Identification

Title

Longitudinal variations of thermospheric composition at the solstices

Abstract

O/N2, measured by the Global Ultraviolet Imager on board the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics Dynamics satellite, has large longitudinal variations at the solstices, which are simulated well in upper atmosphere general circulation models. These longitudinal variations are caused by the displacement of the Earth's magnetic poles from the geographic ones. The location of a magnetic pole affects the latitude at which the winds, driven by heating in summer, converge in the subauroral region of the winter hemisphere. In the magnetic pole's longitude sector, this convergence occurs at relatively low latitudes, which results in the maximum values of O/N2 also occurring at relatively low latitudes. These latitudes have a relatively small solar zenith angle, contributing to a strong winter anomaly. In the zonally opposite longitude sector, maximum values of O/N2 occur at relatively high latitudes because the summer-to-winter wind convergence also occurs at relatively high latitudes. These high latitudes have a relatively large solar zenith angle, so ionization is weak, contributing to a weak winter anomaly. Therefore, the displacement between the magnetic and geographic poles not only results in a strong longitudinal variation of O/N2 but also results in a strong longitudinal variation of the ionosphere winter anomaly.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d76d5vnw

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

2016-07-09T00:00:00Z

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