Impacts of multiscale FACs on the ionosphere‐thermosphere system: GITM simulation

In this study, field-aligned currents (FACs) and ionospheric electric fields on different spatial scales are investigated through the analysis of FAC data from the Swarm satellites and electric field data from the Dynamic Explorer 2, respectively, from all seasons and under all solar wind conditions and varying levels of solar activity. Distributions of the average and variable components of FAC and electric field are the main focuses of this study, where the FAC variability is represented by the standard deviation of FAC in each magnetic latitude/magnetic local time bin and electric field variability is represented by the square root of the sum of squares of standard deviations of magnetic eastward and equatorward components of the electric field. We found that the mean patterns of the FAC and electric field are mainly contributed by the large-scale (wavelength: >= 500 km) FAC and electric field. Unlike the average, in addition to the large scale, variabilities of FAC and electric field are not negligible on mesoscale (wavelength: 100-500 km) and small scale (wavelength: 8-100 km), while the FAC variability shows a different scale dependence from the electric field variability. Specifically, for decreasing scale sizes, the FAC variability increases while the electric field variability decreases, suggesting that the strong FACs on small scale and mesoscale do not necessarily correspond to strong ionospheric electric fields on those scales. Further, FAC variabilities on large scale and mesoscale are included into the Global Ionosphere Thermosphere Model (GITM) and the corresponding impacts on Joule heating have been assessed. It was found that, for the conditions studied here, the large-scale FAC variability may significantly increase the Joule heating (similar to 160% globally) and that the enhancement due to the mesoscale FAC variability is not negligible (similar to 36% globally).