HR: 1340h
AN: SA13A-1064    [Abstracts]
TI: Satellite Conjunction Study for Polar Cusp Neutral Upwelling
AU: * Sadler, B
EM: Brent.Sadler@unh.edu
AF: University of New Hampshire, Space Science Center, Morse Hall 39 College Road, Durham, NH 03824, United States
AU: Lessard, M R
EM: Marc.Lessard@unh.edu
AF: University of New Hampshire, Space Science Center, Morse Hall 39 College Road, Durham, NH 03824, United States
AU: Lund, E
AF: University of New Hampshire, Space Science Center, Morse Hall 39 College Road, Durham, NH 03824, United States
AU: Otto, A
EM: ao@how.gi.alaska.edu
AF: University of Alaska, Geophysical Institute 903 Koyukuk Drive, Fairbanks, AK 99775, United States
AU: Luehr, H
EM: hluehr@gfz-potsdam.de
AF: GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ), Sect. 2.3 Earth's Magnetic Field Telegrafenberg, Potsdam, D-14473, Germany
AB: Recent observations have confirmed neutral particle upwelling at high latitudes which are localized to the polar cusp region and seem to be correlated to high auroral activity. For decades, thermospheric upwelling has been recognized as an important topic and has been studied observationally and theoretically, with efforts largely focused on Joule heating being the basic driver. As data and models have improved over the years, Joule heating has indeed proven to be fundamental to upwelling, at least at lower latitudes. At higher latitudes, however, the situation appears to be more complex and recent results indicate that Joule heating alone is not adequate. We address this issue using data acquired by FAST and CHAMP satellites during a number of favorable conjunction alignments. Specifically we compare FAST field and particle data to CHAMP accelerometer data, both analytically and numerically. We present early data from this study from a single 2-week conjunction window in 2002.
DE: 2475 Polar cap ionosphere
DE: 2706 Cusp
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting