Abstract
With the medians of the E-layer critical frequency foE measured at Resolute Bay and Casey ionospheric stations located in the polar caps of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, it is found that these medians are higher at the nighttime hours (2100–0300 LT) in the local winter than in local summer. For Resolute Bay station, which is located above the Arctic Circle, the latter means that the foE median is higher at polar night than at polar day. Thus, the effect of a winter anomaly in the foE median in the nighttime polar cap is detected. The amplitude of that anomaly (the ratio of the local winter foE values to local summer values) could reach 15–20% and 10–15% for Resolute Bay and Casey stations, respectively. It is assumed that the winter anomaly in the foE median in the nighttime polar cap is caused by the winter–summer asymmetry in the accelerated electron energy fluxes precipitating into this region.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bilitza, D., The international reference ionosphere—status 2013, Adv. Space Res., 2015, vol. 55, no. 8, pp. 1914–1927.
Brunelly, B.E. and Namgaladze, A.A., Fizika ionosfery (Ionospheric Physics), Moscow: Nauka, 1988.
Cattell, C., Dombeck, J., and Hanson, L., Solar cycle effects on parallel electric field acceleration of auroral electron beams, J. Geophys. Res.: Space, 2013, vol. 118, pp. 5673–5680. doi 10.1002/jgra.50546
Deminov, M.G. and Deminova, G.F., Winter anomaly of the E-Layer critical frequency in the nighttime auroral zone, Geomagn. Aeron. (Engl. Transl.), 2017, vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 584–590.
Gussenhoven, M.S. and Madden, D., Monitoring the polar rain over a solar cycle: A polar rain index, J. Geophys. Res., 1990, vol. 94, no. 7, pp. 10399–10416.
Gussenhoven, M.S., Hardy, D.A., Heinemann, N., and Burkhardt, R.K., Morphology of the polar rain, J. Geophys. Res., 1984, vol. 89, no. 11, pp. 9785–9800.
Hunsucker, R.D. and Hargreaves, J.K., The High-Latitude Ionosphere and Its Effects on Radio Propagation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Johnson, M.T. and Wygant, J.R., The correlation of plasma density distributions over 5000 km with solar illumination of the ionosphere: Solar cycle and zenith angle observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 2003, vol. 30, no. 24, 2260. doi 10.1029/2003GL018175
Johnson, M.T., Wygant, J.R., Cattell, C.A., and Mozer, F.S., Seasonal variations along auroral field lines: Measurements from the polar spacecraft, Geophys. Res. Lett., 2003, vol. 30, no. 6, 1344. doi 10.1029/2002GL015866
Korth, H., Zhang, Y., Anderson, B.J., Sotirelis, T., and Waters, C.L., Statistical relationship between largescale upward field-aligned currents and electron precipitation, J. Geophys. Res.: Space, 2014, vol. 119, no. 8, pp. 6715–6731. doi 10.1002/2014JA019961
Lions, L.R. and Williams, D.J., Quantitative Aspects of Magnetospheric Physics, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1984; Moscow: Mir, 1987.
Meng, C.-I., Polar cap arcs and the plasma sheet, Geophys. Res. Lett., 1981, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 273–276.
Morooka, M. and Mukai, T., Density as a controlling factor for seasonal and altitudinal variations of the auroral particle acceleration region, J. Geophys. Res., 2003, vol. 108, no. A7, 1306. doi 10.1029/2002JA009786
Nava, B., Coisson, P., and Radicella, S.M., A new version of the NeQuick ionosphere electron density model, J. Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phys., 2008, vol. 70, no. 15, pp. 1856–1862.
Newell, P.T., Meng, C.-I., and Lyons, K.M., Suppression of discrete aurorae by sunlight, Nature, 1996, vol. 381, no. 6585, pp. 766–767.
Newell, P.T., Greenwald, R.A., and Ruohoniemi, J.M., The role of the ionosphere in aurora and space weather, Rev. Geophys., 2001, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 137–149.
Newell, P.T., Sotirelis, T., and Wing, S., Diffuse, monoenergetic, and broadband aurora: The global precipitation budget, J. Geophys. Res., 2009, vol. 114, A09207. doi 10.1029/2009JA014326
Newell, P.T., Sotirelis, T., and Wing, S., Seasonal variations in diffuse, monoenergetic, and broadband aurora, J. Geophys. Res., 2010, vol. 115, A03216. doi 10.1029/2009JA014805
Ohtani, S., Wing, S., Ueno, G., and Higuchi, T., Dependence of premidnight field-aligned currents and particle precipitation on solar illumination, J. Geophys. Res., 2009, vol. 114, A12205. doi 10.1029/JA014115
Perry, G.W., Dahlgren, H., Nicolls, M.J., and Zettergren, M., St.-Maurice, J.-P., Semeter, J.L., Sundberg, T., Hosokawa, K., Shiokawa, K., and Chen, S., Spatiotemporally resolved electrodynamic properties of a Sun-aligned arc over Resolute Bay, J. Geophys. Res.: Space, 2015, vol. 120, pp. 9977–9987. doi 10.1002/2015JA021790
Ramachandran, K.M. and Tsokos, C.P., Mathematical Statistics with Applications, Oxford: Elsevier, 2009.
Schunk, R.W. and Nagy, A.E., Ionospheres: Physics, Plasma Physics, and Chemistry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Titheridge, J.E., Re-modeling the ionospheric E region, Kleinheubacher Ber., 1996, vol. 39, pp. 687–696.
Troshichev, O., Hayakawa, H., Matsuoka, A., Mukai, T., and Tsuruda, K., Cross polar cap diameter and voltage as a function of PCindex and interplanetary quantities, J. Geophys. Res., 1996, vol. 101, no. 6, pp. 13429–13435.
Wiltberger, M., Rigler, E.J., Merkin, V., and Lyon, J.G., Structure of high latitude currents in magnetosphere–ionosphere models, Space Sci. Rev., 2017, vol. 206, no. 1, pp. 575–598. doi 10.1007/s11214-016-0271-2
Wing, S., Fairfield, D.H., Johnson, J.R., and Ohtani, S.-I., On the field-aligned electric field in the polar cap, Geophys. Res. Lett., 2015, vol. 42, pp. 5090–5099. doi 10.1002/2015GL064229
Xiong, C. and Lühr, H., An empirical model of the auroral oval derived from CHAMP field-aligned current signatures— Part 2, Ann. Geophys., 2014, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 623–631.
Xiong, C., Lühr, H., Wang, H., and Johnsen, M.G., Determining the boundaries of the auroral oval from CHAMP field-aligned current signatures—Part 1, Ann. Geophys., 2014, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 609–622.
Yang, Z., Ssessanga, N., Tran, L.T., Bilitza, D., and Kenpankho, P., On improvement in representation of foE in IRI, Adv. Space Res., 2017, vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 347–356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2016.11.008
Zhang, Y., Paxton, L.J., Zhang, Q., and Xing, Z., Polar cap arcs: Sun-aligned or cusp-aligned?, J. Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phys., 2016, vol. 146, pp. 123–128.
Zhu, L., Schunk, R.W., and Sojka, J.J., Polar cap arcs: A review, J. Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phys., 1997, vol. 59, no. 10, pp. 1087–1126.
Zou, Y., Nishimura, Y., Lyons, L.R., Donovan, E.F., Shiokawa, K., Ruohoniemi, J.M., McWilliams, K.A., and Nishitani, N., Polar cap precursor of nightside auroral oval intensifications using polar cap arcs, J. Geophys. Res.: Space, 2015, vol. 120, pp. 10698–10711. doi 10.1002/2015JA021816
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © M.G. Deminov, G.F. Deminova, 2018, published in Geomagnetizm i Aeronomiya, 2018, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 66–73.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Deminov, M.G., Deminova, G.F. Winter Anomaly in the Critical Frequency of the E-Layer in the Nighttime Polar Cap. Geomagn. Aeron. 58, 62–69 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0016793218010061
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0016793218010061