Spatiotemporal Evolution and Drivers of the Four Ionospheric Storms over the American Sector during the August 2018 Geomagnetic Storm

Abstract

The spatiotemporal variations and mechanisms of the ionospheric storms over the American sector during the August 2018 geomagnetic storm are investigated. One positive and one negative ionospheric storm occurred in North America and two positive storms were observed in South America. The ionosphere showed prominent hemispheric asymmetries during the four storms. The maximum VTEC (vertical total electron content) variation was more than 15 TECU during the positive storms and about −10 during the negative storm. The GUVI (Global Ultraviolet Imager) oxygen (O) to nitrogen (N2) column density ratio (∑O/N2) and SuperDARN (Super Dual Auroral Radar Network) polar cap potential results showed that the electric field variations played a decisive role in generating the North American negative storm while the thermspheric composition changes were responsible for the North American positive storm and the two South America positive storms.

Keywords

• ionospheric storm
• neutral wind
• neutral composition
• electric field
• polar cap potential