Hemispheric asymmetries in the location and intensity of the auroral ovals and their association with ionospheric convection and IMF

As the orbit of the Polar spacecraft has precessed over time, the VIS Earth camera has been able to capture simultaneous images of the aurora in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The angular resolution of these images is sufficient to be able to determine the accurate location and intensity of the two ovals. Preliminary studies have revealed that while the auroras seem to be mirror images of one another on a broad scale, there are a number of fine scale features which are not conjugate in both hemispheres. The mapping of the auroras has revealed that there are longitudinal differences in the onset locations. In this paper, we use the radars of the northern and southern SuperDARN network to investigate whether the convection patterns match the longitudinal differences in the onset locations of the auroral features in the two hemispheres. Differences in the auroral intensity detected in the two hemispheres were found and we determined their association with the electric field strength and convection speeds. The IMF data were studied to determine if these hemispheric asymmetries were due to variations in the IMF direction.