Monday

Modelling the whole atmosphere from the surface to the ionosphere is necessary to forecast and better understand weather and climate. It is a scientific and computational challenge to model this complex system numerically with many drivers and feedback loops. Recent efforts to improve whole atmosphere models include raising the altitude to incorporate improved representations of the ionosphere and thermosphere. The Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with thermosphere and ionosphere extension (WACCM-X) is one of the most comprehensive numerical models, spanning the range of altitude from the Earth’s surface to the upper thermosphere (~500-700 km). WACCM-X can model the ionosphere and thermosphere, whilst providing coupling between atmosphere layers through chemical, physical and dynamical processes. Using WACCM-X, we can model the implications of the coupling for the climate and for the near space environment. 
The high-latitude ionosphere-thermosphere behaves dynamically during geomagnetically active times due to time-varying solar wind driving and internal magnetospheric dynamics. We present high-latitude observations of the ionosphere-thermosphere system, such as plasma flows, with WACCM-X model simulation which is nudged by the reanalysis dataset in the troposphere and stratosphere and discuss these in the context of time-varying dynamics due to solar wind driving.