The Equatorial Ionosphere During Solar Minimum -- C/NOFS Observations of Deep Plasma Depletions at Sunrise

Details The Equatorial Ionosphere During Solar Minimum -- C/NOFS Observations of Deep Plasma Depletions at Sunrise The Equatorial Ionosphere During Solar Minimum -- C/NOFS Observations of Deep Plasma Depletions at Sunrise

May 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agusmsa11b..01d&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2009, abstract #SA11B-01

Physics

2415 Equatorial Ionosphere, 6929 Ionospheric Physics (1240, 2400)

Scientific paper

The Communication/Navigation Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite was launched in April 2008 into an equatorial orbit at an altitude between 400 and 850 km, to study the equatorial ionosphere as well as irregularities within it. The satellite sensors measure the following parameters: ambient and fluctuating ion densities; ion and electron temperatures; neutral winds, AC and DC electric and magnetic fields. C/NOFS is circling the Earth at a time when the solar cycle is the lowest it has been since the beginning of the space age. In this talk, we stress the findings that are unique to solar minimum conditions. The plasma density is the smallest seen in the past half century. The pre-reversal enhancement in the upward plasma drift, which is responsible for early evening irregularities, is rarely seen. Instead, plasma irregularities form mostly after midnight. An unexpected feature in the data concerns deep plasma depletions observed at sunrise. They are seen at all satellite altitudes and associated with ionospheric irregularities. Dawn depletions are more frequent in the America-Africa sector and in the Indonesia sector. Dawn depletions are also observed in other data sets, in particular in data from DMSP morning passes, and the CHAMP satellite. This fact confirms that they are real and not an artifact of the plasma instrument. It also allows measuring the N-S extent of the dawn depletions - we find that they are typically 50 x 14 degrees in the N-S and E-W directions respectively, but they can be much wider in longitude. We postulate that they are caused by upward plasma drifts, which are seen in the C/NOFS and ground-based data.

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