Solar Wind-Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling Using Incoherent Scatter, Magnetometer, and Other Coordinated Data

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This proposal requests support for a three year effort to investigate the electrodynamic coupling between the solar wind, the Earth's magnetosphere, and the ionosphere. Investigations focus upon the high latitude polar cap and the region around the polar cleft. In open models of the magnetosphere, the cleft is the dayside boundary between open and closed geomagnetic field lines. There is considerable evidence that, within the cleft region, the effects of the full range of solar wind - magnetosphere - ionosphere coupling phenomena can be observed, including: Birkeland currents, strong electric fields and plasma drifts, rapid motions of small scale field-aligned current structures, particle energization within localized regions, intense ionospheric heating, etc. The proposed research is directed toward investigations of the cleft and its dynamic behavior in response to variations in the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). Fundamental questions center around the identification of ionospheric signatures of phenomena which occur at the magnetopause or magnetospheric boundary layer and which relate to solar wind - magnetosphere interactions. Processes such as reconnection, the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, impulsive plasma penetration, the magnetopause response to dynamic pressure variations or sudden changes in IMF orientation all produce dynamic variations which couple electrically to the conducting ionosphere via field-aligned currents. It is propose to undertake a variety of incoherent scatter radar observations and the coordinated analysis of these data with combinations of magnetometer array data, a variety of satellite data, as well as data from other Greenland ground instruments such as the imaging riometer, all sky camera, etc. to investigate both large scale and small scale high latitude electrodynamic phenomena which are thought to be associated with the coupling of energy and momentum from the solar wind to the magnetosphere and ionosph ere.