Physics of the solar-terrestrial coupling: Results, problems, and new approaches

The results of the works performed in the field of the most actual problems of physics and optics of the solar-terrestrial coupling have been analyzed. This is the problem of energy in the ionospheric physics, considered because space monitoring of the solar irradiance ionizing the upper ionosphere is still absent. These are the problems of transformation of the solar flare energy and corpuscular precipitation into the microwave ionospheric radiation. Finally, this is the main problem of present-day natural science: the physical mechanism of the solar-terrestrial coupling as applied to the explanation of the detected correlations in the Sun-weather and the Sun-biosphere systems. A unified physical (radio-optical) mechanism for controlling the processes in the lower atmosphere and biosphere (including human being), dependent on the level of solar and geomagnetic activity and related to the ionospheric microwave radiation in transitions between the optically highly excited (Rydberg) states of all components of the upper atmosphere, has been considered.