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Quantification of high latitude electric field variability
Author(s) -
Crowley Geoff,
Hackert Chris L.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2000gl012624
Subject(s) - electric field , joule heating , ionosphere , magnitude (astronomy) , latitude , field (mathematics) , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , atmospheric electricity , geophysics , meteorology , climatology , physics , geology , geodesy , astrophysics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics
Variability in the high latitude electric field has been identified as a major contributor to global Joule heating. Electric field patterns from the Assimilative Mapping of Ionospheric Electrodynamics (AMIE) procedure are used to characterize the E‐field temporal variability over the course of 18 hours. The standard deviation of the E‐field magnitude on May 4, 1998 often exceeds the average value of the E‐field magnitude. A significant fraction of this variability arises from oscillations with period less than one hour. This confirms that Joule heating calculations based on time‐averaged E‐fields may significantly under‐predict the heating.