Variations in Thermosphere Composition and Ionosphere Total Electron Content Under “Geomagnetically Quiet” Conditions at Solar‐Minimum
Name
Geophysical Research Letters - 2021 - Cai - Variations in Thermosphere Composition and Ionosphere Total Electron Content.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.73 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Cai, Xuguang
Burns, Alan G
Wang, Wenbin
Qian, Liying
Pedatella, Nicholas
Coster, Anthea
Zhang, Shunrong
Solomon, Stanley C
Eastes, Richard W
Daniell, Robert E
Date Issued
May 21, 2021
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Citation
Cai, X., Burns, A. G., Wang, W., Qian, L., Pedatella, N., Coster, A., et al. (2021). Variations in thermosphere composition and ionosphere total electron content under “geomagnetically quiet” conditions at solar-minimum. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL093300.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We conducted observational and modeling studies of thermospheric composition and ionospheric total electron content (TEC) variations during two geomagnetically quiet periods (maximum Kp = 1.7) at solar minimum. Daytime thermospheric O and N2 column density ratio (∑O/N2) observed by Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk and TEC from a network of ground-based Global Navigation Satellites System receivers both exhibited large (∼30% of reference values) and long-lived (5–11 h) day-to-day variations in roughly the same mid-latitude geographic regions. Numerical simulations replicated the observed variability, though not perfectly. Analysis of the simulations suggested that the variations were mainly generated in the high-latitudes and were subsequently advected equatorward and westward. When high-latitudes input was turned off in simulations, the variations were negligible. This suggested the potentially important role of high-latitude geomagnetic forcing in thermospheric composition and ionospheric density variations at mid-latitudes even during some “geomagnetically quiet” periods at solar-minimum.
MIT Department
Haystack Observatory
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl093300
