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Aisling Bergin

Project Title: Data Analysis Applied to Space Weather

Supervisor: Prof. Sandra Chapman

Position: 4th Year PhD Student

Background: BA Physics & Astrophysics, TCD, 2018


Project Outline

Space weather events can cause disturbances in the Earth’s magnetosphere and ionosphere. Severe disturbances can cause disruption to electrical power systems, aviation, communication systems and satellite systems. Magnetometer stations on the ground are used to track changes in the magnetosphere-ionosphere system. Geomagnetic indices are calculated based on measurements from magnetometer stations. Geomagnetic indices are valuable as they have been recorded for many decades. My PhD project aims to apply statistical techniques to geomagnetic index timeseries in order to quantify space weather events in new ways.

Publications

  1. Bergin, A., Chapman, S. C., & Gjerloev, J. W. (2020). AE, DST and their SuperMAG counterparts: The effect of improved spatial resolution in geomagnetic indices. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 125, e2020JA027828. doi:10.1029/2020JA027828Link opens in a new windowGraphical abstract, left to right shows current systems on earth, increase in magnetometer stations over four solar cycles, text 'statistical comparison of indices over four solar cycles', text 'AE vs SME', text 'Dst vs SMR', text 'AE systematically undersamples when compared to SME for later solar cycles.', text'AE and SME differ at same scale as cycle-to- cycle variability', text 'DST and SMR track each other with a small systematic linear shift'.
  2. Bergin, A., Chapman, S. C., Moloney, N. R., & Watkins, N. W. (2022). Variation of geomagnetic index empirical distribution and burst statistics across successive solar cycles. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 127, e2021JA029986. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JA029986

Link opens in a new window