2026 Workshop: Impact of Terrestrial Weather on the Space Weather of the ITM
Shantanab Debchoudhury
Larisa Goncharenko
Guiping Liu
Sarah McDonald
Fabrizio Sassi
Jiarong Zhang
Deepali Aggarwal
Bjoern Bergsson
Mack Jones
Zishun Qiao
Processes generated by terrestrial weather in the lower atmosphere (i.e., troposphere and stratosphere, altitudes less than ~50 km) are recognized by the scientific community as sources of variability in both the structure and composition of the ionosphere-thermosphere-mesosphere (ITM) region. The ITM is a confluence of energy and processes that interconnect Earth’s atmosphere with space. Exposed to persistent wave forcing from terrestrial weather sources, and solar and magnetic forcing, the ITM is a domain of compelling scientific inquiry that connects thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, electrodynamics and plasma physics. Predicting its mean state and variability, the “space weather” is of significant national interest for space situation awareness including the very low earth orbit (VLEO) as the new frontier of space operations. Advancing the understanding of whole atmosphere interconnections between terrestrial and space weather requires coordinated modeling and observational efforts along with the implementation of new technologies across different spatial and temporal scales. Of particular interest are wave-induced vertical coupling processes that alter the ITM state in multiple ways, including their influence on structure, composition, circulation, and electrodynamics. Recent efforts through NASA’s Living With a Star program and ISSI workshops, to name just a few, clearly show that progress has been made but that significant gaps in our understanding remain. This GC workshop aims to seek the expertise of the broader CEDAR community to help revealing the critical links between weather and space weather through addressing four specific goals.
1. Quantify the variability of relevant neutral and ionospheric state parameters on different spatio-temporal scales, from regional to global, and from hours to inter-annual to climate: what are the observational baseline data sets we have, what are the gaps and will future space-based and ground-based measurements be able to close those gaps.
2. Develop a set of metrics to evaluate data-model comparisons.
3. Evaluate state-of-the-art models across different spatio-temporal scales and assess the impact of data assimilation on model performance.
4. Identify the important mechanisms that connect terrestrial variability with space weather on daily, sub-seasonal, inter-annual scales; examine how they vary with altitude and geographic regions.
Zoom: https://clemson.zoom.us/j/98547395722
GC1A, TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2026, 10-12 (Chairperson: TBD)
10:00 – 10:01 Jens Oberheide, Workshop Goals and Achievements
10:01– 10:15 Sreelekshmi Girijakumary, Atmospheric Gravity Waves and Ionosphere-Thermosphere Coupling: Insights From AWE and HR-WACCM
10:15 – 10:29 Shun-Rong Zhang, Understanding gravity wave Influences through long-term GNSS MSTID observations and WACCM-X simulations
10:29 – 10:43 Komal Kumari, A High-Resolution WACCM-X Investigation of Global Characteristics of Medium-Scale Ionosphere-Thermosphere Disturbances During Major Sudden Stratospheric Warmings
10:43 – 10:57 Benjamin Martinez, AWE results on the stratospheric and mesospheric GW response to the 2024 southern hemisphere SSW
10:57 – 11:11 Pavel Inchin, Small-scale Terrestrial Weather–Generated Gravity Wave and MSTID Forecasting
11:11 – 11:25 Deepali Aggarwal, MJO-Driven F-Region Ionosphere Tidal Variability: Separating E-Region Dynamo and Field-Aligned Wind Effects
11:25 – 11:39 Latoya Wilcoxson, Influences of Derecho Storms on the Ionosphere and Thermosphere: Gravity Wave Coupling and Thermospheric Wind Interactions
11:39 – 11:53 John Meriwether, Simultaneous detection of vertical wind oscillations and total electron content fluctuations from El Leoncito Observatory
11:53 – 12:00 Shantanab Debchoudhury, Convective AGW-driven TIDs and their impact on the vertical ionosphere: Results from a campaign with Millstone-Hill ISR
GC1B, TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2026, 13:30-15:30 (Chairperson: TBD)
13:30 – 13:44 Jiarong Zhang (via zoom), Modulation of the semi-annual oscillation by stratospheric sudden warmings as seen in the high-altitude JAWARA Re-analyses
13:44 – 13:58 Hanli Liu, Hurricane Helene and their impact using AWE, GNSS TEC, WACCM-X, JAWARA, and NAVGEM
13:58 – 14:12 Benedict Pineyro, Impact of Wind Variability on the Nonlinear Evolution and Dissipation of Convective Gravity Waves in the Upper Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere
14:12 – 14:26 Manbharat Dhadly, On the new MSIS and HWM with nm tides
14:26 – 14:40 Fabrizio Sassi, GEOS-MLT Development
14:40 – 14:54 Enrique Rojas Villalba, Constraining Neutral Wave Perturbations from TEC Signatures with Reduced Physics Models
14:54 – 15:08 Guiping Liu, GEOS-FP paper on convectively generated concentric waves
15:08 – 15:22 Sunil Kumar, Impacts of Northern and Southern Stratospheric Polar Vortices on the Mesosphere, Thermosphere, and Ionosphere
15:22 – 15:29 Larisa Goncharenko, Understanding ionospheric perturbations linked to the strength of stratospheric polar vortex
15:29– 15:30 Jens Oberheide, Closing Remarks
The workshop goals are not only at the heart of CEDAR’s coupling and system science spirit but will also help to define more clearly the state-of-the-art in the light of future EZIE, DYNAMIC and GDC missions. Moreover, this workshop will provide an opportunity for NSF/CEDAR ground-based observatories to join forces with a broader community to synergistically enable a transformed view of terrestrial weather-space weather connection.