Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2022

Journal Article Version

Accepted Manuscript

First Page

1

Last Page

28

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Abstract

Discrete high density plasma structures in the Earth’s ionosphere that convect across the polar cap from the dayside to nightside are known as polar cap patches. Patches can interfere and disrupt satellite and HF communications, and therefore, accurate forecasting and modeling of this phenomenon would be greatly beneficial. In this study we have utilized the Global Positioning System Ionospheric Inversion (GPSII) data assimilation model using electron density measurements from the northward looking Resolute Bay Incoherent Scatter Radar (RISR-N) and total electron content (TEC) from ground based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers to reconstruct the high latitude ionosphere. From the reconstructed ionospheres, a 630.0 nm airglow emission model is utilized to simulate the red line O I all-sky images. Comparisons with the all-sky imagers located in Resolute Bay, Canada and Qaanaaq, Greenland are shown to be in good agreement with the simulations. Differences in the simulations and observations are attributed to the topside ionosphere being sunlit. We find the use of ion and electron temperatures obtained from empirical models in the temperature dependent reaction rate coefficients to yield similar results when using RISR-N temperatures. We also conclude the assimilation of GNSS TEC data alone, along with modeled temperatures, produce large-scale features in the simulated all-sky images that correspond well with observations of the all-sky imagers, allowing these types of investigations to be applied in areas where ISR measurements are not available.

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