Oulu, Finland (5-7 March 2023)
We will organize a focused 3-day workshop with international experts in solar, cosmic-ray, magnetospheric, and atmospheric physics, as well as related fields. The goal is to improve our understanding of how changes in the geomagnetic field, such as its weakening during a reversal or excursion, can affect the modern climate by altering the radiation field, atmospheric chemistry, and dynamics, etc. The workshop will involve expert review presentations on the current state of research, followed by collaborative roundtable discussions aimed at aligning and coordinating the research efforts of various groups in the development of models and methodologies for investigating how changes in the geomagnetic field, in combination with extreme solar storms and solar variability, impact the Earth’s atmosphere and climate.
The workshop will be arranged in three sections: (1) providing a theoretical overview of the main processes affected by changes in the geomagnetic field and their potential atmospheric impact, (2) introducing high-performance computing resources for possible simulations and discussing potential global models for this purpose, and (3) utilizing real data for model verification and successful modelling. Each section will be dedicated to one workshop day, with daytime talks followed by evening brainstorming sessions.
Variability of the natural drivers of the Earth’s climate system has been relatively small during the period of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases and global warming. However, dramatic changes in the atmosphere and climate can be expected during periods when the geomagnetic field weakens or even vanishes for centuries or millennia during a possible next excursion or reversal.