The solar wind interaction with Earth’s magnetic field deposits energy into the upper portion of the atmosphere at high latitudes. The coupling process that modulates the ionospheric convection and intensity of ionospheric currents leads to formation of densely ionized patches convecting across the polar cap. The ionospheric currents launch traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) propagating equatorward. The polar cap patches and TIDs are then observed by networks of radars and GPS receivers.

Using the Digisonde data this paper shows that the small variation in the geomagnetic activity during low solar activity can affect both the parameter of height and the frequency of the intermediate layer (ILs) over the low-latitude Brazilian sector. The most expressive responses of the ILs to geomagnetic activity were observed during the summer when the height of the ILs suffered a significant decrease with the increase of the magnetic activity magnetic in the first hours of the day.

The paper discusses the excitation of monochromatic ELF/VLF electromagnetic waves produced by HF heating facility currents in the nighttime ionosphere. The ground-based magnetic field is predominantly located under the source, and the wave has right-hand polarization typical for a whistler but left-hand polarization at large distances from the source. About half of the source energy propagates upward, and approximately 20 % propagates to the Earth–ionosphere waveguide.

The ionosphere is a partly ionized medium above the atmosphere. Because of its anisotropic properties, the imposed electric fields from the magnetosphere produce space charge. Polarization electric fields induced in the ionosphere by this process generate ion drifts (Pedersen currents) and plasma evaporation along the field lines, thus achieving a quasi-neutral equilibrium of the ionosphere. The evaporation grows as a large-scale parallel potential structure in the magnetosphere.

During the most intense storm of solar cycle 24, the magnetosphere–ionosphere interaction, which is primarily associated with field-aligned currents (FACs), was much stronger than usual. Measurements onboard the low-latitude polar-orbiting Swarm satellites have shown that the intensities of FACs increase dramatically during the storm-time substorms. The extreme values of 1 s (7.5 km width) FACs reach 80 μA m⁻². The lowest latitude of the FAC region is limited to 49–50 MLat.