Research Highlights

Xuguang Cai, Liying Qian, Wenbin Wang, Joseph M. McInerney, Han-Li Liu, and Richard W. Eastes reveal that the Global-scale observation of limb and disk mission observed an extra electron density (Ne) peak after sunset at approximately 30°S near 40°W on 4 November 2019, which is poleward and immediately next to the southern equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) crest.

C. Y. Cullens, S. England, T. J. Immel, A. Maute, B. J. Harding, C. Triplett, J.J. Makela, et al. analyze the seasonal variations of small-scale perturbations between 90 km to 250 km using temperature and winds measurements made by the Michelson Interferometer for Global High-Resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI) instrument onboard the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite in the latitude range of 0°-40° N in the year of 2020-2021. 

S. L. England, C. R. Englert, B. J. Harding, C. C. Triplett, K. Marr, J.M. Harlander, G.R. Swenson, A. Maute, and T. Immel make observations from the  MIGHTI instrument on board the Ionospheric Connection Explorer are analyzed to determine the maximum wind shear in the 95-120 km region during the day time. The strong shear occurrence, horizontal scale and underlying organization is examined. 

McArthur Jones and Astrid Maute report the demographic information obtained for the 2021 virtual workshop and 2022 in-person workshop. In general, the demographics of CEDAR are consistent with those in the broader science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, that is, most participants identify as male, White, and/ or Asian/Middle Eastern. 

Y. Hong, Y. Deng, Q. Zhu, A. Maute, M. Hairston, C. Sheng, D. Welling, R. Lopez utilize field-aligned currents (FACs) obtained from the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment data set to specify the high-latitude electric potential in the Global Ionosphere and Thermosphere Model (GITM) to examine the IHAs in the IT system during the 8-9 October 2012 storm.

Nicholas Pedatella discusses strong, unexplained echoes returning from altitudes of 130–170 km in the atmosphere; how all radars work by reflecting radio waves off a target and measuring the returned signal. This region (130–170 km) in the upper atmosphere is likely to create and maintain a specific set of plasma waves that act as a coherent structure for radar measurements. 

Y. Zhang, L. Paxton, C. Huang, and W. Wang, observe that the 135.6 nm radiances clearly showed a signature of ionospheric equatorial arcs and their variations during the November 2004 magnetic superstorm. When an intense eastward Interplanetary Electric Field (IEF) occurred, the dayside equatorial arcs were enhanced and their latitude separation increased.

Nicholas Dietrich,  Tomoko Matsuo, Chih-Ting Hsu for the first time, successfully estimate helium compositions with plasma observations, where helium has virtually no observations and becomes dominant at high altitudes. Their study further develops the potential use of a large and growing source of plasma data to predict the Earth orbital environment. 

A. Maute, A.D. Richmond, G. Lu, D. Knipp, Y. Shi, B. Anderson assert that the magnetosphere-ionosphere (MI) coupling is crucial in modeling the thermosphere-ionosphere (TI) response to geomagnetic activity. They introduce a new method  using observed FAC and solve for the interhemispherically asymmetric electric potential distribution.