[P-EM12] Coupling Processes in the Atmosphere-Ionosphere System

[PEM12-24] Improvements of multi-scale geomagnetic forcing specification from the ground-based integrated networks and the impacts on I-T modeling

*Yue Deng¹, Cheng Sheng¹, Toshi Nishimura², William Bristow³, Christine Gabrielse⁴, Shunrong Zhang⁵, Larry Lyons⁶ (1.University of Texas at Arlington, 2.Boston University, 3.Pennsylvania State University, 4.Aerospace Corporation, 5.MIT Haystack Observatory, 6.University of California Los Angeles)

Keywords:Ionosphere-thermosphere modeling, multi-scale forcing, ground-based observations

Techniques developed in the past few years enable the derivation of high-resolution regional ion convection and particle precipitation patterns from the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) and All-Sky Imager (ASI) observations, respectively. In this study, global ionosphere-thermosphere model (GITM) is driven by the high-resolution patterns derived from those new observational capabilities to simulate the I-T response during the March 26, 2014 event. It is found that multi-scale ion convection forcing estimated from high-resolution SuperDARN observations has a very strong meso-scale component, which increases the regional Joule heating by 30% on average. The meso-scale electron precipitation derived from ASI measurements contributes to 30% of the total electron energy flux, and its impact on the neutral density and winds is comparable to the meso-scale convection forcing estimated from SuperDARN observations. Both meso-scale convection and precipitation forcing are found to strongly enhance ionospheric and thermospheric disturbances, especially at meso-scale.