7 December 2022

Other Projects

Action COST TOSCA

TOSCA (Towards a more complete assessment of the impact of solar variability on the Earth’s climate) is a multidisciplinary network that brought together from 2011 to 2015 a hundred researchers from 23 European countries around the thorny question of the role of the Sun in global warming. The LPC2E was coordinator of the network.

TOSCA was a COST (Cooperation in Science and Technology) action which aims to promote networking between different communities. TOSCA thus brought together researchers working on the physical chemistry of the atmosphere, solar physics, cloud formation, cosmic radiation, statistical methods, etc. During four years, the emphasis was put on open questions for which it is necessary to bring together several disciplines; 17 workshops were thus organized.

TOSCA has improved our understanding of solar-climate relationships, highlighting the role of little-known mechanisms, such as the role of atmospheric electricity. To date, none of these mechanisms can explain the current global warming, for which humanity is mainly responsible.

This work is partly summarized in a book for the general public : J. Lilensten, T. Dudok de Wit and K. Matthes (Eds.), Earth’s climate response to a changing Sun, EDP Sciences, Paris (2015).

TOSCA website: here

Contact at LPC2E : Thierry Dudok de Wit – ddwit@cnrs-orleans.fr

SPECTRA

SPECTRA is a 42-month research project, at the frontier between space physics and plasma physics, based on the scientific exploitation of in situ measurements obtained with the ESA’s ROSETTA space exploration mission, with the aim of studying the structure, evolution and dynamics of the ionized environment of a comet.

In this context, the SPECTRA project focuses on four fundamental problems associated with space plasma physics :
(1) the interaction between the Sun and the solar wind and a non-magnetized object of the solar system,
(2) the structure, the evolution and the dynamics of a cometary atmosphere and its link to the cometary physicochemistry,
(3) the influence of collisions on the ionized environment of a comet,
(4) the influence of probe-plasma interactions on the behavior of space instruments.

The SPECTRA project is structured around five complementary tasks. The modeling of the instrumental response of the MIP instrument (Task 1) in order to produce accurate estimates of the density (and eventually to better constrain the temperature) of cometary electrons. These in situ measurements, combined with observations from other CPP instruments, will provide the basis for plasma physics studies (Task 2), as well as space physics and planetology studies focused on characterizing the Sun-Comet interaction (Task 3) and the cometary ionosphere (Task 4), and associated dynamics. The modeling of the instrumental behavior of a mutual impedance probe in typical space plasma conditions will allow to prepare the scientific exploitation of future space missions that will embark the same type of instruments (Task 5).

The ANR will allow a PhD student and a post-doctoral researcher to strengthen the study of planetary plasmas, the exploitation of Rosetta plasma data and the preparation for the scientific exploitation of future space missions, in particular BepiColombo and JUICE.

Contact LPC2E : Pierre.Henri@cnrs-orleans.fr

ATMOP

ATMOP (Advanced Thermosphere Modeling for Orbit Prediction) was a European collaborative project on the improvement of satellite orbit prediction. This project coordinated by Deimos (Spain) brought together from 2011 to 2013 six European partners including LPC2E.

Orbit forecasting is an important issue for space agencies, and relies on models that must provide in real time the density of the upper atmosphere. These models require in particular the intensity of the solar UV radiation; the contribution of the LPC2E was precisely on the improvement of this measurement.

ATMOP has contributed to improve the orbitographic forecasts, in particular thanks to the update of the DTM orbitographic model, and the use of a new solar activity index, the radio flux at the 30 cm wavelength.

These improvements are currently being pursued in the framework of a collaboration between CNES, its subsidiary Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS) and LPC2E, with also a participation in a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) project of the European Space Agency.

CLS website with the new sun indexes: https://spaceweather.cls.fr

Contact at LPC2E : Thierry Dudok de Wit – ddwit@cnrs-orleans.fr

SOLID

SOLID (SOLar Irradiance Data Exploitation) is a European collaborative project (FP7) involving 10 partners from 7 European countries and ended on November 30, 2015.

The objective of the project was to exploit the set of space solar irradiance data obtained since 1970 to constrain as well as possible the luminous variability of the Sun and its effects on the terrestrial climate. The LPC2E was responsible for two work packages: “Exploitation of solar indices and irradiance data” and “Modeling of solar spectral irradiance from indices”

The project has produced many results, including a homogeneous database of all measurements and a careful evaluation of their quality [1], and a new reconstruction of the spectral irradiance based on the data set [2,3].

[1] M. Schöll, T. Dudok de Wit, M. Kretzschmar, and M. Haberreiter, Making of a solar spectral irradiance dataset I : observations, uncertainties, and methods, Space Weather and Space Climate, (2016) 6(27) A14, doi:10.1051/swsc/2016007 [NASA ADS]

[2] M. Haberreiter, M. Schöll, T. Dudok de Wit, M. Kretzschmar, S. Misios, K. Tourpali, and Schmutz, W. A new solar UV irradiance observational composite, submitted to Journal of Geophysical Research 2016.

[3] K. Matthes, B. Funke, M. E. Anderson, L. Barnard, J. Beer, P. Charbonneau, M.A. Clilverd, T. Dudok de Wit, M. Haberreiter, A. Hendry, C. H. Jackman, M. Kretschmar, T. Kruschke, M. Kunze, U. Langematz, D. R. Marsh, A. Maycock, S. Misios, C. J. Rodger, A. A. Scaife, A. Seppälä, M. Shangguan, M. Sinnhuber, K. Tourpali, I. Usoskin, M. van de Kamp, P. T. Verronen, and S. Versick, Solar Forcing for CMIP6, submitted to Geosctientific Model Development, 2016. [link]

Contact at LPC2E : Thierry Dudok de Wit – ddwit@cnrs-orleans.fr

SOTERIA

SOTERIA (SOlar TERrestrial Investigations and Archives) was a collaborative project of the 7th European Framework Program that brought together from 2008 to 2011 fifteen research laboratories in Europe including LPC2E. SOTERIA was one of the first projects to be dedicated to the (then still emerging) discipline of space weather. The research focused on solar observations and their archiving in databases that can be used for operational purposes.

Within the framework of this project, the LPC2E had developed a prototype of a real-time solar spectrum reconstruction service, which has since been maintained by the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, in Brazil.

SOTERIA website: https://soteria-space.eu/

Reconstruction of the solar spectrum at INPE

Contact at LPC2E : Thierry Dudok de Wit – ddwit@cnrs-orleans.fr