International Science and Technology Center

Objective

The enhanced climatic instability observed recently world-wide, increased frequency of extreme events (floods and droughts, storms, heat and cold waves, fires, etc.), requires instruments for the research and forecasting of the probability of their occurrence. The sun is the driving force of processes in the atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetosphere. The fullsolar-terrestrial system includes the solar wind, the magnetosphere, the ionosphere and the atmosphere. The system is influenced by radiation from the sun and the flux of solar and galactic cosmic rays. The radiation environment near the earth and plasma-geomagnetic field interactions constitutes the space weather conditions. Space weather influences the terrestrial climate.The mechanisms of space weather effects on the earth are far from being understood and many aspects of the solar activity itself are still unclear. These effects can be elucidated and quantitatively estimated only by studying the solar-terrestrial system in its entirety: identifying the solar agents affecting the earth, understanding their occurrence and evolution, and understanding the mechanisms of solar energy transfer from the sun all the way to earth. This requires integration of all existing information and specific knowledge now spread in many different scientific areas: solar physics, solar wind, cosmic rays, interplanetary space, magnetosphere, ionosphere, upper, middle and lower atmosphere.
Sudden, thunderstorm-related huge fluxes of electrons, positrons, gammas and neutrons (so called Thunderstorm Ground Enhancements TGEs)detected at Aragats Space Environmental Center (ASEC), are undoubtedly newly discovered global physical phenomena that arewell-matched to the ones measured by orbiting gamma observatories fluxes of terrestrial gamma-rays. Particle acceleration and multiplication and broadband electromagnetic emissions associated with thunderstorms trigger various dynamic processes in the atmosphere-ionosphere chain, causing effects on the surface of the earth.A new multidisciplinary approach stipulated investigation of the correlations of all measured parameters for developing models of the particle acceleration and radiation and lightning initiation. MountAragats is a unique place for atmospheric electricity research. Near hundred strong thunderstorms occur each year. Most of them are accompanied by numerous lightnings and enhanced particle flux events. A vast amount of the observations of the strong thunderstorms with the ASEC facilities are available for analysis from the webpage http://www.crd.yerphi.am/adei/.
Withthe proposed project we will develop an integrated approach for the research of solar-terrestrial connections, space weather issues; changing fluxes of the high-energy solar particles and elementary particles of the atmospheric origin (TGEs), as well as their effects on the lightning initiation, the global electric circuit, weather and climate. The existing and newly developed networks of particle detectors at high altitudes will measure the recently discovered phenomena of the high-energy particle physics in the atmosphere. The precise measurements of magnetic and electrical fields, as well as broad bandwidth radio emission and lightning detection will help to understand high energy atmospheric phenomena as well as the origination of lightning and their influence on climate. The links connecting space and terrestrial weather will be investigated and clarified.

The fluxes of the TGE particles (intensities of the particles of the atmospheric nature can exceed the background cosmic rays intensities by 3 orders of magnitude) result in the enhanced radiation from the atmosphere to theearth’s surface, ionosphere and magnetosphere. These phenomena need to be considered as an integral component of the solar-terrestrial connections, since thunderstorms are largely driven by solar-induced convection. The high-energy processes in the atmosphere resulting in the injection of radiations in the ionosphere and tropospheremay influence weather and climate and be a significant part of the global change chain. Monitoring of the high-energy processes in the atmosphere will provide a new powerful tool for the investigation of the long-standing mystery of the lightning initiation, one of the most important problems of the atmospheric physics.

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