Ionospheric variability in the auroral region: sources and impacts

The high latitude ionosphere is highly variable, being driven by multiple processes with their origins in space weather and the neutral atmosphere. The balance between these drivers is still not well understood, though it has been increasingly recognised that the influence of the neutral atmosphere can be significant.  In this study we use data from the EISCAT UHF incoherent scatter radar to examine the variability of several ionospheric parameters (e.g. density, temperature, and ion flow) and how they relate to space weather activity and potentially to processes originating in the lower atmosphere, including periods of Joule heating and the passage of Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (TID). We compare the distribution of the electron density taken from the UHF radar with that calculated from a run from the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) to identify times of similarity and deviation.