An opposite response of the low-latitude ionosphere at Asian and American sectors during storm recovery phase: drivers from below and above

The energy input from the solar wind and magnetosphere is thought to dominate the ionospheric response during geomagnetic storms. However, at the storm recovery phase, the role of forces from lower atmosphere could be as important as that from above. In this study, we focused on the geomagnetic storm happened on 6–11 September 2017. The ground-based total electron content (TEC) data as well as the F region in situ electron density measured by the Swarm satellites reveals that at low and equatorial latitudes the dayside ionosphere shows as prominent positive and negative responses at the Asian and American longitudinal sectors, respectively. The global distribution of thermospheric O/N2 ratio measured by global ultraviolet imager on board the TIMED satellite cannot well explain such longitudinally opposite response of the ionosphere. Comparison between the equatorial electrojet variations from stations at Huancayo in Peru and Davao in the Philippines suggests that the longitudinally opposite ionospheric response should be closely associated with the interplay of E region electrodynamics. By further applying nonmigrating tidal analysis to the ground‐based TEC data, we find that the diurnal tidal components, D0 and DW2, as well as the semidiurnal component SW1, are clearly enhanced over prestorm days and persist into the early recovery phase, indicating the possibility of lower atmospheric forcing contributing to the longitudinally opposite response of the ionosphere on 9–11 September 2017.