Abstract

Ion temperature is a key parameter that influences dynamics in the magnetosphere, such as particle transport and wave-particle interactions. Measurements of ion heating and energization yields information about phenomena such as magnetic reconnection, bursty bulk flows, and ion injections. Taking advantage of the global view provided by energetic neutral atom imaging, a database of ion temperature maps during geomagnetic storms occurring throughout the NASA TWINS mission has been created. These ion temperature maps and relevant metadata are publicly available on CDAWeb to facilitate comparison to in situ measurements and model output, for use as boundary conditions for simulations, and for other relevant studies. A preliminary study of average plasma sheet ion temperatures calculated from these maps has revealed a common occurrence of decreasing ion temperature concurrent with a sharp negative gradient in the IMF B. Two case studies are presented, supporting a hypothesis that substorm activity results in injection of high temperature ions, leaving behind an interval of lower plasma sheet temperatures.