Ionospheric energy input in response to changes in solar wind driving:
Statistics from the SuperDARN and AMPERE campaigns
Abstract
For over a decade, the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) and
the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response
Experiment (AMPERE) have been measuring ionospheric convection and
field-aligned currents in the high-latitude regions, respectively. Using
both, whole hemisphere maps of the magnetosphere-ionosphere energy
transfer rate (the Poynting flux) have been generated with a time
resolution of two minutes between 2010 and 2017. These uniquely data
driven Poynting flux patterns are used in this study to perform a
superposed epoch analysis of the northern hemisphere ionospheric
response to transitions of the IMF B_z component. We discuss the
difference in the distribution of Poynting flux between the
magnetosphere-ionosphere Dungey cycle “switching on” and “switching
off” to solar wind driving, revealing that they are not symmetric
temporally or spatially.