Abstract
In the day-side sunlit polar ionosphere the varying and IMF dependent convection creates strong ionospheric currents even during quiet geomagnetic conditions. Observations during such times are often excluded when using satellite data to model the internal geomagnetic main field. Observations from the night-side or local winter during quiet conditions are, however, also influenced by variations in the IMF. In this paper we briefly review the large scale features of the ionospheric currents in the polar regions with emphasis on the current distribution during undisturbed conditions. We examine the distribution of scalar measurements of the magnetic field intensity minus predictions from a geomagnetic field model. These ‘residuals’ fall into two main categories. One category is consistently distributed according to the well-known ionospheric plasma convection and its associated Birkeland currents. The other category represent contributions caused by geomagnetic activity related to the substorm current wedge around local magnetic midnight. A new observation is a strong IMF \(B_{y}\) control of the residuals in the midnight sector indicating larger ionospheric currents in the substorm current wedge in the northern polar region for \(B_{y} > 0\) and correspondingly in the southern hemisphere for \(B_{y} < 0\).
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Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to the International Space Science Institute for inviting them to take part in the Workshop on “Earth’s Magnetic Field” held in Bern in May 2015. The support of the CHAMP mission by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research is gratefully acknowledged. Swarm L1b data were provided by ESA. For the ground magnetometer data we gratefully acknowledge: Intermagnet; USGS, Jeffrey J. Love; CARISMA, PI Ian Mann; CANMOS; The S-RAMP Database, PI K. Yumoto and Dr. K. Shiokawa; The SPIDR database; AARI, PI Oleg Troshichev; The MACCS program, PI M. Engebretson, Geomagnetism Unit of the Geological Survey of Canada; GIMA; MEASURE, UCLA IGPP and Florida Institute of Technology; SAMBA, PI Eftyhia Zesta; 210 Chain, PI K. Yumoto; SAMNET, PI Farideh Honary; The institutes who maintain the IMAGE magnetometer array, PI Eija Tanskanen; PENGUIN; AUTUMN, PI Martin Connors; DTU Space, PI Dr. Rico Behlke; South Pole and McMurdo Magnetometer, PI’s Louis J. Lanzarotti and Alan T. Weatherwax; ICESTAR; RAPIDMAG; PENGUIn; British Artarctic Survey; McMac, PI Dr. Peter Chi; BGS, PI Dr. Susan Macmillan; Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation (IZMIRAN); GFZ, PI Dr. Juergen Matzka; MFGI, PI B. Heilig; IGFPAS, PI J. Reda; University of L’Aquila, PI M. Vellante; SuperMAG, PI Jesper W. Gjerloev.
We thank the reviewers for valuable and constructive comments and advice.
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E. Friis-Christensen, Retired
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Friis-Christensen, E., Finlay, C.C., Hesse, M. et al. Magnetic Field Perturbations from Currents in the Dark Polar Regions During Quiet Geomagnetic Conditions. Space Sci Rev 206, 281–297 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-017-0332-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-017-0332-1