Correlation of LBH intensities with precipitating particle energies

Abstract

Precipitating particle data from the DMSP F12 and F13 satellites has been merged with image data from the Ultraviolet Imager (UVI) on the Polar satellite. UVI images were combined within single transpolar passes of the DMSP F12 and F13 satellites. Pixel irradiances were then averaged into 1° × 1° bins along the satellite tracks, thus generating along‐track irradiance profiles. Similarly, energy fluxes of precipitating electrons were averaged into 1° bins along the trajectory. The peaks in each set of profiles were isolated in order to compare photon irradiance with electron energy flux. The irradiance and energy flux data of hundreds of peaks were linearly correlated for January–February 1997 when the northern polar regions were in darkness and dayglow effects were minimal. In the pre‐midnight and dawn sectors, good correlations (r > 0.7) arise between the photon irradiance and electron energy fluxes, while correlations for other sectors are not as good. The good correlation suggests that UVI fluxes can be directly calibrated to measure energy input without the additional complication of modeling, at least for some MLT sectors. Using this calibration, global maps of energy input into the aurora may be derived empirically.