HR: 08:45h
AN: SA21A-04    [PDF]
TI: Does the thermosphere play a role in the formation of patches?
AU: * Burns, A G
EM: aburns@ucar.edu
AF: NCAR, PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 United States
AU: Wang, W
EM: wbwang@ucar.edu
AF: NCAR, PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 United States
AU: Killeen, T L
EM: killeen@ucar.edu
AF: NCAR, PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 United States
AB: Both the thermosphere and the ionosphere react to forcing from the magnetospherically imposed convection pattern. A twin-celled, neutral convection pattern is set up that normally follows the ion convection pattern. Like the tongue of ionization, which is created by ion convection advecting F2 region ions across the magnetic polar cap, there is a tongue of neutral composition in which gas from the dayside is advected across the polar cap. The composition in this tongue is characterized by less enhanced N2/O ratios than elsewhere in the polar cap and hence potentially less recombination. However, unlike the ionosphere, the thermosphere takes a considerable time to react to geomagnetic forcing. In solar maximum conditions this reaction can take 1 to 3 hours. In this study we use a thermosphere ionosphere nested grid (TING) simulation of a geomagnetic storm to determine whether this behavior of the thermosphere has any influence on the patches that are created by the model.
DE: 0355 Thermosphere--composition and chemistry
DE: 0358 Thermosphere--energy deposition
SC: SPA - Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting