New Opportunities for Observing Dayside Transients from the Ground

Multi-spacecraft missions such as THEMIS and CLUSTER provide critical new opportunities for observing and diagnosing the response of the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system to solar wind transients. Similarly, a new suite of ground-based networks and instruments have been deployed in recent years that will also greatly improve our ability to measure these events from the ground. This report will present the first ground-based conjugate observations of dayside transients using both ground-based magnetometers and GPS TEC. We will show that for sufficiently strong events the precipitation associated with the transient field-aligned currents produces an observable signature in GPS TEC. Furthermore, given the existing and future number of GPS receivers located at high latitudes, this method of observation will likely be superior to what is possible with ground-based magnetometers alone.