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Variability of the Sun and Its Terrestrial Impact – VarSITI – 5-year summary review

The Variability of the Sun and Its Terrestrial Impact (VarSITI) was the SCOSTEP’s 5-year international program in 2014-2018. VarSITI focused on the recent and expected future solar activity and its consequences for the Earth, for various timescales from the order of thousands years to milliseconds, and for various locations and their connections from the solar interior to the Earth’s atmosphere. Four scientific projects were carried out under the VarSITI program: (1) Solar Evolution and Extrema (SEE), (2) International Study of Earth-Affecting Solar Transients(ISEST/MiniMax24), (3) Specification and Prediction of the Coupled Inner-Magnetospheric Environment (SPeCIMEN), and (4) Role Of the Sun and the Middle atmosphere / thermosphere / ionosphere In Climate (ROSMIC). These four projects were carried out in collaboration with relevant satellite and ground-based missions as well as modeling efforts to facilitate the implementation of these projects. This special issue mainly invites review papers on scientific achievements obtained from the 5-year VarSITI activities and the relevant topics to address possible future directions of these fields. 



Associate Editors

Kazuo Shiokawa, Nagoya University,Japan
Katya Georgieva, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
Nat Gopalswamy, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA


 

  1. This review article summarizes the advancement in the studies of Earth-affecting solar transients in the last decade that encompasses most of solar cycle 24. It is a part of the effort of the International Stu...

    Authors: Jie Zhang, Manuela Temmer, Nat Gopalswamy, Olga Malandraki, Nariaki V. Nitta, Spiros Patsourakos, Fang Shen, Bojan Vršnak, Yuming Wang, David Webb, Mihir I. Desai, Karin Dissauer, Nina Dresing, Mateja Dumbović, Xueshang Feng, Stephan G. Heinemann…
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2021 8:56
  2. While knowledge of the energy inputs from the Sun (as it is the primary energy source) is important for understanding the solar-terrestrial system, of equal importance is the manner in which the terrestrial pa...

    Authors: William Ward, Annika Seppälä, Erdal Yiğit, Takuji Nakamura, Claudia Stolle, Jan Laštovička, Thomas N. Woods, Yoshihiro Tomikawa, Franz-Josef Lübken, Stanley C. Solomon, Daniel R. Marsh, Bernd Funke and Duggirala Pallamraju
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2021 8:47
  3. The activity of stars such as the Sun varies over timescales ranging from the very short to the very long—stellar and planetary evolutionary timescales. Experience from our solar system indicates that short-te...

    Authors: Dibyendu Nandy, Petrus C. H. Martens, Vladimir Obridko, Soumyaranjan Dash and Katya Georgieva
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2021 8:40
  4. The Earth’s magnetosphere is region that is carved out by the solar wind as it flows past and interacts with the terrestrial magnetic field. The inner magnetosphere is the region that contains the plasmasphere...

    Authors: Shrikanth Kanekal and Yoshizumi Miyoshi
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2021 8:35
  5. The Sun is a variable active-dynamo star, emitting radiation in all wavelengths and solar-wind plasma to the interplanetary space. The Earth is immersed in this radiation and solar wind, showing various respon...

    Authors: Kazuo Shiokawa and Katya Georgieva
    Citation: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 2021 8:21