Equatorial plasma depletions with large upward plasma flow over 3800 km in longitude near dawn: C/NOFS observations and model simulations

Details Equatorial plasma depletions with large upward plasma flow over 3800 km in longitude near dawn: C/NOFS observations and model simulations Equatorial plasma depletions with large upward plasma flow over 3800 km in longitude near dawn: C/NOFS observations and model simulations

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsa23a1896h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SA23A-1896

Physics

[2415] Ionosphere / Equatorial Ionosphere, [2437] Ionosphere / Ionospheric Dynamics, [2439] Ionosphere / Ionospheric Irregularities

Scientific paper

A spectacular phenomenon in the equatorial ionosphere near dawn is the occurrence of plasma depletions in which the plasma density is reduced by 1-3 orders of magnitude over thousands of kilometers in longitude, and the plasma flow is strongly upward over the entire depletion region. This phenomenon is observed repeatedly by the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite during deep solar minimum. A series of plasma bubbles is first detected by C/NOFS over a longitudinal range of 3300-3800 km around midnight. Each of the individual bubbles has a typical width of ~100 km in longitude, and the upward ion drift velocity inside the bubbles is 200-400 m/s. The plasma bubbles rotate to the dawn sector and become broad plasma depletions. The strong upward plasma flow inside the bubbles exists for more than 7 hours, and the bubbles do not become dead/fossil bubbles when they reach dawn sector. The observations clearly show the evolution from multiple plasma bubbles into broad depletions. We propose that the broad plasma depletions with large upward plasma flow result from merging of multiple equatorial plasma bubbles. We also present the numerical simulations of bubble merging with the physics-based low-latitude ionospheric model (PBMOD). It is found that two separate plasma bubbles join together and form a new single bubble. The simulations demonstrate for the first time that the merging process of plasma bubbles can indeed occur in incompressible ionospheric plasma.

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