MIST
Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial
Latest articles
- 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
- The Jupiter Auroral Ionosphere Code
Latest news
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).
Nominations are open for MIST Council
We are very pleased to open nominations for MIST Council. There are three positions available (detailed below), and elected candidates would join Georgios Nicolaou, Andy Smith, Maria-Theresia Walach, and Emma Woodfield on Council. The nomination deadline is Friday 31 May.
Council positions open for nomination
2 x MIST Councillor - a three year term (2024 - 2027). Everyone is eligible.
MIST Student Representative - a one year term (2024 - 2025). Only PhD students are eligible. See below for further details.
About being on MIST Council
If you would like to find out more about being on Council and what it can involve, please feel free to email any of us (email contacts below) with any of your informal enquiries! You can also find out more about MIST activities at mist.ac.uk. Two of our outgoing councillors, Beatriz and Sophie, have summarised their experiences being on MIST Council below.
Beatriz Sanchez-Cano (MIST Councillor):
"Being part of the MIST council for the last 3 years has been a great experience personally and professionally, in which I had the opportunity to know better our community and gain a larger perspective of the matters that are important for the MIST science progress in the UK. During this time, I’ve participated in a number of activities and discussions, such as organising the monthly MIST seminars, Autumn MIST meetings, writing A&G articles, and more importantly, being there to support and advise our colleagues in cases of need together with the wonderful council members. MIST is a vibrant and growing community, and the council is a faithful reflection of it."
Sophie Maguire (MIST Student Representative):
"Being the student representative for MIST council has been an amazing experience. I have been part of organizing conferences, chairing sessions, and writing grant applications based on the feedback MIST has received. From a wider perspective, MIST has helped to grow and support my professional networks which in turn, directly benefits my PhD work as well. I would encourage any PhD student to apply for the role of MIST Student Representative and I would be happy to answer any questions or queries you have about the role."
How to nominate
If you would like to stand for election or you are nominating someone else (with their agreement!) please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday 31 May. If there is a surplus of nominations for a role, then an online vote will be carried out with the community. Please include the following details in the nomination:
- Name
- Position (Councillor/Student Rep.)
- Nomination Statement (150 words max including a bit about the nominee and focusing on your reasons for nominating. This will be circulated to the community in the event of a vote.)
MIST Council details
- Sophie Maguire, University of Birmingham, Earth's ionosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Georgios Nicolaou, MSSL, solar wind plasma - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, University of Leicester, Mars plasma - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, University of Leicester, Earth’s inner magnetosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Andy Smith, Northumbria University, Space Weather - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Maria-Theresia Walach, Lancaster University, Earth’s ionosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Emma Woodfield, British Antarctic Survey, radiation belts - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- MIST Council email - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
How Can Turbulence Improve Space Weather Forecasts?
How Can Turbulence Improve Space Weather Forecasts?
By Cara Waters (Queen Mary University of London)
The auroral electrojet (AE) index is one of the key indicators of high latitude geomagnetic activity. Forecasting it from upstream solar wind conditions remains challenging due to nonlinear coupling and multiscale variability. To combat this, we test whether incorporating solar wind turbulence improves short timescale AE forecasts beyond models based on solely the mean solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field. We compare two gradient boosted decision tree (XGBoost) models using near-Earth solar wind observations from OMNI. The baseline model uses standard mean field, density and velocity parameters, while the turbulence-aware model adds measures of fluctuation amplitude, intermittency, energy partition, compressibility, and Alfvénic structure. Both models achieve a peak performance at short lead times, giving correlations above 0.8 at 60 minutes. However, the turbulence-aware model maintains forecasting skill for longer lead times. The turbulence-aware model also provides consistent improvements over both the baseline model and persistence. Critically, this model improves forecast robustness for high-impact events. Using cost-loss analysis, the baseline model provides decreasing economic value with increasing AE threshold. In contrast, the turbulence-aware model maintains an approximately constant threshold for positive economic value, indicating stable economic usefulness even for extreme AE conditions. Using interpretable machine learning techniques, we can show that the most important turbulence parameters for this at short timescales are fluctuations in Bz and the skew of these fluctuations, and at longer timescales it is the properties of the turbulence (cross helicity, compressibility, and residual energy). This demonstrates that turbulence provides complementary, scale-dependent information beyond mean solar wind parameters, improving both forecast performance and decision-relevant value for operational space weather applications.
See publication for more details:
Cara L. Waters, Christopher H. K. Chen, Mathew J. Owens (2026). Beyond Mean Solar Wind Conditions: Turbulence-Aware Forecasting of the AE Index. Space Weather, 24(7). https://doi.org/10.1029/2026SW005094
Potential economic value 𝑉 against cost/loss ratio 𝑟 for the base model in (a) and turbulence model in (b), for a range of thresholds of auroral electrojet (AE) between 800 and 1,200 nT. (c) The 𝑥-intercept of each of the curves plotted against the threshold AE index for the turbulence model (red circles) and the base model (blue squares).