Ionospheric Responses to Solar Activity
A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Upper Atmosphere".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 May 2026 | Viewed by 4
Special Issue Editors
Interests: solar flares; physics of the ionosphere; solar-terrestrial physics; lower ionosphere modeling; TEC; VLF data
Interests: ionospheric; space weather research and applications; GNSS science and technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce this Special Issue of Atmosphere, “Ionospheric Responses to Solar Activity”, which will bring together a wide range of studies on the relationship between solar activity and the Earth’s ionosphere.
The ionosphere is continuously shaped by variations in solar X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, which penetrate to different altitudes and ionize neutral particles. These variations may follow long-term cycles that define the background state of the ionosphere, or otherwise may occur suddenly during solar flares, solar proton events, coronal mass ejections, and other solar phenomena. Such disturbances can critically affect the performance of modern communication and navigation systems.
For this Special Issue, we invite original research on the impacts that both the regular and sudden manifestations of solar activity have on different ionospheric layers. Contributions may include experimental studies or modeling approaches that investigate ionospheric responses to solar variability. Contributions may take the following forms:
- Analyses of solar events that exert critical impacts on the Earth’s ionosphere;
- Studies of the effects that solar flare radiation and charged particles from solar wind have on the ionosphere (including particle precipitation and geomagnetic storms);
- Remote sensing of the ionosphere under different levels of solar activity (e.g., using GNSS measurements, incoherent scatter radars, ionosondes, VLF/ELF receivers, or geomagnetic field observations);
- Developments of theoretical and empirical models describing the state and dynamics of ionospheric parameters under diverse heliogeophysical conditions;
- Assessments of potential disruptive impacts of solar activity on modern communication and navigation systems.
Because of its interdisciplinary scope, this Special Issue will be of interest to solar and ionospheric physicists, as well as to the broader scientific community engaged in the study of the forms and practical implications of space weather.
Dr. Susanna Bekker
Prof. Dr. Sandro Radicella
Dr. Ilya Ryakhovsky
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- solar-terrestrial interactions
- space weather
- solar activity
- solar flares
- geomagnetic storms
- particle precipitation
- ionospheric total electron content
- ionospheric modeling
- solar observations
- ionospheric observations
- ionospheric variability
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