woodham, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, UK

    The solar wind contains turbulent fluctuations that are part of a continual cascade of energy from large scales down to smaller scales. At ion-kinetic scales, some of this energy is dissipated, resulting in a steepening in the spectrum of magnetic field fluctuations and heating of the ion velocity distributions, however, the specific mechanisms are still poorly understood. Understanding these mechanisms in the collisionless solar wind plasma is a major outstanding problem in the field of heliophysics research.

    We use magnetic field and ion moment data from the MFI and SWE instruments on-board the Wind spacecraft to study the nature of solar wind turbulence at ion-kinetic scales. We analyse the spectral properties of magnetic field fluctuations between 0.1 and 5.5 Hz over 2012 using an automated routine, computing high-resolution 92 s power and magnetic helicity spectra. To ensure the spectral features are physical, we make the first in-flight measurement of the MFI ‘noise-floor’ using tail-lobe crossings of the Earth's magnetosphere during early 2004. We utilise Taylor's hypothesis to Doppler-shift into the spacecraft frequency frame, finding that the spectral break observed at these frequencies is best associated with the proton-cyclotron resonance scale, 1/kc, compared to the proton inertial length di and proton gyroscale ρi. This agreement is strongest when we consider periods where βi,perp ~ 1, and is consistent with a spectral break at di for βi,par « 1 and ρi for βi,perp » 1.

    Histograms for 2012 of the estimated helicity onset frequency, fb, versus the three characteristic plasma scales, converted into frequencies using Taylor's hypothesis - fL represents fkc, fdi, and fρi, for each column respectively. The data used are for periods where 0.95 ≥ βi,perp ≥ 1.05. The colour-bar represents the column-normalised number of spectra. The black dashed lines represent fb = fL and similarly, the red dashed lines are fb = fL/ √2 and fb = fL√2, which give the resolution of the wavelet transform about the line fb = fL due to the finite width of the Morlet wavelet in frequency space. We see the best agreement between fb and fkc during these periods.

    We also find that the coherent magnetic helicity signature observed at these frequencies is bounded at low frequencies by 1/kc and its absolute value reaches a maximum at ρi. These results hold in both slow and fast wind streams, but with a better correlation in the more Alfvénic fast wind where the helicity signature is strongest. We conclude that these findings are consistent with proton-cyclotron resonance as an important mechanism for dissipation of turbulent energy in the solar wind, occurring at least half the time in our selected interval. However, we do not rule out additional mechanisms.

    Woodham et al., 2018, The Role of Proton Cyclotron Resonance as a Dissipation Mechanism in Solar Wind Turbulence: A Statistical Study at Ion-kinetic Scales, ApJ, 856, 49, DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aab03d

     

    The Broadband Excitation of 3-D Alfvén Resonances (FLRs) in a MHD Waveguide

    By Tom Elsden, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, UK

    Field line resonance (FLR) has been the theoretical mechanism used to explain a myriad of ground and spaced based observations of ultra low frequency (ULF) waves in Earth’s magnetosphere. FLR is a plasma physics process whereby energy from a global oscillation (fast mode) can be transferred to local oscillations along magnetic field lines (Alfvén mode), where the fast mode frequency matches the local Alfvén frequency. This process was first studied analytically where the plasma was only inhomogeneous in the radial direction (mathematically 1D) [Southwood, 1974, Chen and Hasegawa, 1974] and has since been extended both analytically and numerically to more complicated systems [e.g. Lee and Lysak, 1989, Chen and Cowley, 1989, Wright and Thompson, 1994, Russell and Wright, 2010].

    A feature of FLRs in complicated geometries, such as a dipole, is that the poloidal (radial) and toroidal (azimuthal) Alfvén frequencies are different [e.g. Radoski, 1967]. This infers that the location where the FLR will occur is dependent on the polarisation of the Alfvén wave. This property has recently been explored theoretically in 3D [Wright and Elsden, 2016] and forms the basis of this current work. The magnetosphere is asymmetric and therefore requires an understanding of FLR in 3D. We look at wave coupling in an excessively asymmetric waveguide in order to study the physics clearly.

    The figure below taken from Elsden and Wright [2018], displays cuts in the equatorial plane from a 3D MHD waveguide simulation using a 2D dipole magnetic field geometry. In each panel, the x-axis is the radial direction (α) and the y-axis the azimuthal direction (β), and the density varies with azimuth. The left panel shows the energy density (dimensionless units) integrated along a field line, showing an accumulation of energy along curved resonance paths, where the FLR polarisation is between poloidal and toroidal. The middle and right panels show the square root of the kinetic energy in the equatorial plane, revealing ridges which develop by phase mixing in 3D. We find that with a broadband driver it is the natural fast waveguide modes which drive FLRs. Such modes are fairly insensitive to the form of the driver, and hence the resonances are seen at the same locations for many different driving stimuli. This means that the resonances are a property of the medium, and can hence be used as a seismological tool to infer properties of the equilibrium. Finally, the key point is that traditionally FLRs are regarded as having a strictly toroidal polarisation. However, here we have shown in 3D that they can have other polarisations.

    Elsden, T. and A. N. Wright (2018), The Broadband Excitation of 3D Alfvén Resonances in a MHD Waveguide, J. Geophys. Res. Space Physics, 123, doi:10.1002/2017JA025018

    Figure: Left: Energy density integrated along a field line. Black dashed line represents a theoretical prediction of the main FLR location. Middle: Square root of the the kinetic energy in the equatorial plane. Right: Same as middle but annotated for use in other plots in the paper.



    AuroraWatch UK: An Automated Aurora Alert System

    By Nathan A. Case, Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    The aurora borealis, though most often visible from more northerly latitudes, can occasionally be seen from the UK too. To help the public in their endeavour to see the northern lights from the UK, Lancaster University’s AuroraWatch UK issues alerts of when the aurora might be visible.

    As the currents driving the aurora intensify, they produce disturbances to the local magnetic field. Since its inception in September 2000, AuroraWatch UK has been using its own suite of magnetometers to record these disturbances and issue real-time alerts about where in the UK an aurora might be seen.

    We have now combined and standardised these alerts, using the latest alert algorithm to produce a 17-year dataset of UK aurora alerts. This dataset, along with the real-time data, is freely available for the community and the general public to use. We find that the alerts match well with the wider Kp index and the solar cycle.

    Case, N. A., Marple, S. R., Honary, F., Wild, J. A., Billett, D. D., & Grocott, A. 2017. AuroraWatch UK: An automated aurora alert system. Earth and Space Science, 4, 746–754. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EA000328

    (left) A pie chart illustrating the number of hours spent at each AuroraWatch UK activity level, as a percentage of the total number of hours. (right) A histogram of the percentage of hours spent at an elevated alert level (i.e., yellow or above) per year. Also plotted are (solid line) the percentage of time per year where Kp ≥ 4 and (dashed line) the mean daily sunspot number per year (as a proxy for solar activity). The sunspot number is divided by 10 for scale.

    Nugget: Are steady magnetospheric convection events prolonged substorms?

    By Maria-Theresia Walach, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    The large scale convection of magnetic flux within the Earth’s magnetosphere due to reconnection, also known as the Dungey cycle [Dungey, 1961; 1963], is partially driven by the solar wind. During southward IMF reconnection at the subsolar magnetopause opens flux, which is then added to the magnetotail. Depending on the strength of solar wind-driving, the magnetospheric response can be delayed, episodic or prolonged, also known as “magnetospheric modes” [e.g. Pulkkinen et al., 2007].

    Walach and Milan [2015] produced a statistical analysis of the event progression of steady magnetic convection events (intervals where the dayside reconnection is balanced by nightside reconnection [e.g. DeJong et al., 2008]), substorms (dominant dayside reconnection is followed by a delayed interval of dominant nightside reconnection [e.g. Baker et al., 1996]), and sawtooth events (signatures appearing to be quasi-periodic and quasi-global substorms [e.g. Henderson, 2004]). Superposed epoch analyses show that 58% of the studied steady magnetospheric convection events are part of prolonged substorms, where dayside reconnection is at first dominant. Then nightside reconnection is initiated as part of a substorm, but as the solar wind-driving continues the Earth’s magnetosphere then progresses into a state of steady magnetospheric convection, after which the substorm recovery continues.

    Walach, M.-T., S. E. Milan (2015), J. Geophys. Res. Space Physics, 120, doi:10.1002/2014JA020631.

    walach nugget

    Superposed epoch analysis of substorms (red), sawtooth events (orange), steady magnetospheric convection events with preceding substorms (blue) and steady magnetospheric convection events without preceding substorms (green). The onset of the steady magnetospheric convection events with preceding substorms has been shifted to match the preceding substorm onset. The time of the event duration for the steady magnetospheric convection events in superposed epoch analyses in the right column has been normalised.