This session is devoted to the presentation of joint research activities aimed at the establishment of the European Research Network of Ionospheric and Plasmaspheric Observation Systems (EURIPOS). Access to reliable standardized observational data that characterize the Earth’s ionosphere - plasmasphere system is of vital importance for theoretical and applied geospace research, including space weather nowcasting and forecasting, and a key issue for various operational applications relevant to satellite navigation, geomagnetic surveys, earth observation and telecommunications.
EURIPOS initiative, with the participation of 16 research establishments all over Europe, aims to provide a wider and more efficient access to and use of the ground and space-based ionospheric sounders and the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers existing in different European countries and to coordinate and optimize their operation and evolution in conjunction with all possible space missions providing data from the near-Earth plasma regimes. This session thus also encompasses efforts aiming at the development of a new generation of models and tools designed to improve the specification, forecasting and prediction of the near geospace environment, ranging from the bottomside ionosphere up to the geosynchronous orbit. Contributions focusing on ionospheric/plasmaspheric interactions, exploiting all possible available data sets including observations from CHAMP, CLUSTER and IMAGE space missions are encouraged in particular. The session also invites contributions aiming at characterizing ionospheric and magnetospheric electric currents as part of the signal detected by satellites residing in the topside ionosphere as the future ESA’s Swarm mission.