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METHODS article

Front. Phys.
Sec. Space Physics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2024.1488935
This article is part of the Research Topic Frontier Research in Equatorial Aeronomy and Space Physics View all 10 articles

Regional Simulations of Equatorial Spread F Driven with, and an Analysis of WAM-IPE Electric Fields

Provisionally accepted
Aaron Kirchman Aaron Kirchman 1*David Hysell David Hysell 1Tzu-Wei Fang Tzu-Wei Fang 2
  • 1 Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, United States
  • 2 Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA), Boulder, Colorado, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    A three-dimensional, regional simulation is used to investigate ionospheric plasma density irregularities associated with Equatorial Spread F. This simulation is first driven with background electric fields derived from ISR observations. Next, the simulation is driven with electric fields taken from the WAM-IPE global model. The discrepancies between the two electric fields, particularly in the evening prereversal enhancement, produce disagreeing simulation results.The WAM-IPE electric fields are then studied through a simple sensitivity analysis of a field-line integrated electrodynamics model similar to the one used in WAM-IPE. This analysis suggests there is no simple tuning of ion composition or neutral winds that accurately reproduce ISRobserved electric fields on a day-to-day basis. Additionally, the persistency of the prereversal enhancement structure over time is studied and compared to measurements from the ICON satellite. These results suggest that WAM-IPE electric fields generally have a shorter and more variable correlation time than those measured by ICON.

    Keywords: equatorial spread F, WAM-IPE, Plasma drifts, Prereversal enhancement, equatorial electrodynamics

    Received: 30 Aug 2024; Accepted: 09 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kirchman, Hysell and Fang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Aaron Kirchman, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, United States

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