Applying Solar Wind Observations to the IPIM Ionospheric Model

The IRAP Plasmasphere Ionosphere Model (IPIM) is an ionospheric model which describes the transport equations of ionospheric plasma species along magnetic closed field lines. The previous iteration of IPIM used some basic models to provide estimations of the solar wind conditions and associated motions of plasma and precipitation within the ionosphere as input. In this presentation, we discuss developments to IPIM as part of the EUHFORIA project, to consistently observe space weather conditions from the Sun to the Earth’s surface. The developments of the model include using in-situ solar wind observations from the OMNI data set, ionospheric radar data of plasma motions from the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN), and the Ovation model of auroral precipitation, as inputs to the model. We compare the new version with the former version and ionospheric observations to explore the differences observed by including these data within the model. We present some new results using this new version of the model to explore the ionosphere’s response to solar wind transient events such as high-speed streams and coronal mass ejections.