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FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek

14th International Conference on Substorms

Awarded: NOK 0.12 mill.

The northern lights have fascinated humans for thousands of years, yet their origin remained a mystery for many years. The ground-braking work by Kristian Birkeland and other Norwegian scientists formed the foundation for many discoveries made since the beginning of the space age. In 1964, a seminal paper by S.-I. Akasofu introduced the idea of the auroral substorm, and since then it has come apparent that the substorm is a, if not the, fundamental mode in which the magnetosphere releases energy, dumping it into the Earth?s upper atmosphere, thereby creating the aurora. As the main (only?) energy dissipation mechanism, the substorm is therefore of fundamental importance when trying to understand global magnetospheric dynamics. Several disputes around the substorm have been settled in the past decades, however many more remain unsolved. Since 1990, experimenters, analysts, and theorists in the field of space plasma physics have gathered biennially in order to discuss major substorm problems. The 14th meeting of the International Conference on Substorms series is organized through the University of Oslo, but to be held in Tromsø. We invite contributions to all scientific topics related to substorms, such as substorm processes in the magnetotail, interactions between the tail and the inner magnetosphere and ionosphere, substorm currents and their dynamics, and the role of substorm in geospace energetics, as well as the role of MHD and kinetic instabilities in substorms. In particular, at ICS-14 we wish to focus the discussion on physics rather than phenomenology and rekindle interest in substorms across the wider space plasma physics community.

ICS-14 had the following actual and expected effects: - 50 scientists from institutions in 11 different countries met for one week in Tromsø to discuss the science of substorms (actual) - data and insights from the latest space missions and numerical models were presented (actual) - open questions and research directions within the substorm community were discussed in plenum (actual) - new research ideas were developed (expected) - new colaborations between participants were established (expected)

The substorm is a, if not the, fundamental mode in which the magnetized plasma environment of the Earth (the magnetosphere) releases energy. The energy is loaded from the solar wind into the magnetosphere on the dayside and subsequently transported into what is known as the magnetotail. On the nightside, the substorm then dumps the energy into the Earth’s upper atmosphere. As the main (only?) energy dissipation mechanism, the substorm is therefore of fundamental importance when trying to understand global magnetospheric dynamics. In this project we will organize and hold ICS-14, the 14th International Conference on Substorms, in early October 2019 in Tromsø.

Funding scheme:

FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek