Physical, Numerical, and Computational Challenges in Modeling the Geospace Environment

摘要

We present a high level overview of Earth's immediate space environment, called geospace, and contemporary efforts to model it. As with the modeling of many complex, multi-scale systems one faces the challenges of limited physical understanding of the system and its processes, less-than-ideal numerical procedures, and computer limitations. In spite of these difficulties, advanced modeling of geospace is important, because geospace is the only large-scale plasma physical system that is accessible to detailed in situ measurements, and because its variability, "Space Weather", has a substantial impact on human activities in space and on the ground. As an example of state-of-the-art geospace modeling we discuss the global modeling of magnetotail turbulence.