Relating the equatorial electrojet strength inferred from multi-satellite magnetic observations to ExB drift and equatorial scintillation measurements

Physics

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2409 Current Systems (2721), 2411 Electric Fields (2712), 2415 Equatorial Ionosphere, 2439 Ionospheric Irregularities

Scientific paper

The dayside eastward electric field drives a strong electric current along the magnetic equator. This equatorial electrojet (EEJ) follows a narrow band in the ionospheric E-region, the Cowling channel. The strength of the EEJ is essentially the product of the eastward electric field with the Cowling conductivity. Observations of the electrojet strength could therefore provide valuable information on the eastward electric field, as well as on ionospheric conductivity. It is already known that the EEJ strength inferred from magnetic observatory measurements correlates well with the ExB drift observed by equatorial radars. Potentially, the EEJ strength could also be an indicator for the occurrence of equatorial plasma instabilities. To investigate these possibilities we use a dataset of 76,000 EEJ strengths, inferred from equator-crossings of the magnetic field measuring satellites CHAMP, Oersted and SAC-C. These EEJ strengths correlate well with the corresponding Julia ExB radar observations. Since the eastward electric field is ultimately responsible for building up the equatorial plasma anomaly, one can go one step further and correlate the EEJ strengths with the occurrence of night-time equatorial scintillations. An initial attempt to directly relate EEJ strength to SCINDA observations did not show any obvious correlation, though. In the next step, we plan to account for variations in the Cowling conductivity in order to obtain cleaner correlations with the ExB radar drifts. Possibly, this will also help to establish a relationship with the SCINDA observations.

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