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Space and planetary sciences
Equatorial plasma bubble seeding by MSTIDs in the ionosphere
Takahashi H, Wrasse C M, Figueiredo CAOB, Barros D, Abdu M A, Otsuka Y, Shiokawa K
Equatorial plasma bubbles, MSTID, Gravity waves
Plasma bubbles observed by Total Electron Content map over South America on the night of March 8-9, 2015. The black line indicates the geomagnetic equator.
Occurrences of equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) and medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) were studied using GPS satellite data-based total electron content mapping, ionograms, and 630 nm all-sky airglow images observed over the South American continent during the period of 2014–2015. In many cases, we observed a close relationship between the inter-bubble distance and the horizontal wavelength of the MSTIDs. The MSTIDs followed by EPBs occurred primarily in the afternoon to evening period under strong tropospheric convective activities (cold fronts and/or intertropical convergence zones). The close relationship between EPBs and MSTIDs suggests that MSTIDs could be one of the seeding sources of EPBs.
