The inner magnetosphere modeling is an important component of the magnetosphere simulation frameworks with significant implications for space weather and a. principle methodology to understand the magnetospheric response to changes in the solar wind. The thesis shows our efforts in constructing and validating the contemporary Rice Convection Model (RCM) code and its interface as a next-generation code to predict electric fields, field-aligned currents, and energetic particle fluxes in the inner magnetosphere and subauroral ionosphere during geomagnetic disturbed times. The RCM was used to simulate the geomagnetic storms with fixed boundary conditions of time-dependent Tsyganenko-Mukai boundary conditions. This work shows the results of two extremely- strong storm events with significant interchange motion. The ring current injection predicted by the RCM is shown to be overestimated, consistent with the previous results of overestimating particle fluxes by the RCM. This effect is magnified here since the southward component of interplanetary magnetic field is very strong reaching about 50 nT. Time-dependent Borovsky's boundary condition is implemented and used to alleviate the huge pressure and get better tendency of ring current energy calculated by the Dessler-Parker-Sckopke relation. This work also describes a new module of generalized Knight's relation to compute the parallel potential drops from the calculated field-aligned currents through Vasyliunas equation. It gives different ionospheric conductance and plasma drift signatures particularly around the midnight. The inclusion of parallel electric fields will replace the treatments of energy flux in the substorm simulations since that the Hardy normalization cannot perform the desired function during the substorm expansion phase and the energy flux floor gives arbitrary enhanced the precipitating energy flux and ionospheric conductances at high latitude especially for the westward clectrojet around the midnight. Since the original Knight's relation gives too large field-aligned potential drop, the modified Knight's relation is applied and implemented successfully into the RCM. Therefore, the RCM is capable of real time event simulation including strong geomagnetic storms and magnetospheric substorms, although full validation of model predictions with typical observations remains to be done.

My dissertation research consists of two themes: (a) the analysis of Middle Jurassic - Early Cretaceous marine magnetic anomalies (M-anomalies) in order to construct a comprehensive geomagnetic polarity timescale and (b) the investigation of the upper oceanic crustal architecture using downhole geophysical logs. These themes were chosen to better understand how remotely-sensed geophysical signals elucidate the formation and evolution of oceanic crust. This revised Pacific-wide MGPTS model shows significant improvement in its reliability, exhibits global applicability, and highlights changes in the paleo-Pacific spreading regime. By integrating Atlantic Manomaly analyses with the new MGPTS model and reviewing previous seismic studies, we shed new light on the causes of a ubiquitously distributed ?Atlantic anomaly smooth zone? where little coherency among M5-M15 anomaly sequence is observed. For the second theme, I analyzed the architecture of 15 m.y. old superfast spreading East Pacific Rise crust drilled at Ocean Drilling Program Hole 1256D in the eastern Pacific. An intact upper oceanic crustal section was penetrated at this site to a depth of 1507 mbsf. In situ crustal architecture was mapped from resistivity imagery (electrofacies by Formation MicroScanner) combined with recovered cores and other logs. Highlights of this research are: (1) most of the extrusive section consists of massive flows and fragmented formations including breccias, which has important implications for the magnetic source layer and pathways of hydrothermal alteration; (2) the dike complex is composed of sheeted-dikes dipping away from the paleo-spreading axis consistent with submersible observations at other sites in the eastern Pacific; (3) the crustal construction processess from ridge axis to abyssal plain during 0-50 kyr time are consistent with previous seismic reflection studies based on the integration of our stratigraphy model with lava flow observations from the southern East Pacific Rise.

Orientador: Paulo de Oliveira Camargo / Banca: João Francisco Galera Monico / Banca: Márcio H. O. Aquino / Banca: Inez Staciarini Batista / Banca: Claudio Antonio Brunini / Após a desativação da técnica SA, a ionosfera tornou-se a principal fonte de erro no posicionamento com GPS. O erro associado à ionosfera é diretamente proporcional ao conteúdo total de elétrons (TEC - Total Electron Content) presente ao longo do caminho da trajetória percorrida pelo sinal na ionosfera e inversamente proporcional ao quadrado da freqüência do sinal. O TEC, e conseqüentemente o erro devido à ionosfera, variam no tempo e no espaço e é influenciado por diversas variáveis, tais como: ciclo solar, época do ano, hora do dia, localização geográfica, atividade geomagnética, entre outros. A região brasileira é um dos locais que apresenta os maiores valores e variações espaciais do TEC e onde estão presentes diversas particularidades da ionosfera, tais como, a anomalia equatorial e o efeito da cintilação ionosférica. Desta forma, é importante a realização de pesquisas que visam estudar o comportamento do TEC, e conseqüentemente do erro devido à ionosfera no Brasil, que é um trabalho complexo devido aos diversos fatores que influenciam a variação do TEC, além das particularidades presentes na região brasileira. Estudos desta natureza podem auxiliar a comunidade geodésica brasileira, e demais usuários do GPS, no entendimento das limitações impostas pela ionosfera nas regiões de interesse. Devido à natureza dispersiva da ionosfera, o estudo do comportamento do TEC no Brasil pode ser realizado utilizando os dados GPS de receptores de dupla freqüência pertencentes à RBMC (Rede Brasileira de Monitoramento Contínuo). Adicionalmente, para uma melhor análise, pode-se também utilizar dados das estações da rede IGS (International GNSS Service) da América do Sul. / In the SA absence, the ionosphere is the largest error source in GPS positioning. The error due to the ionosphere in the GPS observables depends on the signal frequency and Total Electron Content (TEC) in the ionospheric layer. The TEC varies regularly in time and space in relation to the sunspot number, the season, the local time, the geographic position, and others. The Brazilian region is one of the regions of the Earth that presents largest values and space variations of the TEC, being influenced by the equatorial anomaly of ionization and ionospheric scintillation. Therefore, it is important to study the TEC behavior in the Brazilian region. Due to the ionosphere dispersive nature, the TEC behavior in Brazil can be studied using GPS data from RBMC (Rede Brasileira de Monitoramento Contínuo - Brazilian Network for Continuous Monitoring of GPS). Additionally, GPS data from IGS (International GNSS Service) network of the South America can also be used in the experiments. / Doutor

O campo magnético da Terra varia em diferentes escalas de tempo, de milissegundos a bilhões de anos. Os dados de observatórios magnéticos e satélites obtidos nos últimos 150 anos indicam que o momento do dipolo magnético terrestre está diminuindo continuamente. Essa queda está associada à presença de fontes não-dipolares do campo em uma extensa região que abrange todo o Atlântico Sul e uma porção da América do Sul, sendo que no Brasil a contribuição dessas fontes varia fortemente com a latitude. Em escala de tempo arqueomagnética (~1.000-10.000 anos) a evolução do campo magnético terrestre não é tão bem estabelecida, principalmente em função da escassez de dados no hemisfério Sul, que contribui com apenas 5% dos dados de intensidade obtidos para os últimos 4.000 anos. A América do Sul, com alguns poucos resultados no Peru, Equador e Bolívia, pode ser considerada a terra incógnita da arqueointensidade. Nesta tese são apresentados os primeiros resultados arqueomagnéticos para o território brasileiro. Foram escolhidas duas regiões de estudo, o Nordeste e o Sudeste do Brasil, situadas em diferentes faixas de latitude de modo a investigar diferentes contribuições de componentes não-dipolares do campo. No Nordeste, as amostras foram coletadas na cidade de Salvador (BA), a primeira capital do Brasil, fundada em 1549 AD. Na região Sudeste a amostragem foi efetuada nas cidades de Anchieta (ES), Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Niterói (RJ), Iperó (SP), Piracicaba (SP) e Botucatu (SP). Nas duas regiões, a paleointensidade do campo magnético terrestre foi obtida em materiais construtivos (tijolos e alguns fragmentos de telhas) datados entre 1550 AD e 1920 AD. As idades desses materiais foram estabelecidas com base em estudos arqueológicos e registros históricos das construções, fornecendo incertezas inferiores a 30 anos para a grande maioria das amostras. As paleointensidades foram estimadas utilizando-se dois métodos: (a) duplo aquecimento com medidas em temperatura ambiente, pelo protocolo de Thellier modificado por Coe; (b) duplo aquecimento com medidas contínuas em alta temperatura, pelo protocolo Triaxe. Após as medidas e correções magnéticas, todas as amostras foram analisadas com base em rigorosos critérios de seleção, que resultaram em 23 novas determinações de intensidade de alta qualidade (correspondendo a um total de 584 espécimes analisados, com uma taxa de sucesso de 57%). A partir desses resultados foram traçadas duas curvas de variação da intensidade do campo magnético para cada uma das regiões estudadas, abrangendo os últimos 500 anos. Essas curvas revelam uma oscilação do momento de dipolo nos últimos cinco séculos, que não foi prevista nos modelos de campo disponíveis atualmente, trazendo implicações importantes no entendimento da evolução dos campos dipolar e não-dipolar nessa escala de tempo. As variações rápidas descritas nessas curvas permitem aplicar o arqueomagnetismo como ferramenta de datação arqueológica, como exemplificado pela datação de uma casa do Pelourinho em Salvador. / The Earth\'s magnetic field varies in different timescales, from milliseconds to billions of years. Magnetic data from observatories and satellites indicate that the dipole moment has continuously been decreasing for the past 150 years. This decay is associated to the presence of non-dipole sources covering a wide region that encompasses the South Atlantic and part of South America; in Brazil, the contribution of the non-dipole fields varies strongly with latitude. In the archeomagnetic timescale (~1,000-10,000 years), the evolution of the Earth\'s magnetic field is not well established, mainly due to the scarcity of data from southern hemisphere, which contributes with only 5% of the intensity data for the past 4,000 years. South America is the terra incognita of archeointensity, counting only a handful of results from Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. This thesis presents the first archeomagnetic results from Brazil. In order to investigate different contributions of non-dipolar sources, we concentrated our sampling in two regions located in different latitudes the Northeast and Southeast regions of Brazil. In the Northeast region, all samples were collected in the city of Salvador (BA), the first Brazilian capital settled in 1549 AD. In the Southeast region, sampling was conducted in the cities of Anchieta (ES), Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Niterói (RJ), Iperó (SP), Piracicaba (SP) and Botucatu (SP). All paleointensity data was obtained from architectural fragments (bricks and some tiles) dated between 1550 AD and 1920 AD. The age of bricks and tiles was established on the basis of archeological studies and the historical record of the buildings, providing age uncertainties of less than 30 years for most of the samples. Paleointensity estimates were obtained by two methods: (a) double-heating with measurements in room temperature, using the modified version of the Thellier protocol; (b) double-heating with measurements in high temperatures, using the Triaxe protocol. After measurements and magnetic corrections, all samples were screened using strict selection criteria resulting in 23 high-quality new site-mean intensity values (from 584 analyzed specimens, with a success rate of 57%). These results were integrated into two curves of geomagnetic intensity variation for each studied region over the past five centuries. These curves reveal an oscillating dipole moment for the past five centuries, a behavior not predicted in currently available geomagnetic field models, thus providing key information on the dipole and non-dipole field evolutions in this timescale. The rapid intensity changes described in these curves permit the application of archeointensity techniques as an archeological dating tool, as exemplified by the dating of a house from the Pelourinho area, in Salvador city.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The development of regional ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) models has contributed to understanding the behavior of ionospheric parameters and the coupling of the ionosphere to space weather activities on both local and global scales. In the past several decades, the International Global Navigation Satellite Systems Service (GNSS) networks of dual frequency receiver data have been applied to develop global and regional models of ionospheric TEC. These models were mainly developed in the Northern Hemisphere where there are dense network of ground based GPS receivers for regional data coverage. Such efforts have been historically rare over the African region, and have only recently begun. This thesis reports the investigation of the effect of mid-latitude magnetic storms on TEC over South Africa for portions of Solar Cycles 23 and 24. The MAGIC package was used to estimate TEC over South Africa during Post Solar Maximum, Solar Minimum, and Post Solar Minimum periods. It is found that TEC is largely determined by the diurnal cycle of solar forcing and subsequent relaxation, but effects due to storms can be determined

High variability of the ionosphere is connected to geomagnetic, solar, and neutral atmosphere wave activity. Results of scaling analysis of solar data (F10.7, SSN), geomagnetic indices (Dst, Kp, AE), and ionospheric critical frequencies (foF2) show similar structure of Kp, AE and foF2 at periods in the range from 4 to 32 days. Data structure depends on the location of ionospheric stations. Correlation coefficients between foF2 and geomagnetic and solar indices depend on length of time scale. We show that vertical coupling exists between neutral atmosphere activity and sporadic E layer area. This connection is located predominantly on periods corresponding to internal modes of planetary waves. Interplanetary magnetic field discontinuities (Coronal mass ejections, Magnetic clouds, Hight speed solar streams) affect strongly the ionosphere. Analysed events lead to lowering of foF2, increase in heights of the layer F2 and oscillations of hmF2 and foF2 on periods in the order of hours. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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The dependence of equatorial ionosphere on solar irradiances and geomagnetic activity are studied in this dissertation using signal processing techniques. The statistical time series, digital signal processing and wavelet methods are applied to study the ionospheric variations. The ionospheric data used are the Total Electron Content (TEC) and the critical frequency of the F2 layer (foF2). Solar irradiance data are from recent satellites, the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE) satellite and the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics Dynamics (TIMED) satellite. The Disturbance Storm-Time (Dst) index is used as a proxy of geomagnetic activity in the equatorial region. The results are summarized as follows. (1) In the short-term variations ≤ 27-days, the previous three days solar irradiances have significant correlation with the present day ionospheric data using TEC, which may contribute 18% of the total variations in the TEC. The 3-day delay between solar irradiances and TEC suggests the effects of neutral densities on the ionosphere. The correlations between solar irradiances and TEC are significantly higher than those using the F10.7 flux, a conventional proxy for short wavelength band of solar irradiances. (2) For variations ≤ 27 days, solar soft X-rays show similar or higher correlations with the ionosphere electron densities than the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV). The correlations between solar irradiances and foF2 decrease from morning (0.5) to the afternoon (0.1). (3) Geomagnetic activity plays an important role in the ionosphere in short-term variations ≤ 10 days. The average correlation between TEC and Dst is 0.4 at 2-3, 3-5, 5-9 and 9-11 day scales, which is higher than those between foF2 and Dst. The correlations between TEC and Dst increase from morning to afternoon. The moderate/quiet geomagnetic activity plays a distinct role in these short-term variations of the ionosphere (~0.3 correlation).

Dans cette thèse, nous présentons des modèles appartenant au domaine de l’intelligence artificielle afin de prédire l’indice magnétique global am à partir des paramètres du vent solaire. Ceci est fait dans l’optique de fournir des modèles opérationnels basés sur les données enregistrées par le satellite ACE situé au point de Lagrange L1. L’indice am ne possède pas à l’heure actuelle de modèles de prédiction. Pour prédire cet indice, nous avons fait appel à des modèles non-linéaires que sont les réseaux de neurones, permettant de modéliser le comportement complexe et non-linéaire de la magnétosphère terrestre. Nous avons dans un premier temps travaillé sur le développement et l’optimisation des modèles de réseaux classiques comme le perceptron multi-couche. Ces modèles ont fait leurs preuves en météorologie spatiale pour prédire aussi bien des indices magnétiques spécifiques à des systèmes de courant comme l’indice Dst, caractéristique du courant annulaire, que des indices globaux comme l’indice Kp. Nous avons en particulier étudié un réseau temporel appelé Time Delay Neural Network (TDNN) et évalué sa capacité à prédire l’indice magnétique am à une heure, uniquement à partir des paramètres du vent solaire. Nous avons analysé la sensibilité des performances des réseaux de neurones en considérant d’une part les données fournies par la base OMNI au niveau de l’onde de choc, et d’autre part des données obtenues par le satellite ACE en L1. Après avoir étudié la capacité de ces réseaux à prédire am, nous avons développé un réseau de neurones encore jamais utilisé en météorologie spatiale, le réseau Long Short Term Mermory ou LSTM. Ce réseau possède une mémoire à court et à long terme, et comme le TDNN, fournit des prédictions de l’indice am uniquement à partir des paramètres du vent solaire. Nous l’avons optimisé afin de modéliser au mieux le comportement de la magnétosphère et avons ainsi obtenu de meilleures performances de prédiction de l'indice am par rapport à celles obtenues avec le TDNN. Nous avons souhaité continuer le développement et l’optimisation du LSTM en travaillant sur l’utilisation de fonctions de couplage en entrée de ce réseau de neurones, et sur le développement de réseaux multisorties pour prédire les indices magnétiques am sectoriels ou aσ, spécifiques à chaque secteur Temps Magnétique Local. Enfin, nous avons développé une nouvelle technique combinant réseau LSTM et processus gaussiens, afin de fournir une prédiction probabiliste jusqu’à six heures des indices magnétiques Dst et am. Cette méthode a été dans un premier temps développée pour l’indice magnétique Dst afin de pouvoir comparer les performances du modèle hybride à des modèles de référence, puis appliquée à l’indice magnétique am. / In this thesis, we present models which belongs to the field of artificial intelligence to predict the geomagnetic index am based on solar wind parameters. This is done in terms to provide operational models based on data recorded by the ACE satellite located at the Lagrangian point L1. Currently, there is no model providing predictions of the geomagnetic index am. To predict this index, we have relied on nonlinear models called neural networks, allowing to model the complex and nonlinear dynamic of the Earth’s magnetosphere. First, we have worked on the development and the optimisation of basics neural networks like the multilayer perceptron. These models have proven in space weather to predict geomagnetic index specific to current systems like the Dst index, characteristic of the ring current, as well as the global geomagnetic index Kp. In particular, we have studied a temporal network, called the Time Delay Neural Network (TDNN) and we assessed its ability to predict the geomagnetic index am within one hour, base only on solar wind parameters. We have analysed the sensitivity of neural network performance when considering on one hand data from the OMNI database at the bow shock, and on the other hand data from the ACE satellite at the L1 point. After studying the ability of neural networks to predict the geomagnetic index am, we have developped a neural network which has never been used before in Space Weather, the Long Short Term Memory or LSTM. Like the TDNN, this network provides am prediction based only on solar wind parameters. We have optimised this network to model at best the magnetosphere behaviour and obtained better performance than the one obtained with the TDNN. We continued the development and the optimisation of the LSTM network by using coupling functions as neural network features, and by developing multioutput networks to predict the sectorial am also called aσ, specific to each Magnetical Local Time sector. Finally, we developped a brand new technique combining the LSTM network and gaussian process, to provide probabilistic predictions up to six hours ahead of geomagnetic index Dst and am. This method has been first developped to predict Dst to be able to compare the performance of this model with reference models, and then applied to the geomagnetic index am.

In this thesis, the relationship between several high-latitude phenomena and the ionospheric conductance in both hemispheres is studied theoretically and experimentally. </p>Theoretically, the high-latitude electrodynamics is studied by considering currents in the magnetosphere-ionosphere system resulting from the ionospheric sheet current redistribution between the conjugate ionospheres. It is shown that strong flow between the conjugate ionospheres, the interhemispheric currents (IHC), can be set up if the conductance distribution is asymmetric in the conjugate ionospheric regions. Such conditions are typical for solstices owing to the differences in the solar illumination. Analytical and numerical modeling shows that IHCs can appear in the regions of strong conductance gradient, more specifically around the solar terminator line, and that the intensity of the IHCs can be comparable to the intensity of the well known Region 1/Region 2 currents. The effect of IHC excitation on observable magnetic perturbations on the ground is investigated. It is shown that in the vicinity of the solar terminator line, the pattern of magnetic perturbation can be such that an apparent equivalent current vortex can be detected. In addition, strong conductance gradients are shown to affect significantly the quality of the ionospheric plasma flow estimates from the ground-based magnetometer data. </p>Experimentally, the effect of the nightside ionospheric conductance on occurrence of substorms, global storm sudden commencement and radar auroras is investigated. To characterize substorm occurrence, new parameters, the derivatives of the classical AE and AO indices, are introduced. It is shown that the seasonal and diurnal variations of these parameters are controlled by the total nightside ionospheric conductance in the conjugate regions. The substorm onsets preferentially occur at low levels of the total conductance, which is consistent with the idea of the substorm triggering through the magnetosphere-ionosphere feedback instability. It is hypothesized that the total conductance affects the global storm onsets as well. To check this idea, the 33-year sudden storm commencement (SSC) data are considered. The semiannual, annual, semidiurnal, and diurnal variations in the SSC occurrence rate are found to be significant and these components exhibit a strong relationship with the total conductance of the high-latitude ionospheres. Finally, the SuperDARN midnight echo occurrence is shown to correlate, for some radars, with the total conductance minima and presumably with electric field maxima, which is consistent with general expectation that the F-region irregularities occur preferentially during times of enhanced electric fields. The gradients of the high-latitude conductance can also lead to significant errors in the plasma convection estimates from the ground-based magnetometers, and to investigate this effect a statistical assessment of the difference between the true plasma convection (SuperDARN) and the magnetometer-inferred equivalent convection direction is performed. The largest differences are found for the transition region between the dark and sunlit ionospheres and in the midnight sector where strong conductance gradients are expected due to particle precipitation. Consideration of regular conductance gradients due to solar illumination improves the agreement between the radar and magnetometer data. Finally, an attempt is made to demonstrate the effects of conductance upon the properties of traveling convection vortices (TCVs). Joint SuperDARN and magnetometer data reveal that there is resemblance between the magnetometer and radar inferred TCV images on a scale of thousands of kilometers. However, on a smaller scale of hundreds of kilometers, significant differences are observed.