SA23E-04
2013 March 17 Storm: Synergy of Observations Related to Mid-Latitude Electric Field Drivers and their Ionospheric and Magnetospheric Effects

Tuesday, 15 December 2015: 14:25
2016 (Moscone West)
Larry R Lyons1, Toshi Nishimura2, Bea Gallardo-Lacourt2, Shasha Zou3, Matina Gkioulidou4, Eric Donovan5, J. Michael Ruohoniemi6 and Nozomu Nishitani7, (1)UCLA, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (2)University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (3)University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, (4)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Laurel, MD, United States, (5)University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, (6)Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, United States, (7)Nagoya University, Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, Nagoya, Japan
Abstract:
The 2013 March 17 storm has excellent coverage from ground-based all-sky imagers and radars and the Van Allen Probes, as well as from the usual ground-based instruments and low-altitude spacecraft. The storm shock impacted the magnetosphere during a period when the auroral oval was extremely thin, with some weak activity and weak duskside convection that penetrated to mid-latitudes. This impact drove activity almost immediately: dramatic poleward expansion of the poleward boundary of the auroral oval, strong auroral activity, and strong penetrating mid-latitude convection and ionospheric currents.

During the expansion phase, the auroral oval expanded gradually equatorward in association with mid-latitude electric fields. These electric fields were at first relatively smooth as is often employed in storm modeling, but then became extremely bursty and were associated with equatorward extending auroral streamers. These two different modes of mid-latitude electric fields during the expansion phase should give substantial, but different storm-time effects within the ionosphere and ring current/radiation belts. We see evidence for this in total electron content and particle injections into the storm-time ring current, but much more should become apparent as additional ionospheric and magnetospheric datasets are synergistically brought into the study of this event, as well as of other events.

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