Subauroral and Polar Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances During the 7–9 September 2017 Storms

Abstract

©2019. The Authors. This study provides new scenarios for storm time traveling ionospheric disturbance excitation and subsequent propagation at subauroral and polar latitudes. We used ground-based total electron content observations from Global Navigation Satellite System receivers combined with wide field, subauroral ionospheric plasma parameters measured with the Millstone Hill Incoherent Scatter Radar during strong September 2017 geospace storms. Observations provide the first evidence of significant influences on traveling ionospheric disturbance (TID) propagation and excitation caused by the presence of large subauroral polarization stream flow channels. Simultaneous large- and medium-scale TIDs evolved during the event in a broad subauroral and midlatitude area near dusk. Similar concurrent TIDs occurred near dawn sectors as well during a period of sustained southward Bz. Medium-scale TIDs at subauroral and midlatitudes had wave fronts aligned northwest-southeast near dusk, and northeast-southwest near dawn. These wave fronts were highly correlated with the direction of storm time large zonal plasma drift enhancements at these latitudes. At high latitudes, unexpected, predominant, and persistent storm time TIDs were identified with 2000+ km zonal wave fronts and 15% total electron content perturbation amplitudes, moving in transpolar propagation pathways from the dayside into the nightside. This propagation direction in the polar region was opposite to the normal assumption that TIDs originated in the nightside auroral region. Results suggest that significant dayside sources, such as cusp regions, can be efficient in generating transpolar TIDs during geospace storm intervals.