HR: 09:30h
AN: SM51B-05    [Abstracts]
TI: The relationship between aurora and high-latitude ion upflow for May 2-5, 1998
AU: * Germany, G A
EM: germanyg@email.uah.edu
AF: Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, S101 Technology Hall University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899 United States
AU: Wilson, G R
AF: ATK Mission Research, 589 W. Hollis St., Suite 201, Nashua, NH 03062
AU: Deverapalli, C
AF: Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, S101 Technology Hall University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899 United States
AB: Many previous studies have demonstrated the relationship between high-altitude energetic ion outflow and auroral processes. These studies typically relied on in-situ measurements made on a single spacecraft and so could not always observe the conditions that lead to the energization of the observed ions. Either enough time had passed so that one could suspect that local conditions had changed since the ions were energized or the observed ions convected across surrounding regions whose conditions were not observed at all. This problem can be overcome, to an extent, through the use of global auroral imaging. We apply this method to a statistical study of the first step in the ion outflow process (topside ion upflows) using DMSP drift meter data (~830 km) with Polar UVI auroral images providing a frame of reference. The resultant database allows us to investigate the relationship between auroral intensity/history/form/substorm-phase and the corresponding ionospheric upflow response. Its subsequent analysis, can be used to produce maps of O+ upflow at DMSP altitudes as a function of both global parameters like total energy deposition, and local parameters like the time history of specific discrete auroral features. We demonstrate our methodology by investigating a four day period (May 2-5, 1998) to look for correlations between auroral intensity and upflow observations (including parallel velocities and densities) from 4 DMSP satellites (F11, F12, F13, F14). More than 700 auroral images and over 226k DMSP observations are used. Correlations are investigated for auroral conditions near the footprint of the DMSP satellite, for global conditions along the satellite ground track, and for the time history of auroral activity along the ground track.
DE: 2437 Ionospheric dynamics
DE: 2704 Auroral phenomena (2407)
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly