Rights statement: ©2016. 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.
Final published version, 13.6 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Average field-aligned current configuration parameterized by solar wind conditions
AU - Carter, J.A.
AU - Milan, S.E.
AU - Coxon, J. C.
AU - Walach, M. T.
AU - Anderson, B.J.
N1 - ©2016. 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.
PY - 2016/2/15
Y1 - 2016/2/15
N2 - ©2016. The Authors. We present the first large-scale comparison of the spatial distribution of field-aligned currents as measured by the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment, with the location and brightness of the average auroral oval, determined from the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration far ultraviolet instrument. These distributions are compared under the same interplanetary magnetic field magnitude and clock angle conditions. The field-aligned currents and auroral oval drop to lower latitudes, as the interplanetary magnetic field becomes both increasingly stronger in magnitude and increasingly southward. We find that the region 2 currents are more closely aligned with the distribution of auroral UV emission, whether that be in the discrete auroral zone about dusk or in the postmidnight diffuse aurora sector. The lack of coincidence between the region 1 field-aligned currents with the auroral oval in the dusk sector is contrary to expectation.
AB - ©2016. The Authors. We present the first large-scale comparison of the spatial distribution of field-aligned currents as measured by the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment, with the location and brightness of the average auroral oval, determined from the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration far ultraviolet instrument. These distributions are compared under the same interplanetary magnetic field magnitude and clock angle conditions. The field-aligned currents and auroral oval drop to lower latitudes, as the interplanetary magnetic field becomes both increasingly stronger in magnitude and increasingly southward. We find that the region 2 currents are more closely aligned with the distribution of auroral UV emission, whether that be in the discrete auroral zone about dusk or in the postmidnight diffuse aurora sector. The lack of coincidence between the region 1 field-aligned currents with the auroral oval in the dusk sector is contrary to expectation.
KW - auroral oval
KW - field-aligned currents
U2 - 10.1002/2015JA021567
DO - 10.1002/2015JA021567
M3 - Journal article
VL - 121
SP - 1294
EP - 1307
JO - Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
JF - Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
SN - 2169-9402
IS - 2
ER -