Space climate

Space climate is the long-term variation in solar activity within the heliosphere, including the solar wind, the Interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), and their effects in the near-Earth environment, including the magnetosphere of Earth and the ionosphere, the upper and lower atmosphere, climate, and other related systems.

[1] In addition to real-time solar observations, the field of research also covers analysis of historical space climate data.

This has included analysis and reconstruction that has allowed solar wind and heliospheric magnetic field strengths to be determined from back to 1611.

Space climate research has three main aims:[1] In the early 2000s, when the concept of space weather became common, a small initiative group, led by Kalevi Mursula and Ilya G. Usoskin the University of Oulu in Finland had realized that physical drivers of solar variability and its terrestrial effects can be better understood with a more general and broader view.

The concept of Space Climate had been developed, and the corresponding research community formed, which presently includes a few hundred active members around the world.