F-region Neutral Wind Response to the Multi-scale Geomagnetic Forcing During the March 27th, 2014 Substorm Event

Techniques developed in the past few years enable the derivation of multi-scale regional ion convection and particle precipitation patterns from the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) and Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) All-Sky Imager (ASI) observations, respectively. Our previous simulations driven by these multi-scale geomagnetic forcing suggest that both meso-scale ion convection and particle precipitation can intensify ionospheric and thermospheric disturbances with prominent structures and notable magnitudes. In this study, the global ionosphere–thermosphere model (GITM) is utilized to simulate the March 27^th, 2014 substorm event, and simulated F-region neutral winds have been compared with scanning Doppler imagers (SDI) wind measurements at Toolik Lake (68.6°N, 149.6°W). Neutral wind variations have been further separated into large (>500 km) and meso (<500) scales. The correlation between meso-scale ion-convection and neutral wind in a localized region has been qualified through the vortices and the speed. The meso-scale neutral wind response and ramp-up time show a strong dependence on the geomagnetic conditions.