Prolonged multiple excitation of large-scale Traveling Atmospheric Disturbances (TADs) by successive and interacting coronal mass ejections

Successive and interacting coronal mass ejections (CMEs) directed earthward can have significant impacts throughout geospace. While considerable progress has been made in understanding their geomagnetic consequences over the past decade, elucidation of their atmospheric consequences remains a challenge. During 17-19 January 2005, a compound stream formed due to interaction of six successive halo CMEs impacted Earth's magnetosphere. In this paper, we report one atmospheric consequence of this impact, namely, the prolonged multiple excitation of large-scale (>-1000 km) traveling atmospheric disturbances (TADs). The TADs were effectively excited in auroral regions by sudden injections of energy due to the intermittent southward magnetic fields within the stream. They propagated toward the equator at speeds near 800 m/s and produced long-duration (-2.5 days) continuous large-scale density disturbances of order up ± 40% in the global thermosphere.