Space Weather and Earth’s Atmosphere
The thermosphere and the ionosphere are conventionally known to be directly affected by the varying magnitudes of solar activity.
When incidence of solar flux or energetic charged particles increases suddenly due to the occurrence of solar flares or coronal mass ejections combined with magnetic reconnection in the Earth’s magnetosphere, the adverse effects witnessed in the ionosphere-thermosphere (IT) system as a whole are referred to as Space Weather effects.
Consequently, these space weather effects lead to adverse effects in several space and ground-based applications as illustrated in the figure above. These effects and consequences are to be understood at both fundamental and applications levels.