Vertical ExB drifts from radar and C/NOFS observations in the Indian and Indonesian sectors: Consistency of observations and model

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, we analyze vertical ExB drifts obtained from the Doppler shifts of the daytime 150 km radar echoes from two radar stations located off the magnetic equator, namely, Gadanki in India and Kototabang in Indonesia, and compare those with corresponding Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) observations onboard the C/NOFS satellite and the Scherliess‐Fejer model in an effort to understand to what extent the low‐latitude vertical ExB drifts of the 150 km region represent the F region vertical ExB drifts. The radar observations were made during 9–16 LT in January, June, July, and December 2009. A detailed comparison reveals that vertical ExB drifts observed by the radars at both locations agree well with those of CINDI and differ remarkably from those of the model. Importantly, the model and observed drifts show large disagreement when the observed drifts are either large or downward. Further, while the CINDI as well as the radar observations from the two longitudes are found to agree with each other on the average, they differ remarkably on several occasions when compared on a one‐to‐one basis. The observed difference in detail is due to measurements made in different volumes linked with latitudinal and/or longitudinal differences and underlines the role of neutral dynamics linked with tides and gravity waves in the two longitude sectors on the respective vertical ExB drifts. The results presented here are the first of their kind and are expected to have wider applications in furthering our understanding on fine‐scale longitudinal variabilities in the ionosphere in general and ionospheric electrodynamics in the Indian and Indonesian sectors in particular.