Polar Heat

Download or read book Dayside and Polar Cap Aurora written by Per Even Sandholt and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The auroral emissions in the upper atmosphere of the polar regions of the Earth are evidence of the capture of energetic particles from the Sun, streaming by the Earth as the solar wind. These auroral emissions, then, are a window to outer space, and can provide us with valuable information about electrodynamic coupling processes between the solar wind and the Earth's ionosphere and upper atmosphere. Studying the physics of these phenomena extends our understanding of our plasma universe. Ground-based remote-sensing techniques, able to monitor continuously the variations in the signatures of aurorae, in combination with in-situ satellite and rocket measurements, promise to advance dramatically our understanding of the physical processes taking place at the interface of the atmospheres of the Earth and the Sun. Decoding their complexity brings us closer to reliable prediction of communication environments, especially at high latitudes. This understanding, in turn, will help us resolve problems of communication and navigation across polar regions.