The ionospheric source of magnetospheric plasma is not a black box input for global models

Abstract

Including ionospheric outflow in global magnetohydrodynamic models of near-Earth outer space has become an important step toward understanding the role of this plasma source in the magnetosphere. Of the existing approaches, however, few tie the outflowing particle fluxes to magnetospheric conditions in a self-consistent manner. Doing so opens the magnetosphere-ionosphere system to nonlinear mass-energy feedback loops, profoundly changing the behavior of the magnetosphere-ionosphere system. Based on these new results, it is time for the community eschew treating ionospheric outflow as a simple black box source of magnetospheric plasma.