Data analysis and theoretical studies of the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere
The work proposed under this grant came in three parts. The first involved extending our continuing study of electrodynamical feedback between the thermosphere/ionosphere and the magnetosphere. The second was a model-experiment comparison study of global dynamics and the third was a 'spectral energetics' analysis of tidal dissipation and energy exchange mechanisms. In the past year, progress has been made on all three topics. A paper is in press about electrodynamic feedback, and another is also in press on an element of the 'spectral energetics' analysis. Furthermore, a paper is being prepared on global dynamics variations in response to geomagnetic storms. In addition, much of the data needed for further studies on global dynamics is being prepared for inclusion in a relational database. This report is organized into several separate sections. In the next section, we present an introduction to the work that we are doing in this proposal. We discuss the progress made in our work and some results in section 3. In the last section, we summarize the work.