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Swarm Science Results after two years in Space

Edited by: Nils Olsen, Claudia Stolle, Rune Floberghagen, Gauthier Hulot, Alexey Kuvshinov

Swarm, a three-satellite constellation mission to study the dynamics of the Earth's magnetic field and its interactions with the Earth system, has been in orbit since November 2013. This special issue reports high quality scientific results from the first two years of the mission, including investigations of the Earth’s magnetic and gravity fields, their sources and of the way these interact with the Earth’s environment.

Publication started: 23 May 2016
Publication finished: 4 November 2016

  2. Using data from the three Swarm satellites, we study the ionospheric response to the intense geomagnetic storm of June 22–23, 2015. With the minimum SYM-H excursion of −207 nT, this storm is so far the second str...

    Authors: Elvira Astafyeva, Irina Zakharenkova and Patrick Alken
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:152
    Content type: Letter Published on:

  3. The Calbuco volcano in southern Chile erupted on April 22, 2015. About 2 h after the first eruption, a Swarm satellite passed above the volcano and observed enhancement of small-amplitude (~0.5 nT) magnetic fl...

    Authors: Tadashi Aoyama, Toshihiko Iyemori, Kunihito Nakanishi, Michi Nishioka, Domingo Rosales, Oscar Veliz and Erick Vidal Safor
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:148
    Content type: Letter Published on:

  5. We determine the strength and location of the ionospheric currents responsible for the polar electrojets from magnetic data collected by the Swarm satellite constellation on an orbit-by-orbit basis. The ionospher...

    Authors: Cecilie Drost Aakjær, Nils Olsen and Christopher C. Finlay
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:140
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  6. We present an analysis of ionospheric irregularities at high latitudes during the 2015 St. Patrick’s Day storm. Our study used measurements from ~2700 ground-based GPS stations and GPS receivers onboard five l...

    Authors: Iurii Cherniak and Irina Zakharenkova
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:136
    Content type: Letter Published on:

  8. We present the in-flight scalar calibration and characterisation of the Swarm magnetometry package consisting of the absolute scalar magnetometer, the vector magnetometer, and the spacecraft structure supporting ...

    Authors: Lars Tøffner-Clausen, Vincent Lesur, Nils Olsen and Christopher C. Finlay
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:129
    Content type: Frontier letter Published on:

  9. It is of great interest to numerous geophysical studies that the time series of global gravity field models derived from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data remains uninterrupted after the end...

    Authors: João Teixeira da Encarnação, Daniel Arnold, Aleš Bezděk, Christoph Dahle, Eelco Doornbos, Jose van den IJssel, Adrian Jäggi, Torsten Mayer-Gürr, Josef Sebera, Pieter Visser and Norbert Zehentner
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:127
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  10. The Swarm constellation of satellites was launched in November 2013 and since then has delivered high-quality scalar and vector magnetic field measurements. A consortium of several research institutions was se...

    Authors: Erwan Thébault, Pierre Vigneron, Benoit Langlais and Gauthier Hulot
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:126
    Content type: Letter Published on:

  11. More than 2 years of magnetic field data taken by the three-satellite constellation mission Swarm are used to derive a model of Earth’s magnetic field and its time variation. This model is called SIFMplus. In add...

    Authors: Nils Olsen, Christopher C. Finlay, Stavros Kotsiaros and Lars Tøffner-Clausen
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:124
    Content type: Letter Published on:

  12. In this study, we investigated the scale sizes of equatorial plasma irregularities (EPIs) using measurements from the Swarm satellites during its early mission and final constellation phases. We found that wit...

    Authors: Chao Xiong, Claudia Stolle, Hermann Lühr, Jaeheung Park, Bela G. Fejer and Guram N. Kervalishvili
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:121
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  13. Here we study the global distribution of the plasma density irregularities in the topside ionosphere by using the concurrent GPS and Langmuir probe measurements onboard the Swarm satellites. We analyze 18 mont...

    Authors: Irina Zakharenkova, Elvira Astafyeva and Iurii Cherniak
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:120
    Content type: Letter Published on:

  14. We use more than 2 years of magnetic data from the Swarm mission, and monthly means from 160 ground observatories as available in March 2016, to update the CHAOS time-dependent geomagnetic field model. The new mo...

    Authors: Christopher C. Finlay, Nils Olsen, Stavros Kotsiaros, Nicolas Gillet and Lars Tøffner-Clausen
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:112
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  15. Low Earth orbiting geomagnetic satellite missions, such as the Swarm satellite mission, are the only means to monitor and investigate ionospheric currents on a global scale and to make in situ measurements of ...

    Authors: Claudia Stolle, Ingo Michaelis and Jan Rauberg
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:110
    Content type: Letter Published on:

  16. A complex system of electric currents flowing in the ionosphere and magnetosphere originates from the interaction of the solar wind and the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) with the Earth’s magnetic field. ...

    Authors: Roberta Tozzi, Mioara Mandea and Paola De Michelis
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:108
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  17. The aim of this work is to study the properties of the magnetic field’s fluctuations produced by ionospheric and magnetospheric electric currents during the St. Patrick’s Day geomagnetic storm (17 March 2015)....

    Authors: Paola De Michelis, Giuseppe Consolini, Roberta Tozzi and Maria Federica Marcucci
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:105
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  19. The electric field instruments onboard the Swarm satellites make high-resolution measurements of the F-region ion drift. This paper presents an initial investigation of preliminary ion drift data made availabl...

    Authors: R. A. D. Fiori, A. V. Koustov, D. H. Boteler, D. J. Knudsen and J. K. Burchill
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:100
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  20. Preliminary Swarm Langmuir probe measurements recorded during March 2015, a period of time including the St. Patrick storm, are considered. Specifically, six time periods are identified: two quiet periods befo...

    Authors: Alessio Pignalberi, Michael Pezzopane, Roberta Tozzi, Paola De Michelis and Igino Coco
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:93
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  21. The Swarm satellites were launched on November 22, 2013, and carry accelerometers and GPS receivers as part of their scientific payload. The GPS receivers do not only provide the position and time for the mag...

    Authors: Christian Siemes, João de Teixeira da Encarnação, Eelco Doornbos, Jose van den IJssel, Jiří Kraus, Radek Pereštý, Ludwig Grunwaldt, Guy Apelbaum, Jakob Flury and Poul Erik Holmdahl Olsen
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:92
    Content type: Full paper Published on:

  22. The Swarm satellites are equipped with state-of-the-art Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, which are used for the precise geolocation of the magnetic and electric field instruments, as well as for the ...

    Authors: Jose van den IJssel, Biagio Forte and Oliver Montenbruck
    Citation: Earth, Planets and Space 2016 68:85
    Content type: Full paper Published on: