Low-to-Middle Latitude Ionospheric Plasma Blobs Observed by ROCSAT from 1999 to 2004

Details Low-to-Middle Latitude Ionospheric Plasma Blobs Observed by ROCSAT from 1999 to 2004 Low-to-Middle Latitude Ionospheric Plasma Blobs Observed by ROCSAT from 1999 to 2004

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsa23c..08s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SA23C-08

Physics

[2435] Ionosphere / Ionospheric Disturbances, [2439] Ionosphere / Ionospheric Irregularities, [2443] Ionosphere / Midlatitude Ionosphere, [2481] Ionosphere / Topside Ionosphere

Scientific paper

Low-to-middle latitude ion density variations observed by ROCSAT-1 at the 600-km altitude have been studied with an auto-search program to construct the global/seasonal/local-time distributions of plasma blob occurrence rates from 1999 to 2004 when the solar activities were moderate to high. The important characteristics of the plasma blob occurrence pattern in the latitudinal distribution is that it is very different from that of the equatorial plasma bubble occurrences in such a way that the occurrence rate of the plasma blob increases toward a higher dip latitude within the ROCSAT coverage of +- 35° in latitude. The seasonal distribution of blob occurrences is found to be larger at solstice than at equinox, and it has the maximum occurrence rate during the June solstice in both northern and southern hemispheres. The local-time distribution indicates a rapid rise of occurrence rate after sunset and reaches to a maximum around midnight, then slowly decreases to about 04h in local time in contrast to a rapid decrease after midnight for the equatorial density irregularities. Contrary to the well-known seasonal/longitudinal (s/l) distributions of equatorial plasma bubbles, no significant variation in the s/l distributions is noted for the low latitude plasma blob distribution within +- 15° in dip latitude. The observed global/seasonal/local-time distributions of plasma blob occurrence characteristics imply that the mechanism of the plasma blob occurrence is very different from that of the equatorial plasma bubble occurrence which is related to the general gravitational Rayleigh-Taylor instability process. Possible driving mechanisms for the plasma blob occurrences, such as the Perkins instability and the Es layer instability, are discussed in the context of plasma blob occurrence distributions.

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