MIST
Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial
Latest articles
- 2026 MIST Council Election Results
- Do Solar Energetic Particle events impact lower-atmospheric temperatures on Mars?
- How Can Turbulence Improve Space Weather Forecasts?
- Regression to the mean can explain saturation of geomagnetic storms
- Temporal Variability of Saturn's H2 Dayglow and Northern Aurora Observed by Hisaki and Cassini
Latest news
2026 MIST Council Election Results
It is our pleasure to announce the results of the latest MIST Council Election.
- Samuel Wharton (University of Leicester) is elected for a 3 year term as a MIST Councillor
- Jewel Abbey Relampagos (Lancaster University) is elected for a 1 year term as the MIST Student Representative
In addition, due to concerns from the community regarding the ongoing UKRI/STFC funding situation, MIST Council have also decided to charter Mark Lester (University of Leicester) as an additional councillor to inform and steer the council in matters related to this specific brief, as set out in Article 4.5 of the MIST Charter.
We would like to congratulate everyone on their new roles. The full composition of Council can be found on the MIST website (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council). We would like to thank all the candidates for putting themselves forward and everyone who took part in the voting. We received votes from 132 people which represents a turnout of 21.5% of people registered to receive the MIST emailing list.
Finally, MIST Council would like to extend their thanks and gratitude to our outgoing members: Fiona Ball and Georgios Nicolaou. We would also like to say a special thank you to Andy Smith who was co-opted to be on MIST council while Rosie Johnson was on maternity leave, thank you for all of your hard work.
Open Letter Ready For Signatories
Protect MIST Science! Sign the MIST Community Open Letter on the STFC funding cuts!
https://sites.google.com/view/uk-mist-community-open-letter
Statement from MIST Council regarding the STFC Funding Situation
Statement from MIST Council regarding the STFC Funding Situation
MIST Council is deeply concerned by the ongoing STFC funding uncertainty and its impact on our community and beyond.
The current combination of prospective delayed and reduced funding, together with already volatile financial situations at universities across the UK, is placing significant strain on research groups. In some cases, institutions may be unable to support researchers through gaps between projects, increasing precarity across the community and adding significant pressure on early-career researchers.
We are concerned that continued uncertainty risks accelerating a brain drain from the UK, as skilled researchers reconsider their future in a system offering limited stability. The loss of expertise at any career stage would have lasting consequences for UK space science.
What is going on?
For those that are unaware of the situation, it is complex and evolving. We suggest the following sources to get up to speed on the current developments.
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/proposed-budget-cuts-catastrophe-uk-astronomy
What are we doing about it?
Behind the scenes, MIST Council is actively engaging with relevant parties to understand the scale of the challenge and to identify constructive ways forward.
- We are seeking seasoned members of the community to join MIST Council on a task force to help develop options and represent the needs of our community. If you would like to be involved, please reach out to us via the MIST Council email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by the end of this week (13th February 2026).
- In addition to the task force, we want to provide an open forum for discussion and collective input among all members of the wider MIST community. We are exploring options and will be in touch as soon as possible with further details.
- We believe in working together in the face of the current challenges and we are collaborating with UKSP and others to strive for a fair and positive outcome for all. We are reaching out to members of the SSAP (Solar System Advisory Panel) to explore the hosting of a community town hall meeting, like the one already being organised by the AAP (Astronomy Advisory Panel), to provide an open forum for discussion and collective input.
What can you do to help?
There are several open letters representing people in various career stages that have been made available to sign. We encourage you to read the relevant letter(s) and to sign them if you support them:
- Fellowship Holders: https://advancedfellows-openletter-stfc.github.io/index.html
- Early Career Researchers: https://ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io/
The Royal Astronomical Society are also urging Fellows to lobby their MPs against the cuts, and have included a template letter that can be used to do so:
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/ras-fellows-urged-lobby-against-unprecedented-cuts
MIST Council will continue to advocate for transparency, stability, and funding structures that recognise both the long-term nature of our science and the people who deliver it.
We thank you for your continued support in this period of uncertainty.
Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have further suggestions.
MIST Council
Announcement of New MIST Council 2025
We are very pleased to announce the following members of the community have been elected to MIST Council:
- Gemma Bower (University of Leicester), MIST Councillor
- Tom Elsden (University of St Andrews), MIST Councillor
- Cameron Patterson (Lancaster University), MIST Councillor
- Fiona Ball (University of Southampton), Student Representative
They will begin their terms in July 2025.
We thank outgoing MIST Council members: Maria Walach, Chiara Lazzeri and Emma Woodfield. Andy Smith will remain on council a little longer as a co-opted member to cover Rosie Johnson's maternity leave.
The current composition of Council can be found on our website (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council).
Announcement of New MIST Councillors.
We are very pleased to announce the following members of the community have been elected unopposed to MIST Council:
- Rosie Johnson (Aberystwyth University), MIST Councillor
- Matthew Brown (University of Birmingham), MIST Councillor
- Chiara Lazzeri (MSSL, UCL), Student Representative
Rosie, Matthew, and Chiara will begin their terms in July. This will coincide with Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, and Sophie Maguire outgoing as Councillors.
The current composition of Council can be found on our website, and this will be amended in July to reflect this announcement (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council).
Distributions of Birkeland current density observed by AMPERE are heavy‐tailed or long‐tailed
Distributions of Birkeland current density observed by AMPERE are heavy‐tailed or long‐tailed
By John Coxon (Northumbria University)
Electric currents flow above Earth’s surface in the ionosphere; along the magnetopause; across the magnetotail; and in the same region of space as the radiation belts. These currents are all closed through currents flowing along the magnetic field lines in near-Earth space forming one large current circuit; the currents flowing along the field lines are known as field-aligned currents, or as Birkeland currents.
Birkeland currents are, therefore, the currents that communicate impacts from the solar wind (at the magnetopause) and from phenomena such as substorms (in the magnetotail) into the ionosphere, and a key part of the puzzle in understanding phenomena such as ground-based magnetic perturbations such as GICs.
In this paper, we analyse the distributions of the Birkeland current densities measured by a dataset called AMPERE. We find that the distributions are heavy-tailed, which means that they are more likely to display extreme behaviours than if they were distributed normally. We determine that the best model to describe the distributions is a q-exponential model, and we exploit this to find the probability of currents flowing above some given threshold.
We can use this to make maps of the probability of extreme current flows in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (Figure 1). We can see that the most extreme currents are most likely to be on the dayside of Earth, and at a magnetic colatitude of ~20° (a latitude of ~70°), and we can see that extreme currents are much more likely in the Northern Hemisphere. This has important ramifications for space weather prediction, but also for the physical drivers of the currents; more details are available in the full paper.
Electric currents flow above Earth’s surface in the ionosphere; along the magnetopause; across the magnetotail; and in the same region of space as the radiation belts. These currents are all closed through currents flowing along the magnetic field lines in near-Earth space forming one large current circuit; the currents flowing along the field lines are known as field-aligned currents, or as Birkeland currents.
Birkeland currents are, therefore, the currents that communicate impacts from the solar wind (at the magnetopause) and from phenomena such as substorms (in the magnetotail) into the ionosphere, and a key part of the puzzle in understanding phenomena such as ground-based magnetic perturbations such as GICs.
In this paper, we analyse the distributions of the Birkeland current densities measured by a dataset called AMPERE. We find that the distributions are heavy-tailed, which means that they are more likely to display extreme behaviours than if they were distributed normally. We determine that the best model to describe the distributions is a q-exponential model, and we exploit this to find the probability of currents flowing above some given threshold.
We can use this to make maps of the probability of extreme current flows in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (Figure 1). We can see that the most extreme currents are most likely to be on the dayside of Earth, and at a magnetic colatitude of ~20° (a latitude of ~70°), and we can see that extreme currents are much more likely in the Northern Hemisphere. This has important ramifications for space weather prediction, but also for the physical drivers of the currents; more details are available in the full paper.
