Abstract
Aurora, the spectacular phenomenon commonly occurring in high latitudes, is caused by the precipitation of energetic particles penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere. Being the result of solar-terrestrial interactions, electron precipitation significantly contributes to auroral production. To evaluate its magnitude, a physical quantity describing the characteristics of precipitating auroral electrons—their characteristic energy—is adopted. In this paper, this quantity is derived from joint data observed by the ground-based auroral spectroscopic imager located in Antarctica Zhongshan Station and the particle detectors “Special Sensor J5 (SSJ5)” on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites. A postprocessing scheme of ground-based spectral data is proposed to infer the characteristic energy that successively uses classical brute-force, recursive brute-force and self-consistent approximation strategies for step-up speed improvement. Then, the inferred characteristic energies are compared to the average energies calibrated from the relevant electron data detected by SSJ5 to confirm whether this inference is valid. Regarding DMSP F18/SSJ5, these two energy estimations about auroral electrons deviate slightly from each other and show a strong linear relationship. It sheds light on further applications of the valuable aurora spectral data.
Highlights
Solar activities interact with Earth’s atmospheric environment in multiple ways so that cause various natural phenomenon, change the climate, and affect electronic communications in our daily life
Being the manifestation of atmospheric optical emissions, aurora phenomenon is caused by the particle precipitation
The joint observed data by ground-based hyperspectral imaging and satellite-borne particle detection are used for estimating the characteristic energy of auroral electrons
Summary
Solar activities interact with Earth’s atmospheric environment in multiple ways so that cause various natural phenomenon, change the climate, and affect electronic communications in our daily life. Being an indirect indicator of the intensity of atmospheric precipitation and solar-terrestrial activities, the electron characteristic energy is investigated by drawing the help from both in situ and ground-based detections. The auroral electron energy is inferred from the ground-based aurora spectral data (ASD) (provided by the Meridian Space Weather Monitoring Project) generated by the ASG equipped in Chinese Zhongshan Station (located at 76.38◦E, 69.37◦S) (ZHS) [30,31]. They center on the conversion of true intensity rraattiioo ffrroomm ddiiggiittaall ccoouunnttss aafftteerr ccaalliibbrraattiinngg tthhee ssppeeccttrrooggrraapphh AASSGG,, aanndd ssuucccceessssiivvee ccoommppuuttaattiioonn ooff tthhee tthheeoorreettiiccaall rraattiioo bbyy ssuubbssttiittuuttiinngg ddiiffffeerreenntt ttrriiaall cchhaarraacctteerriissttiicc eenneerrggiieess iinnttoo aann eelleeccttrroonn ttrraannssppoorrtt mmooddeell uunnttiillbbootthhrraatitoiossaarereapappprorxoixmimataeteeneonuoguhg.hB.eBseidsiedse, sth, ethaedaodpotepdteadpparpopxriomxaimtioantisotnrasttergaytedgeytedremteinrmesinthees stehteosfettroiafltcrihaalrcahcaterraicstteicriestniecregnieesr,gsieosa, ffsoecatfsfethctesotvheeroavlletriamlletsimpeenstpfeonrtthfoerdtehreivdaetriiovna.tion. Being the important physical quantity for calculating the absolute intensity and relative intensity ratio, nu is simulated by using the electron transport model described in the subsection
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