Earth’s plasma environment: magnetic reconnection and its effect on magnetospheric fields and flows

Abstract

Spacecraft observations of the Earth’s magnetosphere have revealed the presence of a complex spatially structured plasma and field environment, which undergoes significant variations on time-scales from minutes to years. Magnetospheric plasma originates in the solar wind and the ionosphere, and the principal transport process is a twin-vortical flow driven by coupling to the solar wind. We review present understanding of the coupling process and some consequences which follow.