Dayside midlatitude ionospheric response to storm time electric fields: A case study for 7 September 2002

With the storm of 7–8 September 2002 as a study case, we demonstrate that an ionospheric model driven by a suitable storm time convection electric field can reproduce the F region dayside density enhancements associated with the ionospheric storm positive phase. The ionospheric model in this case is the Utah State University Time Dependent Ionospheric Model (TDIM); the electric field model is the University of Michigan's Hot Electron and Ion Drift Integrator (HEIDI). Extensive ground truth is available throughout the study period from two independent sources: ground‐based vertical TEC and ionosonde stations; our simulation results are in good agreement with these observations. We address the question of what is the source of the high‐density plasma that is seen during the positive storm phase and show that in this case a magnetospheric electric field with an eastward component that penetrates to midlatitudes increases local production on the dayside to a degree that is sufficient to account for the storm time density increases that have been observed.