Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufmsm41b0816b&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #SM41B-0816
Physics
2794 Instruments And Techniques, 6939 Magnetospheric Physics, 7835 Magnetic Reconnection
Scientific paper
There are currently two techniques used to remotely sense magnetospheric reconnection using ground based radar. One technique uses High Frequency (HF) radar. The other uses incoherent scatter radar. In both cases, the reconnection rate is determined from the F-region plasma velocity in the rest frame of the separatrix. However, the identification of the separatrix and the measurement of the plasma velocity are based on physically different phenomena. Thus the two techniques produce independent measurements of the reconnection rate. In this study, we compare reconnection rate measurements made by the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network and the Sondrestrom Incoherent Scatter Radar on 20 January 1999 to determine the accuracy of the reconnection rate measurements. The initial finding is that the position and velocity of the separatrix are poorly correlated between the two instruments. The correlation coefficients are 0.30 for the position and 0.28 for the velocity of the separatrix. These figures reflect an rms difference of 1.4 degrees between the latitude measurements and 130 m/s between the velocity measurements. Despite these poor correlations, the reconnection rate measurements are well correlated between the two instruments. The correlation coefficient for the reconnection rate measurements is 0.59. This reflects a rms difference of 10.5 mV/m between the two techniques. Since the two reconnection rate measurements are derived from completely independent measurements, this value of 10.5 mV/m is the sum in quadrature of the measurement error of the individual techniques. However, since the instrumental error in the Sondrestrom Radar technique was estimated to be as large as 12 mV/m, it is impossible to determine from this the measurement error in the SuperDARN measurement of the reconnection rate.
Baker Kile B.
Blanchard Gerard T.
Ellington C. L.
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