Separation and Quantification of Ionospheric Convection Sources: 1. A New Technique

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new technique using Spherical Elementary Convection Systems to separate and quantify different sources of ionospheric convection, aiding in understanding magnetospheric contributions and their variations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel method for separating and quantifying ionospheric convection sources, including high-latitude reconnection and Dungey circulation, using a spherical representation.

Findings

Successfully separates contributions from different magnetospheric sources.

Quantifies the influence of dipole tilt angle on lobe convection.

Provides a relation to connect existing convection models to the new technique.

Abstract

This paper describes a novel technique that allows separation and quantification of different sources of convection in the high-latitude ionosphere. To represent the ionospheric convection electric field, we use the Spherical Elementary Convection Systems representation. We demonstrate how this technique can separate and quantify the contributions from different magnetospheric source regions to the overall ionospheric convection pattern. The technique is in particular useful for distinguishing the contributions of high-latitude reconnection associated with lobe cells from the low-latitude reconnection associated with Dungey two-cell circulation. The results from the current paper are utilized in a companion paper (Reistad et al., 2019, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JA026641) to quantify how the dipole tilt angle influences lobe convection cells. We also describe a relation bridging other representations of the ionospheric convection electric field or potential to the Spherical Elementary Convection Systems description, enabling a similar separation of convection sources from existing models.