Motion of high‐latitude nighttime medium‐scale traveling ionospheric disturbances associated with auroral brightening

Abstract

We report for the first time the rapid oscillating motion of nighttime medium‐scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) based on airglow imaging observations at Tromsø (magnetic latitude: 67.1°N), Norway on 8 December, 2009. The MSTIDs appeared in 630‐nm airglow images at 1530 UT as wave‐like structures south of Tromsø with a horizontal wavelength of ∼200 km and a phase surface of north to south. They moved eastward with velocities of 30–60 m/s. The velocity was faster in the poleward‐side of the MSTIDs, forming a northeast–southwest phase surface at later times. This phase surface direction is opposite to that of midlatitude MSTIDs. The MSTIDs show sudden oscillations and phase jump in the east–west direction with a timescale of ∼10 min at 1730 UT. The oscillations were associated with an auroral brightening observed at the poleward edge of the images and small magnetic field perturbations observed by ground magnetometers. The Doppler measurement of the 630‐nm airglow by a Fabry‐Perot interferometer at Tromsø showed a stable southeastward thermospheric wind with a velocity of ∼150 m/s. These observations indicate that the MSTID oscillations were linked to auroral electric field in the ionosphere, implying that the observed MSTIDs are ionospheric plasma structures. We suggest that the observed MSTIDs were created by atmospheric gravity waves at the beginning, left as fossil plasma structures even after the gravity wave packet dissipated in the thermosphere, moved eastward according to the background electric field driven by the F‐region dynamo, and oscillated associated with the auroral electric field.