A. Egeland

J.A. Holtet

Summary of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Physical Signatures of Magnetospheric Boundary Layer Processes T A POTEMRA, M I PUDOVKIN, R W SMITH, V M VASYLIUNAS and A EGELAND 451 PREFACE These proceedings are based on the invited talks and selected research reports presented at the NATO Advanced Workshop on "PHYSICAL SIGNATURES OF MAGNETOSPHERIC BOUNDARY LAYER PROCESSES", held at Sundvolden Hotel, Norway, 9.-14.May 1993. The international political and scientific communities have gradually realized that the Earth's environment is more fragile than previously believed. This has led to the establishment of international research programmes directed toward the understanding of "Global Change". The Earth's magnetosphere, "the Earth-space", is a part of our environment, and physical processes in the magnetosphere and coupling between the solar energy stream, the solar wind, and the Earth-space are important in the complete understanding of our environment. Variations in the electromagnetic and particle energy output of the Sun have a significant effect on global changes. The energy transfer mechanisms at the days ide magnetospheric boundary layers and their ionospheric signatures are perhaps even more important to solar terrestrial research than the night-side processes in this connection. The dayside boundary layers and the polar cusps are the Earth's windows to outer space. The present NATO ARW was the latest in a series of conferences focused on dayside magnetospheric phenomena. It is five years since the preceding Workshop on "Electromag netic Coupling in the Polar Clefts and Caps" was held at Lillehammer in September 1988.

Physical Signatures of Magnetospheric Boundary Layer Processes

Per Even Sandholt

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Lillehammer, Norway, September 20-24, 1988

Electromagnetic Coupling in the Polar Clefts and Caps

Michael Lockwood

Jøran Moen

These proceedings are based on the invited talks and selected research reports presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on "POLAR CAP BOUNDARY PHENOMENA" held at Longyearbyen, Svalbard, June 4 - 13, 1997. The role of the polar cap and its boundary is very substantial in solar-terrestrial physics. At this NATO AS! a major change in thinking on the "cusp" precipitation region in the high-latitude days ide upper atmosphere was reflected, at least for intervals when the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) is directed southward. It is likely that this has implications for northward IMF as well. The change comes from the now almost complete acceptance of the concept of magnetosheath particle entry along open magnetic field lines and the evolution of the precipitation into the upper atmosphere with time elapsed since magnetic reconnection which opened the field line. A key prediction of this view is that the low-latitude boundary layer (LLBL) is on open field lines.

Polar Cap Boundary Phenomena

A. Brekke

In Nordic literature a remarkable discussion of the northern light appears in Kongespeilet (The King's Mirror) a thirteenth-century Norwegian chronicle. It is described in vivid detail as the following translated excerpts demonstrate: These northern lights have this peculiar nature, that the darker the night is, the brighter they seem, and they always appear at night but never by day, most frequently in the densest darkness and rarely by moonlight. In appearance they resemble a vast flame of fire viewed from a great distance. It also looks as if sharp points were shot from this flame up into the sky; these are of uneven height and in constant motion, now one, now another darting highest; and the light appears to blaze like a living flame. Three different theories for the origin of the northern light were suggested in this book. Numerous naturally occurring heavenly phenomena have been observed and enjoyed as long as the Earth has been inhabited, but hardly any of them has stirred man's imagination, curiosity and fear as much as the northern light. The northern light is certainly one of the most spectacular of nature's phenomena.

A. Egeland

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