TROPOMAG, an institutional project of the Environment Department of INGV, aims at investigating, for the first time, the connection between Space Weather and Climate with a multidisciplinary and multi-instrument approach.

It is a known fact that the activity of the Sun often perturbs the magnetic field of the Earth and the upper atmosphere: instruments on board satellites can be damaged, GPS signals can be disturbed, cosmic radiation can penetrate and pose problems to aircraft crews safety, and electric currents can be even induced underground and damage power networks. The discipline which studies such interactions is called “Space Weather”.

Can “Space” and “Meteorological” Weather be connected? What is the role played by geomagnetic storms on the atmospheric pressure variations and in the formation of clouds? 

TROPOMAG will try to contribute to answer these questions, by means of dedicated measurements campaigns of atmospheric and geomagnetic parameters in volcanic areas of Italy and comparisons with historical series and models.