Quantifying the Impact of Dynamic Storm-Time Exospheric Density on Plasmaspheric Refilling

Abstract
As soon as the outer plasmasphere gets eroded during geomagnetic storms, the greatly depleted plasmasphere is replenished by cold, dense plasma from the ionosphere. A strong correlation has been revealed between plasmaspheric refilling rates and ambient densities in the topside ionosphere and exosphere, particularly that of atomic hydrogen (H). Although measurements of H airglow emission at plasmaspheric altitudes exhibit storm-time response, temporally static distributions have typically been assumed in the H density in plasmasphere modeling. In this presentation, we evaluate the impact of a realistic distribution of the dynamic H density on the plasmaspheric refilling rate during the geomagnetic storm on March 17, 2013. The temporal and spatial evolution of the plasmaspheric density is calculated by using the Ionosphere-Plasmasphere Electrodynamics (IPE) model, which is driven by a global, 3-D, and time-dependent H density distribution reconstructed from the exospheric remote sensing measurements by NASA’s TWINS and TIMED missions. We quantify the spatial and temporal scales of the refilling rate and its correlation with H densities.
Year of Publication
2021
Journal
Earth and Space Science Open Archive ESSOAr
Date Published
jan
URL
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2477818692/abstract/E3D22E618E57432CPQ/1
DOI
10.1002/essoar.10505771.1
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