What Happens in the Thermosphere if the Stratosphere is Strongly Disturbed?

We investigate the possible stratosphere-thermosphere coupling at high latitudes, where the cusp of the Earth's magnetic fields lie, using Sondrestrom Winter Ionosphere Model (SWIM) and Sondrestrom ISR data from the last 15 winters (2001-2016). This position is of particular interest because of the ionosphere's strong dependency on solar and geomagnetic activity, as well as its proximity to the stratospheric polar vortex. After using the model to remove daily variations, seasonal variations, and variations due to solar flux and geomagnetic activity, anomalies in the data were compared to anomalies in stratospheric winds and temperatures. Our results so far show a possible dependency between ion temperature and stratospheric winds, with higher correlations found every six hours. This dependency is intensified during years of Sudden Stratospheric Warnings (SSWs), where sudden changes in the winter hemisphere westerly winds can result in an increase in stratospheric temperatures and sometimes even reversal of the polar vortex. Studying the connection between these anomalies can help us link stratospheric events to ionospheric disturbances, and therefore help us predict the state of the ionosphere using meteorological events, which we currently know up to several days in advance.