Ionospheric Response to the Extreme 2024 Mother's Day Geomagnetic Storm Over the Latin American Sector

Abstract

Geomagnetic storms affect Earth in various severe ways, including damaging satellites, disrupting power grids, and inducing prompt penetration electric fields (PPEF) through Joule heating in the auroral region. They also cause disturbance dynamo electric fields (DDEF), generate or suppress equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs), and lead to other significant effects. The extreme geomagnetic storm on 10 May 2024, altered the dynamics of the ionosphere. The ionospheric response was investigated in this study. Our methodology utilized a combined data set, including GNSS receivers in the Latin American sector, and data from ionosondes in São Luis (SALU) and Cachoeira Paulista (CHPI). CHPI also features a Fabry‐Pérot interferometer (FPI) and an All‐Sky Imager (ASI). Super EPB was observed in the American sector. This structure drifted westward at a velocity of ∼140 m/s and had a large latitudinal extension, reaching about 36° geomagnetic latitude, this corresponds to an apex height of around 4,500 km. The depletion lasted for a long duration of 12 hr, from 22:30 to 10:30 UT. The geomagnetic storm caused a super fountain effect, propelling plasma from the equator to a distance of ∼35° latitude, and depositing high‐density plasma on the crest of the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA).