SPRG Seminars
April 24, 2012:
"Equatorial Topside Magnetic Field-Aligned Ion Drifts at Solar Minimum "
Angeline G. Burrell, School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics, University of Texas at Dallas
During solar minimum between solar cycles 23 and 24 the low levels of extreme ultraviolet radiation led to a cool, contracted atmosphere. The affects of the neutral atmosphere on the ionosphere have been observed in phenomenological and climatological features, including the behavior of field-aligned ion drifts. Temporal and spatial variations in the field-aligned ion drifts near the magnetic equator in the topside ionosphere are presented using observations from the Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) onboard the Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite. These observations were obtained during the period of extremely low solar activity present in 2008 and 2009, allowing the seasonal, longitudinal, latitudinal, and local time variations at solar minimum to reveal the relative importance of the atmospheric and ionospheric processes responsible for topside field-aligned ion drifts.