Research Highlights

M. Dikpati, P. A. Gilman, G. A. Guerrero, A. G. Kosovichev, S. W. McIntosh, K. R. Sreenivasan, J. Warnecke, T. V. Zaqarashvili show that Rossby waves in the supergranule layer can be excited by an inverse cascade of kinetic energy from the nearly horizontal motions in supergranules. They illustrate how this excitation occurs using a hydrodynamic shallow-water model for a 3D thin rotating spherical shell.

Jacob Harris, Mausumi Dikpati, Ian Hewins, Sarah E. Gibson, Scott W. McIntosh, Subhamoy Chatterjee, Thomas Kuchar use McIntosh Archive data and a newly developed two-step method of centroid calculation, to calculate the centroids of 31 unique, long-lived equatorial coronal holes for successive Carrington rotations during the entire solar cycle 23, and estimate their slopes (time versus longitude) as the coronal holes evolve.

N. Koushik, J. Oberheide, and N. M. Pedatella study the sources of diurnal variability of water vapor in the mesosphere with the help of the specified dynamics configuration of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with thermosphere-ionosphere eXtension (SD-WACCM-X) for typical equinox conditions during the solar minimum year 2009. Special emphasis is given to the advective transport by the migrating diurnal tide and its impact on the mean water vapor in the mesosphere.

Xuguang Cai, Liying Qian, Wenbin Wang, Joseph M. McInerney, Han-Li Liu, and Richard W. Eastes reveal that the Global-scale observation of limb and disk mission observed an extra electron density (Ne) peak after sunset at approximately 30°S near 40°W on 4 November 2019, which is poleward and immediately next to the southern equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) crest.

C. Y. Cullens, S. England, T. J. Immel, A. Maute, B. J. Harding, C. Triplett, J.J. Makela, et al. analyze the seasonal variations of small-scale perturbations between 90 km to 250 km using temperature and winds measurements made by the Michelson Interferometer for Global High-Resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI) instrument onboard the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite in the latitude range of 0°-40° N in the year of 2020-2021. 

S. L. England, C. R. Englert, B. J. Harding, C. C. Triplett, K. Marr, J.M. Harlander, G.R. Swenson, A. Maute, and T. Immel make observations from the  MIGHTI instrument on board the Ionospheric Connection Explorer are analyzed to determine the maximum wind shear in the 95-120 km region during the day time. The strong shear occurrence, horizontal scale and underlying organization is examined. 

McArthur Jones and Astrid Maute report the demographic information obtained for the 2021 virtual workshop and 2022 in-person workshop. In general, the demographics of CEDAR are consistent with those in the broader science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, that is, most participants identify as male, White, and/ or Asian/Middle Eastern. 

Y. Hong, Y. Deng, Q. Zhu, A. Maute, M. Hairston, C. Sheng, D. Welling, R. Lopez utilize field-aligned currents (FACs) obtained from the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment data set to specify the high-latitude electric potential in the Global Ionosphere and Thermosphere Model (GITM) to examine the IHAs in the IT system during the 8-9 October 2012 storm.

Nicholas Dietrich,  Tomoko Matsuo, Chih-Ting Hsu for the first time, successfully estimate helium compositions with plasma observations, where helium has virtually no observations and becomes dominant at high altitudes. Their study further develops the potential use of a large and growing source of plasma data to predict the Earth orbital environment.