GEM: Determination of the True Ionospheric Currents and Conductances from Combined Ground- and Space-Based Observations

Catholic University Of America, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This project will use a novel ionospheric modeling technique, the Spherical Elementary Currents System (SECS), to determine the spatiotemporal behavior of the true ionospheric currents. The new method will not require information about ionospheric conductances and will enable a direct solution for full ionospheric electrodynamics if the electric field is known. The field-aligned currents will be determined from the magnetometer data obtained from the Iridium satellites. The global, high latitude electric fields in the ionosphere will be determined from the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) data. These data, when combined with ground-based observations of the magnetic perturbations generated by ionospheric currents, allows one to solve for the true ionospheric currents. This opens an entirely new and potentially transformative window to the quasi-instantaneous global ionospheric electrodynamics and general geospace circulation. Parts of magnetospheric currents are closed through the ionosphere and as a result, ionospheric electrodynamics has a significant control over large-scale geospace electrodynamics, general plasma circulation and magnetospheric energy transfer. The results from this research can be used as a metric for the validation of geospace general circulation models (GGCMs). It would also be possible to use the knowledge of the true ionospheric currents to then determine the ionospheric conductances for the events being studied.