What is Earth's mysterious "ignorosphere" and what makes it special?
Earth's atmosphere holds many secrets, especially its upper layers, which remain one of the least-explored regions of our planet. While the lower atmosphere has been thoroughly studied, scientists face significant challenges in gathering reliable data about the mesosphere, known as the "ignorosphere," and even higher layers. But a new study has revealed some interesting insights.
January 23, 2025 19:38
19 years of research
The mesosphere is a difficult-to-access zone of the atmosphere, located between the stratosphere and space. Due to its difficult accessibility, the mesosphere has even earned the nickname “ignorosphere.”
Due to its great distance from Earth, the processes occurring in the mesosphere still raise more questions than answers, and their impact on our planet’s weather, climate, and phenomena such as auroras remains a mystery.
A team led by Kaoru Sato, professor of atmospheric physics at the University of Tokyo, has compiled a 19-year dataset.
The dataset models the atmosphere up to an altitude of 110 kilometers. It includes rare measurements from sounding rockets, radars and lidar instruments.
Sato explained that the dataset fills in essential gaps and allows detailed modeling of processes such as gravitational waves and auroras.
The dataset will help study unexplained phenomena
It has been observed that space weather effects, including charged particles from solar storms, often interact with the mesosphere, affecting phenomena such as auroras and the chemical composition of ozone.
Sato said that these interactions can also give rise to gravitational waves, which play an important role in transporting energy around the world, but are poorly understood due to limited data.
The new dataset is being used to investigate unexplained phenomena such as interhemispheric coupling, where cloud formation in the Arctic and Antarctic appears to be synchronized.
Scientists are also studying the influence of the mesosphere on the ionosphere, where solar winds ionize gases.
The dataset is expected to greatly advance our understanding of atmospheric dynamics and provide new opportunities to study the processes that influence Earth's climate and space weather interactions.
