Identification

Title

Rapid recovery of thermosphere density during the October 2003 geomagnetic storms

Abstract

Thermosphere densities from the CHAMP and GRACE satellites are utilized, for the first time, to study the recovery of the thermosphere as a function of latitude during the October 2003 storms. Our results show that the relaxation times, defined by the e-folding time of the poststorm recovery of thermosphere density, are about 6 and 8 h for two recovery phases of the October 2003 superstorms, respectively. Geomagnetic activity index Kp or ring current index Dst is incapable of describing the rapid recovery of thermosphere density. Moreover, a weak altitudinal dependence of the relaxation times was observed between the CHAMP and GRACE altitudes at middle and high latitudes, but no coherent latitudinal dependence was found. The MSISE00 and TIEGCM neutral densities are compared with the observations to assess their capability in predicting the thermosphere response during the recovery phase of extremely severe storms. Neither the MSISE00 nor the TIEGCM reproduced the rapid recovery of thermosphere densities seen in the CHAMP and GRACE, although the TIEGCM captured most of the salient features observed by CHAMP and GRACE when AMIE convection and precipitation patterns were used to specify the high-latitude drivers. The relaxation times of the MSISE00 and TIEGCM nighttime densities at 390 km are generally longer than those from the CHAMP observations by about 4 h, and even longer in the geographic latitudinal range of 25°N - 50°N. The TIEGCM recovery times of thermosphere density are shorter on the dayside than on the nightside, whereas the MSISE00 densities show substantially longer relaxation times at low latitudes. Thus, not only are the relaxation times of the MSISE00 and TIEGCM densities longer than observed in the CHAMP and GRACE data, but they also show much larger day-night differences. No clear explanation can be found to fully understand the causes for the slower recovery of the thermosphere density simulated by the TIEGCM.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7d50njm

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2011-03-05T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact