Abstract This study provides an updated description, example simulations, and validation of the Global Ionosphere Thermosphere Model (GITM). The updates to GITM include using an exothermic semi‐implicit chemistry scheme that no longer requires an altitude dependent heating efficiency; an ionospheric wind‐driven dynamo; improved neutral, ion, and electron temperature equations; a description of the neutral‐neutral collisions in the vertical momentum equation; FISM and nighttime EUV fluxes; a new auroral precipitation energy deposition scheme; new ion and neutral species; and the ability to run in a limited region with high resolution. Examples are provided for many of these different features, highlighting the capability of the model to capture upper atmospheric responses to eclipses, traveling ionospheric convection vortices, different tidal modes, and different auroral precipitation characteristics. Validation is conducted for 12 storms in 2011–2013, with quantitative comparisons made to GOCE mass densities, GUVI O/ ratios, and total electron content measurements.
Ridley et al. (Fri,) studied this question.