European Geosciences Union
Division on Solar-Terrestrial Sciences
President: Margit Haberreiter (st@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Olga Malandraki
(omaland@astro.noa.gr)
The ST Division considers all aspects of solar and heliospheric physics, specifically the solar-terrestrial connection. It covers the physical processes occurring on the Sun, in the solar wind, as well as in Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere. Solar activity (e.g. coronal mass ejections, solar flares, solar energetic particle events) and the response of the near-Earth space environment to these solar phenomena are studied on a wide-range of temporal and spatial scales. Data analysis and interpretation of space-borne and ground-based data, as well as theoretical studies and different modeling techniques are used to better our understanding of how our local star defines the neighborhood that we live in.
The 2018 Hannes Alfvén Medal is awarded to Eckart Marsch for fundamental contributions to our understanding of the kinetic processes and plasma turbulence in the heliosphere, as well as for work that helped HELIOS become a successful mission and initiated the Solar Orbiter.
The 2018 Julius Bartels Medal is awarded to Ilya G. Usoskin for his key contributions to long-term changes of cosmic rays and solar activity, qualifying him as a founder of the space climate discipline.
The 2018 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Natasha L. S. Jeffrey for her outstanding achievements in improving the standard model of fast electrons produced in solar flares, thereby eliminating the long-standing low-energy cut-off uncertainty.
The 2017 Hannes Alfvén Medal is awarded to Eric R. Priest for his fundamental contribution to the understanding of the mathematical complexity and physics of magnetic reconnection and the magnetic coupling of the convection zone with the solar atmosphere.
The 2017 Julius Bartels Medal is awarded to Tuija I. Pulkkinen for her key contributions in solar-terrestrial science, scientific management, academic leadership, and services to the space community.
The 2017 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards is awarded to Emma Anderberg Reconstructing the 11-year solar cycle length from cosmogenic radionuclides for the last 600 years
Thanks to the invention of the Neutron Monitor in 1948 and multiple spacecraft which monitor the cosmic ray environment since 1970’s we now have a constant record of the solar activity over almost 70 years. Information prior to this space era, however, are rare and take us back in time only to the late 1930s, when ionization chambers have been introduced. This of course allows us only a narrow view on the solar behaviour compared to the age of the …
Introduction For many years now we know that our star the Sun influences the Earth in many different ways, via the total solar irradiance, solar energetic particles and coronal mass ejections. Understanding the influence of the Sun on the Earth requires many different types of measurements. For example, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft, produces over 1 terabyte of data per day (Pesnell et al., 2012), the bulk of it in the form of 4096 by 4096 pixel images in …
Coronal Heating Problem is one of the Sun’s unsolved mysteries where the corona is heated to over a million degrees and scientists have not figured out where the energy is coming from. Dr Jaime de la Cruz Rodriguez is tackling this 70 year old puzzle by first understanding the layer of the Sun below the corona – the chromosphere. He is awarded the prestigious starting grant by the European Research Council for his project SUNMAG: Understanding magnetic-field regulated heating and …
In this month’s post, Karl Magnus Laundal explains a newly developed empirical model for the full high latitude current system of the Earth’s ionosphere, AMPS (Average Magnetic field and Polar Current System). The model is available and documented in python code, published under the acronym pyAMPS. The community is invited to download and explore the electric currents and magentic field disturbances described by the model. The average magnetic field and polar current system (AMPS) model At about 10 times airline …
Last week, the EGU hosted its first science-policy dinner debate in Brussels. The event, 'Horizon Geoscience: overcoming societal challenges, creating change', was organised in collaboration with the European Federation of Geologists (EFG) and brought together geoscientists, policymakers and industry representatives. On the EGU website, we report on the outcome of the discussion and publish the key findings from the Horizon 2020 Geoscience Survey conducted earlier this year.
In the past few weeks, we have also issued three press releases highlighting research published in some of EGU's open access journals. Follow the links to find out how bombing raids in the Second World War impacted the ionosphere, how glacial geoengineering could help limit sea-level rise, and what the point of no return for climate action might be.