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On the source of the polar wind in the polar topside ionosphere: First results from the EISCAT Svalbard radar
National Institute of Polar Research, Tachikawa, Japan
EISCAT Scientific Association, Kiruna, Sweden
Swedish Institute of Space Phyics, Uppsala, Sweden
Arctic Geophyisic, UNIS, Longyearbyen, Norway
Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Department of Physics, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan
EISCAT Scientific Association, Longyearbyen, Norway
National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, Japan
Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
We present quantitative radar observations of both hydrogen ion (H+) and oxygen ion (O+) upflow in the topside polar ionosphere using measurements that were recently carried out with the EISCAT Svalbard Radar and the Reimei satellite. H+ upflow was clearly observed equatorward of the cusp above 500 km altitude. Within the cusp the H+ density was very low, and the upflow was dominated by O+ ions, but on closed field lines the H+ became the larger contributor to the upward flux above about 550 km. The total flux seemed to be conserved, and so below 550 km altitude O+ (with a small upward velocity of ∼50 m s−1) appeared to determine the upward flux which was then maintained by H+ in the topside ionosphere. We also found that the H+ density in the topside polar ionosphere was several times higher than current predictions of ionospheric models like IRI2001.
Received 24 October 2009; accepted 1 December 2009; published 30 December 2009.
Citation: (2009), On the source of the polar wind in the polar topside ionosphere: First results from the EISCAT Svalbard radar, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L24103, doi:10.1029/2009GL041501.
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