- 1Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom (work@johncoxon.co.uk)
- 2Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 3Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA
- 4NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
We employ ground magnetometers in North America, Greenland, and Antarctica and use the Spherical Elementary Current (SEC) technique in order to investigate the Birkeland currents (also known as field-aligned currents) flowing between January 2015 and December 2016. We convert the measurements into altitude-adjusted corrected geomagnetic (AACGM) coordinates, and then average across each day for which we have data to obtain global maps in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres for the period in question. We examine the systematic asymmetry in the data by focusing on the relationship between the two hemispheres at equinox, and we find that the observed currents are stronger in the Northern Hemisphere, consistent with observations made by AMPERE, Swarm and DMSP.
How to cite: Coxon, J., Weygand, J., and Oliveira, D.: Hemispheric asymmetries in Birkeland currents observed from the ground, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18873, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18873, 2025.
