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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Index Terms

  • Ionosphere: Equatorial ionosphere
  • Ionosphere: Ionospheric dynamics
  • Ionosphere: Ionospheric irregularities
  • Ionosphere: Instruments and techniques

Abstract

Coincident equatorial bubble detection by TIMED/GUVI and ROCSAT-1

Hyosub Kil

Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, USA

S.-Y. Su

Institute of Space Science, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan

Larry J. Paxton

Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, USA

Brian C. Wolven

Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, USA

Yongliang Zhang

Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, USA

Daniel Morrison

Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, USA

H. C. Yeh

Institute of Space Science, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan

The GUVI on board the NASA's TIMED satellite provides a new capability for monitoring equatorial electron density irregularities. The nighttime GUVI disk scan images of OI 135.6-nm show numerous emission-depleted dark features in the equatorial region. The dark features show typical equatorial bubble characteristics - elongation in the north-south direction, westward tilt, and season-longitudinal variations in their distribution. Coincident in-situ observations by ROCSAT-1 satellite identify plasma depletions co-located with the emission depletions. The individual bubble images are hardly distinguishable in the equatorial region owing to an occurrence of multiple bubbles and owing to the low background radiance at the ionization trough. Occasionally, a reversed “C”-shaped bubble images appear on the GUVI swath of a single orbit. Those global bubble images corroborate the occurrence of plasma depletion in the whole magnetic flux tube and the presence of vertical shear of zonal bulk plasma flow in the topside ionosphere.

Received 23 September 2003; accepted 8 January 2003; published 12 February 2004.

Citation: Kil, H., S.-Y. Su, L. J. Paxton, B. C. Wolven, Y. Zhang, D. Morrison, and H. C. Yeh (2004), Coincident equatorial bubble detection by TIMED/GUVI and ROCSAT-1, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L03809, doi:10.1029/2003GL018696.

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