A study on the nighttime midlatitude ionospheric trough

Abstract

[1] Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) electron density profiles are used to investigate the nighttime midlatitude ionospheric trough (MIT). We find that at midnight the longitudinally deepest MIT occurs to the west of the geomagnetic pole in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres during the equinox seasons and local summer. The deepest MIT could be ascribable to the enhanced depletion caused by horizontal neutral wind. In the early evening, the eastward neutral wind prevails in the midlatitude F region, which blows the plasma downward where the declination is eastward in the Northern Hemisphere but westward in the Southern Hemisphere, both lying to the west of the geomagnetic pole. The downward drift would enhance the plasma depletion for more molecular composition at lower altitude. In addition, we find for the first time that the location of nighttime MIT minimum oscillated with a periodicity of 9 days and an amplitude of about 1°–1.5° geomagnetic latitude during 2007–2008, associated with the recurrent high-speed solar wind. Our results shed new light on the empirical description and numerical simulation of MIT.