Krcelic, P;
Fear, RC;
Whiter, D;
Lanchester, B;
Aruliah, AL;
Lester, M;
Paxton, L;
(2023)
Fine-scale electric fields and Joule heating from observations of the Aurora.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
, 128
(2)
, Article e2022JA030628. 10.1029/2022ja030628.
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Abstract
Optical measurements from three selected wavelengths have been combined with modelling of emissions from an auroral event to estimate the magnitude and direction of small-scale electric fields on either side of an auroral arc. The temporal resolution of the estimates is 0.1 seconds, which is much higher resolution than measurements from SuperDARN in the same region, with which we compare our estimates. Additionally, we have used the SCANDI instrument to measure the neutral wind during the event in order to calculate the height integrated Joule heating. Joule heating obtained from the small scale electric fields gives larger values (17 ± 11 and 6 ± 9 mWm−2 on average on each side of the arc) than the Joule heating obtained from more conventionally used SuperDARN data (5 mWm−2). This result is significant, because Joule heating will cause changes in the thermosphere from thermal expansion and thermal conductivity, and may also affect the acceleration of the neutral wind. Our result indicates that high spatial and temporal resolution electric fields may play an important role in the dynamics of the magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Fine-scale electric fields and Joule heating from observations of the Aurora |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1029/2022ja030628 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ja030628 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2023 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10163670 |
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