The Earth's atmosphere as a whole, including the ionosphere embedded in the thermosphere, is a coupled system influenced by solar and magnetospheric processes from above and by upward propagating disturbances from below. The coupling processes are crucial to our understanding of ionospheric dynamics and variability. The ionosphere is forced from above by various space weather processes of solar and internal magnetospheric origin, which all affect the ionosphere through the magnetosphere. The strongest among them are well-developed magnetic storms and substorms, but many other still insufficiently explored processes do exist. On the other hand, the ionosphere is forced from below mainly (but not only) by atmospheric waves like planetary, tidal and acoustic-gravity waves, those being mostly of tropospheric origin but partly excited also in the stratosphere and at higher layers. The symposium invites (multi)instrumental observation, simulation and modelling studies that address the dynamics of the ionosphere with emphasis on magnetospheric and lower atmospheric forcing and the associated feedback on the ionospheric behaviour.
Contributions dealing with magnetospheric forcing are sought particularly in the areas of ionospheric phenomena caused by magnetospheric storms and substorms, current closure, the deposition of energy in its various forms, and the interaction of electromagnetic waves with the ionosphere. New results that focus on the fully three-dimensional ionospheric structure of the above mentioned phenomena are especially appreciated. As for atmospheric forcing, contributions are sought that focus on atmospheric waves, wave-wave and wave-mean flow interactions, atmospheric electricity and electrodynamical coupling processes. New results on MLT feeding (wave penetration and secondary wave generation) of ionospheric disturbances and the solar effect on the vertical propagation conditions of the atmospheric waves are particularly welcome.