The wigglyness of the large-scale ionospheric convection

The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) radars operated by the University of Saskatchewan can now capture ionospheric plasma velocities at a very high temporal resolution (on the order of seconds), without compromising their several million square kilometres fields of view. When data from the five USask SuperDARN Canada radars are combined, a 2D ionospheric flow field can be derived that spans much of northern Canada and the polar cap. This new data product, updating nominally at a 3.7s temporal resolution, is called the Fast Borealis Ionosphere (FBI).

In this study, we use FBI data to study ionospheric flow “wigglyness”; the rapid (second-scale) variability of the ionospheric convection across a large region of the ionosphere. The scale sizes considered capture meso- and global-scale ionospheric processes, but at a temporal resolution that is usually only visible with spacecraft at small scales. We show that there is a significant amount of temporal variability even at scale sizes typically considered large, which alludes to the ubiquitous influence of Alfvén waves in the magnetosphere-ionosphere system.