Collaborative Research: Coordinated Radar and Optical Analysis of Flow Channel Disturbances within the Nightside Auroral Oval/Plasma Sheet

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The coupling of the solar wind with Earth's magnetic field gives rise to a range of disturbance effects in Earth?s near-space environment. Communications, navigation and energy production and distribution are significantly affected by this space weather. The ability to forecast disturbances that may impact these technologies hinges upon detailed knowledge and understanding of the connected Sun-Earth system, including complicated coupling processes between the magnetosphere and ionosphere. A particular aspect of the latter within the nightside aurora are meso-scale flow channels that have been discovered recently and are believed to play a significant role in the creation and dynamics of space weather disturbances in the ionosphere. Determining the precise nature of the flow-channels and their relation to the large-scale dynamics of the magnetosphere-ionosphere system is the main objective of this project. It will be attempted through a comprehensive and carefully coordinated analysis of simultaneous observations of the phenomenon from a variety of sources. The resulting understanding constitutes a critical step towards being able to include this effect in ionospheric space weather specification and forecast models. This project will combine observations from a large and diverse set of instruments and facilities across the auroral region in the North American sector, including incoherent and coherent scatter radars, spectral auroral imagers, and ground-based magnetometers, to investigate meso-scale flow channel events in the nightside auroral oval. Specific project goals for the research effort include: 1) establishing the relative location of flow channels and auroral streamers; 2) establishing the relation between flow channel and streamer trajectories and large-scale convection; and 3) determining the connection between flow channel events and other plasma sheet disturbances, including substorms and omega bands.