Study: Hole in ionosphere is caused by sudden stratospheric warming
Forecasting space weather is even more challenging than regular meteorology. The ionosphere — the upper atmospheric layer containing particles charged by solar radiation — affects many of today’s vital navigation and communication systems, including GPS mapping apps and airplane navigation tools. Being able to predict activity of the charged electrons in the ionosphere is important to ensure the integrity of satellite-based technologies. Geospace research has long established that certain changes in the atmosphere are caused by the sun’s radiation, through mechanisms including solar wind, geomagnetic storms, and solar flares. Coupling effects — or changes in one atmospheric layer that affect other layers — are more controversial. Debates include the extent of connections between the layers, as well as how far such coupling effects extend, and the details of processes involved with these effects. One of the more scientifically interesting large-scale atmospheric events is called a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), in which enormous...