AEROSPACE REPORT NUMBER: TOR-2012(1550)-6, SPACE WEATHER SYNTHESIS (09-JAN-2012)

AEROSPACE REPORT NUMBER: TOR-2012(1550)-6, SPACE WEATHER SYNTHESIS (09-JAN-2012)., The term “space weather” refers to the fluctuating fields of electromagnetic and charged particle, plasma, and radiation that fills the otherwise empty void. Most of that radiation originates from the Sun, but the magnetic fields of both the Earth and the Sun play a major role in both the generation and the propagation of the radiation. For that reason, an understanding of space weather requires a deep understanding of magnetic phenomena. In a previous report on the magnetic field of the Sun, the author introduced the phenomenon whereby a magnetic field inside a plasma becomes segregated into strong linear concentrations of magnetic flux tubes, separated by mostly field-free regions. Subsequent research has revealed that most solar magnetic structures have a more complex helical structure than the linear form of flux tubes. Consequently, scientists have introduced the term “magnetic flux ropes.” Magnetic flux ropes play a much larger role than that of the processes on the Sun. They also exist, and directly affect space weather, both in interplanetary space and at the Earth. The discovery of magnetic flux tubes and ropes has resulted in a great synthesis in the science of space weather. Prior to that time, researchers had observed, and given a wide variety of names to, a similar wide variety of phoenomena envisioned as distinct. Scientists now recognize many of those phenomena as manifestations of magnetic flux ropes and of the interactions between them. This report attempts to reveal the correlations between the older terminology and that of magnetic flux ropes.