Identification

Title

High-latitude energy input and its impact on the thermosphere

Abstract

This paper presents a quantitative assessment of high-latitude energy input and its partitioning in the polar cap by synthesizing various space and ground-based observations during the 17 January 2005 geomagnetic storm. It was found that Joule heating is the primary form of magnetospheric energy input, especially during active times when the hemispheric-integrated Joule heating can be an order of magnitude larger than the hemispheric-integrated auroral power. Most of magnetospheric energy is dissipated in the auroral zone rather than in the polar cap. On average, only about 22-25% of the total hemispheric energy input is dissipated into the polar cap region bordered by the convection reversal boundary (CRB) and the poleward auroral flux boundary (FXB). The impact of high-latitude energy input was also investigated to unveil the causal relationship between Joule heating and the formation of polar cap mass density anomalies. Our numerical simulation demonstrated that thermosphere dynamics readily redistributes composition, temperature, and mass through upwelling and atmospheric gravity waves. The polar cap mass density anomalies observed by the CHAMP satellite during the storm were largely a result of large-scale atmospheric gravity waves. Therefore, an increase in local thermospheric mass density does not necessarily mean there is direct energy input.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7t72k4k

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-07-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact