Identification

Title

Seasonal and hemispheric variations of the total auroral precipitation energy flux from TIMED/GUVI

Abstract

The auroral hemispheric power (HP) has been calculated from the averaged energy flux derived from Far-ultraviolet emission observations made by the global ultraviolet imager (GUVI) instrument on board the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite during 2002-2007. This HP was used to study how variations in seasonal and hemispheric asymmetries changed with changing geomagnetic activity. Our results showed that there were persistent seasonal and hemispheric differences in quiet conditions. There were HP differences of about 1-3 GW between the summer and winter seasons in each hemisphere and also between the two hemispheres during each solstice period for low geomagnetic activity (Kp < 3). The summer-winter asymmetry was 4%-35% when HP was low. These summer-winter differences became negligible when geomagnetic activity was moderate to active. Similarly, there were also HP differences of about 2 GW between local summers of the two hemispheres during geomagnetically quiet conditions (Kp < 3) but not during higher Kp conditions. The hemispheric asymmetries between the two summer solstices were about 10%-20% during quiet conditions, whereas there was no apparent hemispheric asymmetry between the two winter solstices under all Kp 1-5 conditions. Solar illumination effects were probably the primary cause of the seasonal and hemispheric variations of the auroral hemispheric power for these geomagnetically quiet conditions. During moderate and active conditions the conductivities were driven more by the production of ionization due to precipitation, so the precipitation was more symmetric.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7mp53q5

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

2010-11-05T00:00:00Z

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