Friday

Magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions play a major role in the dynamics of near Earth space which also impact surface infrastructure (mainly telecommunications). Electric fields in the region close to auroral activity form an important link in magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions, causing Joule heating in the ionosphere, and thus acting as a major source of upper atmosphere dynamics. In this study we use the ASK (Auroral Structure and Kinetics) multi-spectral imager to estimate local electric fields using the method explained in Tuttle et al. (2020). The method combines the optical measurements with Southampton ion-chemistry model (Lanchester et al., 2009) to estimate the local ionospheric ion drift in a single auroral arc, from which electric fields can be determined at high resolution. There are two main goals of our current research. One is to use the single drift method on similar single arc auroral structures and do a statistical analysis. The other goal is to extend the model for more complex cases with multiple drift velocities. We are assuming a structure with different drift velocities on each side of an arc plus flow across the auroral arc. Such structures could contribute significantly to the local ionospheric heating.