The Earth's magnetosphere is part of our environment, and physical processes in the magnetosphere and coupling between the solar energy stream, the solar wind, and the magnetosphere are important to our understanding of our environment. Variations in the electromagnetic and particle energy output of the Sun have a significant effect on global changes.

In Nordic literature a remarkable discussion of the northern light appears in Kongespeilet (The King's Mirror) a thirteenth-century Norwegian chronicle. It is described in vivid detail as the following translated excerpts demonstrate: These northern lights have this peculiar nature, that the darker the night is, the brighter they seem, and they always appear at night but never by day, most frequently in the densest darkness and rarely by moonlight. In appearance they resemble a vast flame of fire viewed from a great distance. It also looks as if sharp points were shot from this flame up into...

These proceedings are based upon in~roductory talks, re- search repor~s and discussions at the NATO Advanced Work- shop on ELECTROMAGNETIC COUPLING IN THE POLAR CLEFTS AND CAPS, held at Lillehammer, Norway, 20-24th September 1988. By this book we will make the information which was pro- vided to the participants of the workshop, accessible to a wider audience. Electromagnetic processes governing particle, momen- tum, and energy transfer from the solar wind via the magne- tosphere and into the earth's upper atmosphere are the main topics of solar-terrestrial research. Due to the peculiar...

These proceedings are based upon introductory talks, research reports and discussions from the NATO Advanced Workshop on the "Morphology and Dynamics of the Polar Cusp", held at Lillehammer, Norway, 7-12 May, 1984. The upper atmosphere at high latitudes is called the "Earth's win- dow to outer space". Through various electrodynamic coupling process- es as well as through direct transfer of particles many geophysical effects displayed there are direct manifestations of phenomena occurring in the deep space. The high latitude ionosphere will also exert a feedback on the regions of the...