Equatorial Ionospheric Response to Penetrating Electric Field Simulation and Observations

Equatorial ionosphere can react to substorm events via direct penetrating electric field. In the past, the thermosphere and ionosphere model driven by the high empirical ion convection models lacked the dynamic high latitude input to properly simulate the penetrating electric field and equatorial response. The recently developed magnetospheric and ionospheric coupling model GTR (GAMERA-TIEGCM-RCM) aims to resolve the issue. GTR is part of the Multiscale Atmosphere-Geospace Environment (MAGE) modeling effort. We will simulate recent substorm events to examine the penetrating electric field effect. Additionally, we will use the observations from recent missions such as GOLD, COSMIC 2, and ICON to validate the simulation results. These three missions provide unprecedented coverage of the equatorial ionosphere including ion density profiles, UV images, ion drift, and neutral winds. The ion drift and neutral winds are particularly important for understanding the equatorial dynamo.