Auroral electrodynamics along DMSP satellite tracks

The Special Sensor Ultraviolet Spectrographic Imagers (SSUSI) on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites provide scans of auroral UV emissions and derived ionospheric conductances in strips along the satellite orbits. These conductance maps can be used to combine convection measurements from DMSP and other satellites, and from ground radars, with measurements of the magnetic field from ground and space, through the ionospheric Ohm's law. We use a newly developed technique, Local mapping of polar ionospheric electrodynamics (Lompe), to calculate maps of ionospheric electrodynamics on a grid that moves with the DMSP satellites. The Lompe technique is conceptually similar to the Assimilative Mapping for Ionospheric Electrodynamics (AMIE) technique, but uses spherical elementary current systems as basis functions instead of spherical cap harmonics. This makes the technique flexible with respect to spatial resolution and region of interest. We use the DMSP-derived maps to investigate how ionospheric magnetic flux transport and electric currents are organized with respect to auroral structures, and how this changes depending on the background conductance