First steps toward a new class of statistical convection models

The pioneering work of Gary Abel, Mervyn Freeman [2002, 2006], and Murray Parkinson [2006] have examined the complex nature of convection observed by SuperDARN. They have shown that the convection velocity is highly variable in both time and space, with spatial and temporal correlations without characteristic scales. Current statistical convection models do not account for any variability beyond that of the IMF time series with which they are driven. They do, however, produce a pattern of convection that seem to represent the average of the observations. This work presents the initial steps toward developing a new convection model that will account for the variable nature of velocity, while retaining the average behavior of current models. The presentation examines the statistics of the velocity fluctuations and random number generators that have the same distributions. The next steps are to to enforce some temporal and spatial correlations that will generate the convection patterns observed on average. Abel, G. A., M. P. Freeman, (2002) A statistical analysis of ionospheric velocity and magnetic field power spectra at the time of pulsed ionospheric flows. J. Geophys. Res. 107, 1470, doi:10/1029/2002JA009402 Abel, G. A., M. P. Freeman, and G. Chisham (2006) Spatial structure of ionospheric convection velocities in regions of open and closed magnetic field topology. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, doi 10.1029/2006GL027919 Parkinson, M. L., (2006) Dynamical critical scaling of electric field fluctuations in the greater cusp and magnetotail implied by HF radar observations of F-region Doppler velocity. Ann. Geophys., 24, 689-705