HR: 08:48h
AN: SM41B-04    [Abstracts]
TI: Super Dual Auroral Radar Network Observations of Ionospheric Convection Enhancements Driven by Solar Wind Dynamic Pressure Fronts
AU: * Boudouridis, A
EM: thanasis@atmos.ucla.edu
AF: University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, 405 Hilgard Avenue, 7127 Math Sciences, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565 United States
AU: Lyons, L R
EM: larry@atmos.ucla.edu
AF: University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, 405 Hilgard Avenue, 7127 Math Sciences, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565 United States
AU: Zesta, E
EM: ezesta@atmos.ucla.edu
AF: University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, 405 Hilgard Avenue, 7127 Math Sciences, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565 United States
AU: Ruohoniemi, J M
EM: mike_ruohoniemi@jhuapl.edu
AF: Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Lab, 11100 Johns Hopkins Rd, Laurel, MD 20723-6099 United States
AU: Anderson, P C
EM: phillip.anderson1@utdallas.edu
AF: University of Texas at Dallas, Center for Space Sciences, 2601 North Floyd Road, PO Box 830688, Richardson, TX 75083-0688 United States
AB: It is well known that the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) is the major contributor to geomagnetic activity on Earth. Recent studies, however, have shown that solar wind dynamic pressure variations cause global effects when they encounter the terrestrial magnetosphere. In particular, it has been shown that solar wind dynamic pressure enhancements significantly increase particle precipitation and cause global intensification of the aurora. Further studies using Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) measurements have demonstrated that solar wind pressure increases also significantly affect the cross-polar-cap potential drop. This implies that the dynamic pressure has an important effect on the coupling efficiency between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere, which is in addition to that due to the IMF. It was previously suggested, based on the DMSP data, that solar wind dynamic pressure enhancements induce enhanced magnetotail reconnection and magnetospheric convection. We now present Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) observations for a number of events that demonstrate significantly enhanced ionospheric convection in the dayside ionosphere associated with the impact of solar wind pressure fronts. The enhanced convection extends to the vicinity of the expected location of the dayside separatrix, suggesting that the solar wind dynamic pressure strongly affects dayside reconnection as well as polar-cap convection.
DE: 2704 Auroral phenomena (2407)
DE: 2712 Electric fields (2411)
DE: 2760 Plasma convection
DE: 2776 Polar cap phenomena
DE: 2784 Solar wind/magnetosphere interactions
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting