The Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate (JSWSC - https://www.swsc-journal.org/ ) opens a Topical Issue (TI) "Cross-Scale Coupling Processes in the Solar-Terrestrial System". The Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP) runs long-term (4-5 years) international interdisciplinary scientific programs of solar terrestrial physics. The current program of SCOSTEP is Cross-scale cOUpling pRocesses in the Solar-tErrestrial system (COURSE), which is focused on cross-scale coupling processes in the solar-terrestrial system. The SCOSTEP's 16th Quadrennial Solar-Terrestrial Physics Symposium (STP-16) was held on June 1-5, 2026 in Thessaloniki, Greece, and served as the formal launch of the SCOSTEP COURSE scientific program.
This Topical Issue was initiated at the STP-16 symposium and invites contributions focused on cross-scale coupling processes in the fields of solar, magnetospheric, ionospheric, and atmospheric physics. This includes processes in the solar-terrestrial system that are coupled across different spatial, temporal, and energy scales. Of specific interest are contributions that advance understanding of processes within the three COURSE Focus Areas: (1) Sources of Space Weather and Space Climate, (2) Solar Wind, Magnetosphere, and Ionosphere Coupling, and (3) External Impacts and Internal dynamics of the Earth atmosphere. Contributions addressing the following research topics are especially encouraged:
- Sources and drivers of solar variability across temporal and spatial scales
- Cross-scale coupling of the solar wind with Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere
- Cross-scale interactions in Earth's middle and upper atmosphere
- Advances in modeling and observations to study cross-scale coupling processes
The TI is open to all contributions addressing cross-scale coupling processes in solar-terrestrial physics, and is not limited to only STP-16 participants. Manuscripts must be submitted through the JSWSC online submission system. Guidelines for manuscript submission and information about article processing charges are available on the JSWSC website under "Instructions for authors".
Deadline: 30 April 2027
All manuscripts will be peer-reviewed according to the quality standards of international scientific journals. Contributions must be consistent with the scope and style of JSWSC. Manuscripts should present sufficient new insights, place the results in the context of appropriately referenced existing work, and provide adequate evidence to support the conclusions.
Papers will be published immediately upon acceptance, without waiting for the closure of the Topical Issue, in electronic format only, and will be freely available through the JSWSC website. JSWSC also offers the possibility of including electronic supplementary material, such as animations, movies, code, and datasets.
For questions regarding this Topical Issue, please contact the T-EiC. For questions concerning the submission process, please contact the Editorial Office (jswsc@edpsciences.org).
Topical Editor-in-Chief (T-EiC):
- Nicholas Pedatella (nickp@ucar.edu) - NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, High Altitude Observatory, Boulder, CO, USA
Topical Editors (TE) , in alphabetical order:
- Sowmya Krishnamurthy (University of Graz, Graz, Austria)
- Monica Laurenza (National Institute for Astrophysics (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – INAF), Rome, Italy)
- Garima Malhotra (University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA)
- Yenca Migoya-Orue (The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy)
- Kazuo Shiokawa (Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE), Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan)
