GOLD Observations of the Thermospheric Response to the 10–12 May 2024 Gannon Superstorm
Abstract After days of intense solar activity, active region AR3664 launched seven CMEs toward Earth producing an extreme G5 geomagnetic storm commencing at 17:05 UT on 10 May 2024. The storm impacted power grids, disrupted precision navigational systems used by farming equipment, and generated aurora seen around the globe. The storm produced remarkable effects on composition, temperature, and dynamics in the Earth's thermosphere that were observed by NASA's Global‐scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission and are reported here for the first time. We use synoptic disk images of ΣO/N 2 and neutral temperature (at ∼160 km) measured by GOLD to directly link dynamics resulting from the storm with dramatic changes in thermospheric composition and temperature. We observe a heretofore unseen spatial morphology simultaneously in ΣO/N 2 , neutral temperature, and total electron content. Equator‐to‐pole temperature differences reach 400 K with high latitude peak neutral temperatures near 160 km exceeding 1400 K.
Authors
- A. G. Burns (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6024-0020)
- T. Plummer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2101-3890)
- Xuguang Cai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4632-1697)
- W. E. McClintock (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8142-5398)
- R. Eastes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3679-9793)
- V. Veibell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9340-4503)
- Fazlul I. Laskar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7418-3581)
- S. England (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5336-0040)
- Andrey Krywonos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1604-8573)
- J. Correira (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6385-5207)
- J. S. Evans (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2025-5695)
- Saurav Aryal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4919-1990)
- J. D. Lumpe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8754-702X)
- Quan Gan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3703-5453)
- K. Greer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4435-4778)
- M. Codrescu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7216-9858)
- S. Béland (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1968-1777)
- Wenbin Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6287-4542)
Institutions
- University of Central Florida (US)
- NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (US)
- Computational Physics (United States) (US)
- NOAA Weather Prediction Center
- Virginia Tech (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Published
- 2024-08-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2024gl110506
- Citations
- 57
- Primary Topic
- Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 18.90
Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India