Neutral Wind and Plasma Drift Effects on the Nighttime TEC Variability

Details Neutral Wind and Plasma Drift Effects on the Nighttime TEC Variability Neutral Wind and Plasma Drift Effects on the Nighttime TEC Variability

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsa21a1531s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SA21A-1531

Physics

2411 Electric Fields (2712), 2415 Equatorial Ionosphere, 2427 Ionosphere/Atmosphere Interactions (0335), 2437 Ionospheric Dynamics, 2443 Midlatitude Ionosphere

Scientific paper

We have used a physics based numerical Ionosphere/Plasmasphere Model (IPM) to study the effects of neutral winds and electric fields on the nighttime TEC variability during spring equinox conditions. The model solves the appropriate transport equations for the six ions, O+, NO+, O2+, N2+, H+ and He+, on convecting flux tubes that realistically follow the geomagnetic field. The IPM covers geomagnetic latitudes from about 60 degrees N to 60 degrees S and equatorial crossing altitudes from 90 to 30,000 km. Two of the inputs required by the IPM are the thermospheric neutral wind and the low latitude electric field, which can be given by existing empirical model or externally specified by the user. To study the relative importance of the neutral wind and the electric field for the TEC variations, these two model inputs were externally modified and the resulting variations in TEC were compared. Neutral wind and electric field modifications were introduced at three different local times in order to investigate the effect of different start times of the imposed perturbations on TEC. This study focused on modeled TEC variations at 2100 LT at three different longitude sectors (78, 273 and 318 degrees E) for medium solar activity (F10.7 = 150) and low geomagnetic activity (Kp = 2). The largest changes in TEC were found predominantly in the equatorial anomaly, and a significant longitudinal dependence was observed. Our results indicate that the perturbation effect on the TEC at 2100 LT varied non-linearly with the elapsed time after the imposed neutral wind and electric field perturbations. An important outcome of this study is that daytime neutral wind and/or electric field modifications will lead to essentially identical TEC changes in the 2100 local time sector.

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