P4_9 Stealing Our Atmosphere

Abstract

This paper investigates two scenarios; the first is the solar wind velocity required to compress Earth’s magnetopause to an altitude of 1500km and an unrealistic value of 1.6x10⁸ms^-1 is found. The second scenario is the time it would take the solar wind to erode all of the oxygen in the atmosphere if the Earth did not have a magnetic field and an approximate value of 1.97x10⁹ years is calculated.