Time：May 16（Friday）3:00 pm Where：N415 Physics Building Title：Upper atmosphere on the earth and beyond Speaker: Yue Deng Ph.D., University of Texas Arlington, TX USA
Abstract：The ionosphere and thermosphere are two overlapping regions of the upper atmosphere that are tightly coupled. The ionosphere represents the plasma and the thermosphere represents the neutral constituents. Understanding of the ionosphere/thermosphere system under different magnetospheric conditions is important for space research and space weather applications. Currently, the biggest problems that the upper atmosphere community faces include the unknown physical processes in the meso- and small-scales and the imprecision of the energy input to the system. Global Ionosphere Thermosphere Model (GITM), the first non-hydrostatic model in the upper atmosphere, was developed to better simulate the ionosphere and thermosphere coupling. Upper atmosphere is also important to other planets including exoplanets.