Michael John Rycroft (born 15 July 1938) is an ionospheric physicist.
After Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood (1951–57) his first degree was in physics from Imperial College London (1960) and his PhD was in meteorological physics from Churchill College Cambridge (1964), supervised by Dr T.W. Wormell who had in turn been supervised by Prof C.T.R. Wilson.
His research is principally in solar-terrestrial physics and atmospheric electricity. In 1977, he was a British finalist in a selection process for European astronauts. [1] He began his career at the University of Southampton (1966-1979) and then moved to the British Antarctic Survey (1979-1990), where he became director of physical science. Subsequently, he was professor of aerospace at Cranfield University (1990-1994), then at the International Space University where he remains emeritus professor. He was a visiting senior research fellow at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath (2006-2016). He is also a member of the Academia Europaea and was general secretary of the European Geophysical Society from 1996 to 2003 (part of the European Geosciences Union).
He has published around 170 papers in the refereed literature, [2] edited a significant encyclopedia, [3] and co-authored two books on space research. [4] He is currently editor-in-chief of the journal Surveys in Geophysics [5] and was, until 1999, editor-in-chief of Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics . He edited a Golden Jubilee edition of this journal to commemorate its 50th anniversary in 2000, [6] and wrote a highly cited paper on the global atmospheric electric circuit for the same issue. [7] On 16 November 2018 a special symposium [8] was held in Bath, UK, to mark Rycroft's 80th birthday, with a biographical tribute paper published in May 2020. [9]
The mesopause is the point of minimum temperature at the boundary between the mesosphere and the thermosphere atmospheric regions. Due to the lack of solar heating and very strong radiative cooling from carbon dioxide, the mesosphere is the coldest region on Earth with temperatures as low as -100 °C. The altitude of the mesopause for many years was assumed to be at around 85 km (53 mi), but observations to higher altitudes and modeling studies in the last 10 years have shown that in fact the mesopause consists of two minima - one at about 85 km and a stronger minimum at about 100 km (62 mi).
The Schumann resonances (SR) are a set of spectrum peaks in the extremely low frequency (ELF) portion of the Earth's electromagnetic field spectrum. Schumann resonances are global electromagnetic resonances, generated and excited by lightning discharges in the cavity formed by the Earth's surface and the ionosphere.
The Hessdalen lights are unidentified lights observed in a 12-kilometre-long (7.5 mi) stretch of the Hessdalen valley in rural central Norway.
Atmospheric electricity is the study of electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere. The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit. Atmospheric electricity is an interdisciplinary topic with a long history, involving concepts from electrostatics, atmospheric physics, meteorology and Earth science.
The Journal of Geophysical Research is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It is the flagship journal of the American Geophysical Union. It contains original research on the physical, chemical, and biological processes that contribute to the understanding of the Earth, Sun, and Solar System. It has seven sections: A, B, C (Oceans), D (Atmospheres), E (Planets), F, and G (Biogeosciences). All current and back issues are available online for subscribers.
The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere is a NASA satellite originally launched to conduct a 26-month study of noctilucent clouds (NLCs). Its mission was extended, and as of 2021 is still operational. It is the ninetieth Explorer program mission and is part of the NASA-funded Small Explorer program (SMEX).
Henrik Svensmark is a physicist and professor in the Division of Solar System Physics at the Danish National Space Institute in Copenhagen. He is known for his work on the hypothesis that cosmic rays are an indirect cause of global warming via cloud formation.
The global atmospheric electrical circuit is the course of continuous movement of atmospheric electricity between the ionosphere and the Earth. Through solar radiation, thunderstorms, and the fair-weather condition, the atmosphere is subject to a continual and substantial electrical current.
Shadow bands are thin, wavy lines of alternating light and dark that can be seen moving and undulating in parallel on plain-coloured surfaces immediately before and after a total solar eclipse. They are caused by the refraction by Earth's atmospheric turbulence of the solar crescent as it thins to a narrow slit, which increasingly collimates the light reaching Earth in the minute just before and after totality.
Brian Tinsley is a physicist who for more than 60 years has been actively researching atmospheric and space physics. He has been a Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Dallas since 1976 and has served many national and international scientific organizations. He obtained his PhD from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand in November, 1963, for research on optical emissions from the upper atmosphere. With his wife, Beatrice Tinsley, he came to Dallas to work at the newly formed Southwest Center for Advanced Studies, which became the University of Texas at Dallas in 1969. They divorced in 1978, their adopted children Alan and Theresa remaining with him.
Timothy Laurence Killeen is a British geophysicist, space scientist, professor, and university administrator. Killeen took office as the president of the University of Illinois system in 2015. He has been the principal investigator on research projects for NASA and the National Science Foundation. Killeen has authored more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals as well as more than 300 other publications and papers. He has served on various White House committees and task forces and is a past editor-in-chief of the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics.
CSES , or Zhangheng, is a Chinese–Italian space mission dedicated to monitoring electromagnetic field and waves, plasma parameters and particle fluxes induced by natural sources and artificial emitters in the near-Earth space. Austria contributes to one of the magnetometers.
Space climate is the long-term variation in solar activity within the heliosphere, including the solar wind, the Interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), and their effects in the near-Earth environment, including the magnetosphere of Earth and the ionosphere, the upper and lower atmosphere, climate, and other related systems. The scientific study of space climate is an interdisciplinary field of space physics, solar physics, heliophysics, and geophysics. It is thus conceptually related to terrestrial climatology, and its effects on the atmosphere of Earth are considered in climate science.
Madineni Venkat Ratnam is an Indian atmospheric scientist, Heading Aerosol, Radiation and Trace gases Group at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory of Department of Space, Government of India. He is known for his studies on middle atmospheric structure and dynamics.
Hanumant Shankar Sawant is a radio astronomer and one of the pioneers of the Brazilian solar radio astronomy. He has been the key scientist behind concept, design and installation of the Brazilian Decimetric Array (BDA). Under his leadership, an outstanding group in radio astrophysics has been built at National Institute of Space Research (INPE) in Brazil.
George L. Siscoe was an American physicist and professor emeritus of space physics at Boston University. He has made major contributions to the understanding of geomagnetism in the Earth's magnetosphere and the heliosphere, particularly in helping to establishing the field of space weather and in establishing the term "Heliophysics" - a term which is now standard use.
Karen Aplin is a British atmospheric and space physicist. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Bristol. Aplin has made significant contributions to interdisciplinary aspects of space and terrestrial science, in particular the importance of electrical effects on planetary atmospheres. She was awarded the 2021 James Dungey Lectureship of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Margaret Ann ("Peggy") Shea is a space scientist known for research on the connections between cosmic radiation and Earth's magnetic field.
Mary Hudson is the Eleanor and Kelvin Smith Distinguished Professor of Physics at Dartmouth College. She is known for her research on the weather patterns that occur due to solar eruptions. She was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1984.
Vania Koleva Jordanova is a physicist known for her work on space weather and geomagnetic storms. She was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2021.