9301022 Stahara The specific modules of our Progressive Modular Model (PMM) to be developed include a coupled solar wind-magnetosheath-magnetosphere module that incorporates: (1) several recently-developed MHD computational models for predicting the global solar wind- magnetosheath plasma flow past the terrestrial magnetosphere and, (2) a powerful new computational magnetospheric boundary element model that is capable of determining the shape and location of the first-order, force-balanced magnetopause surface that consistently couples the magnetosheath and magnetospheric plasma and magnetic fields. Such a capability is crucial to beginning a rational study of the transport process associated with entry of solar wind mass, momentum, energy and magnetic and electric fluxes into the magnetosphere. The proposed model represents an important first step in trying to explore and quantify to what form the microscopic transport processes, which are not determinable by MHD theory, locally alter the ideal MHD plasma and field boundary conditions at the magnetospause to set the rates and the overall physics of the processes that couple the magnetosheath plasma and magnetic fields to the magnetosphere. The model achieves this by providing the capability for determining the coupled global mangetosheath- magnetospheric solutions in which boundary-normal magnetic field and plasma velocity components are systematically imposed locally at the mangetopause and then examining: (1) how both the local and global magnetosheath and mangetospheric solutions on either side of the magnetopause change, (2) how these effects vary with changing upstream solar wind conditions and, (3) how the magnetosphere responds globally to these variations. ***
