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Altitudinal responses of the auroral E-region neutral wind to substorm events
  • Weijia Zhan,
  • Stephen Kaeppler
Weijia Zhan
Clemson University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Stephen Kaeppler
Clemson University
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Abstract

In this presentation, we seek to understand the altitudinal response of the auroral E-region neutral wind to substorms using observations from the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR). Zou et al. (2009) presented different nighttime ion drift pattern associated with three different types of substorm events whose onset locations were at, to the east and to the west of PFISR. In addition, Zou et al. (2021) presented different types of latitudinal responses of the F-region neutral wind to substorm events and suggested that the response is highly local time dependent. While these two studies give much insight on the F region ion and neutral responses during substorm events, the E region neutral wind response is not well-understood. Previous studies showed that during disturbed conditions E-region winds, in particular below 110 km, are larger than what tidal theory predicts, while the winds in the upper E-region shows strong impacts from the convection flow. We select events whose onset locations are over the PFISR radar site, but in different MLT sectors using the SuperMag data product during 2010-2019. We present a superimposed epoch analysis of three different types of events after subtracting the quiet background neutral winds. This study will further our understanding of the contribution in a statistical view from forces that are associated with the E-region wind variation during substorm events during different MLT sectors and spanning the altitude range from 90-130 km.