Impact of Solar and Interplanetary Disturbances on Space Weather

Solar activity is the dynamic energy source behind all solar phenomena driving space weather. During an active solar period, violent eruptions occur more often on the Sun. The solar flares (SFs) and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) shoot energetic and highly charged particles towards Earth that ensuing ionospheric and geomagnetic disturbances. The some geomagnetic disturbances illuminate night skies with brilliant sheets of red and green known as auroras or northern and southern lights. All these phenomena are most frequent near the maximum of each 11-year cycle of solar activity. The Maunder minimum (1645-1715) refers to a period when very few sunspots were observed. During this period, the Earth climate was cooler than normal. This period mimics the solar cycle climate change connections. The particles and electromagnetic radiations flowing from solar activity outbursts are important for long-term climate variations. The geomagnetosphere and upper atmosphere can be greatly perturbed by variations in the solar wind caused by disturbances on the Sun. In recent years, these in situ data have resulted in explosive growth in our knowledge and understanding of solar-interplanetary-terrestrial process. The magnetic reconnection provides opportunity to enter solar plasma within geomagnetosphere. Two kinds of flows dominate the large scale structure of solar wind: corotating flows and transient disturbances. Corotating flows are associated with spatial variability in coronal expansion and solar rotation, whereas transient disturbances are associated with episodic ejections of material into interplanetary space from coronal regions. There are two types of geomagnetic field variations termed as long-time variation and storm-time variations. The long-term variations are very useful to solar cyclical study of geomagnetic field variation as well as change in polarity of the Sun, climate change, plants growth rate and geological change of Earth's pole. The storm-time variations deal the various characteristics of geomagnetic storms (GMSs) and their connection with solar source activities and interplanetary magnetic fields.