Abstract. Two long runs of EISCAT Svalbard Radar (ESR), in February 2001 and October 2002, have been analysed with respect to variability in the F2 region peak density and altitude. The diurnal variation in the F2 peak density exhibits one maximum around 12:00 MLT and another around 23:00 MLT, consistent with solar wind controlled transport of EUV ionized plasma across the polar cap from day to night. High density plasma patch material is drawn in through the cusp inflow region independent of IMF B Y . There is no apparent IMF B Y asymmetry on the intake of high density plasma, but the trajectory of its motion is strongly B Y dependent. Comparison with the international reference ionosphere model (IRI2001) clearly demonstrates that the model does not take account of the cross-polar transport of F2-region plasma, and hence has limited applicability in polar cap regions.

[1] A number of poleward moving events were observed between 1130 and 1300 UT on 11 February 2004, during periods of southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), while the steerable antenna of the European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) Svalbard radar (ESR) and the Tromsø VHF radar pointed nearly northward at low elevation. In this interval, simultaneous SuperDARN CUTLASS Finland radar measurements showed poleward moving radar aurora forms (PMRAFs) which appeared very similar to the density enhancements observed by the ESR northward pointing antenna. These events appeared quasiperiodically with a period of about 10 min. Comparing the observations from the above three radars, it is inferred that there is an almost one-to-one correspondence between the poleward moving plasma concentration enhancements (PMPCEs) observed by the ESR and the VHF radar and the PMRAFs measured by the CUTLASS Finland radar. These observations are consistent with the interpretation that the polar cap patch material was generated by photoionization at subauroral latitudes and that the plasma was structured by bursts of magnetopause reconnection giving access to the polar cap. There is clear evidence that plasma structuring into patches was dependent on the variability in IMF |B y |. The duration of these events implies that the average evolution time of the newly opened flux tubes from the subauroral region to the polar cap was about 33 min.

While polar cap ionospheric patches have been studied for over two decades, there remains no general agreement to which of many proposed patch‐production mechanisms are important or dominate. An experiment was designed and implemented to search for transient events redirecting subauroral ionospheric plasma from its subauroral flow to transient injection into the polar cap, as would occur for the (Lockwood and Carlson, 1992) mechanism of patch creation. An earlier experiment provided compelling evidence of this mechanism acting within the cusp, with strong but indirect evidence regarding the source‐reservoir for the plasma injected into the polar cap. The work here, for the first time, directly tracks plasma becoming a “patch”, continuously from subauroral latitudes before the event fires, through the cusp and into the polar cap. We conclude this mechanism is a dominant patch generation mechanism and highlight that poleward‐moving‐form research has direct application to polar cap patch generation by magnetopause reconnection.

Tracking the formation and full evolution of polar cap ionization patches in the polar ionosphere, we directly observe the full Dungey convection cycle for southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) conditions. This enables us to study how the Dungey cycle influences the patches' evolution. The patches were initially segmented from the dayside storm enhanced density plume at the equatorward edge of the cusp, by the expansion and contraction of the polar cap boundary due to pulsed dayside magnetopause reconnection, as indicated by in situ Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) observations. Convection led to the patches entering the polar cap and being transported antisunward, while being continuously monitored by the globally distributed arrays of GPS receivers and Super Dual Auroral Radar Network radars. Changes in convection over time resulted in the patches following a range of trajectories, each of which differed somewhat from the classical twin‐cell convection streamlines. Pulsed nightside reconnection, occurring as part of the magnetospheric substorm cycle, modulated the exit of the patches from the polar cap, as confirmed by coordinated observations of the magnetometer at Tromsø and European Incoherent Scatter Tromsø UHF radar. After exiting the polar cap, the patches broke up into a number of plasma blobs and returned sunward in the auroral return flow of the dawn and/or dusk convection cell. The full circulation time was about 3 h.

[1] Two types of poleward moving plasma concentration enhancements (PMPCEs) were observed during a sequence of pulsed reconnection events, both in the morning convection cell: Type L (low density) was associated with a cusp flow channel and seems likely to have been produced by ionization associated with particle precipitation, while Type H (high density) appeared to originate from the segmentation of the tongue of ionization by the processes which produced the Type L events. As a result, the Type L and Type H PMPCEs were interspersed, producing a complex density structure which underlines the importance of cusp flow channels as a mechanism for segmenting and structuring electron density in the cusp and shows the necessity of differentiating between at least two classes of electron density patches. Citation: Zhang, Q