Observations of high latitude ionospheric conductances |
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| Institution: | 1. Physics Department, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada;2. Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway;1. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy and Solar-Terrestrial Environment, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University, Weihai, China;2. Engineering Technology Research Institute, Petrochina Southwest Oil & Gasfield Company, Guanghan, China;1. Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;2. Beijing National Observatory of Space Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;3. School of Mathematics and Physics, North China Electric Power University, Baoding 071003, China;1. Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Center for Space Weather, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China;2. Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China;3. School of Mathematics and Physics, North China Electric Power University, Baoding 071000, China;1. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA;2. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375, USA;3. NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (Ret.), Boulder, CO 80305, USA;4. CSPAR, University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA;5. Exploration Physics International, Inc., Huntsville, AL 35806, USA;6. NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA |
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| Abstract: | A brief historical review of the development of models of the ionospheric conductivities with special emphasis on high latitude regions and the auroral zone is presented. It is with great admiration that we must conclude that the physical understanding of the importance of the ionospheric conductances was well perceived by pioneers like Schuster and Birkeland a hundred years ago. Progress in the basic theoretical fundamentals was achieved in the late 1920s and 1930s. Realistic estimates were not derived until the first rocket probes measured the electron and ion content at different altitudes in the 1950s.Today we have a superior technique in resolving electron density profiles of high time and height resolution by incoherent scatter radars on the ground. The challenge that we are facing is to obtain global conductivity maps, especially at high latitudes, with a time and spatial resolution which match the details in auroral substorm phenomena. If that can be achieved, great progress in the understanding of detailed dynamical coupling in the ionosphere, magnetosphere, and thermosphere systems is expected. The imaging technique as demonstrated by the DE-satellite can be the tool which eventually materializes our desires for increased knowledge. |
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