Extreme, transient bursts of energy in the auroral ionosphere. I. Predictive radar tracking
New radar tracking method reveals extreme ionospheric electric fields during auroral events.
Researchers have developed a novel radar tracking procedure to analyze transient bursts of energy in the Earth's ionosphere.
The method, applied to VHF measurements of Farley-Buneman waves, uses alpha-shapes and a Hungarian linear-assignment problem for frame-to-frame association, coupled with a Kalman filter for kinematic prediction.
During a G5 storm on May 10, 2024, the technique identified a five-second cluster moving at over 11,000 m/s, indicating an electric field strength of approximately 560 mV/m, significantly exceeding previously documented values in sub-auroral regions.
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