Estimation of ionospheric energy dissipation for the year 2012 using Østgaard’s empirical relation

Abstract

The energy dissipation in the ionosphere resulting from the geomagnetic activity have caused an increasing number of major disruptions of important power and communication services, malfunctions and loss of expensive equipment. In this paper, data for the electron precipitation energy(ep) and joule heating energy(jh) have been used in the computation of both mean daily and hourly ionospheric energy dissipation using Østgaard’s empirical relation. The computation has been done for the year 2012. Hourly provisional values of geomagnetic indices obtained at International Service for Geomagnetic Indices from World Data Centre for Geomagnetism, Kyoto, Japan were used in the computation. International Association for Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA)-2002 format was adopted in the analysis. Under the assumption that the magnetosphere does not store any energy, the beginning of the event is taken as t₁=0 and ending at t₂=24hours. This is the duration used for the estimation. The estimated amount of energy dissipated through the ionosphere within this interval was found to be1.414393E+07 ± 824,154.1GJ with 90% confidence level, which indicates that ionospheric energy dissipation is the dominant channel of energy transfer in that year from the solar wind. This is consistent with many results found by other researchers.

Keywords: Østgaard’s Empirical Relation, Ionospheric Energy Dissipation, Electron Precipitation, Joule Heating