HR: 11:35h
AN: SM22B-06 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Poleward drifting auroral forms and their relationship to the cusp
AU: * McWilliams, K A
EM: kathryn.mcwilliams@usask.ca
AF: University of Saskatchewan, 116 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK S7N5E2, Canada
AB: The response at ionosphreic altitudes to magnetic reconnection can be observed by a variety of instruments. All sky cameras, high frequency and incoherent scatter radars, and particle detectors on satellites monitor the particles, fields, and currents which are produced in response to reconnection at the magnetopause and which map down along the magnetospheric field to theionosphere. Ground-based observations, particularly in combination, are extremely useful in the study of magnetospheric dynamics driven by reconnection. Ionospheric observations can extend in two dimensions over large areas in the ionosphere, which maps out to vast regions of the magnetosphere. And when ionospheric proxies for mapped magnetospheric boundaries, low-altitude measurements reveal the motion of magnetospheric flux relative to magnetospheric boundaries, which is not possible to achieve with single-spacecraft measurements in the magnetosphere. A review of observations poleward drifting auroral forms and their relationship to the cusp will be presented. Future joint initiatives, combining both ground and space-based observations, will be discussed.
DE: 2723 Magnetic reconnection (7526, 7835)
DE: 2724 Magnetopause and boundary layers
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting