Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Physical Modeling of Neutral Winds in the Thermosphere: Initial Results

Mariangel Fedrizzi(1,2), Timothy J. Fuller-Rowell(1,2), Mihail Codrescu(2), Mark Conde(3), Kazuo Shiokawa(4)

(1)University of Colorado/CIRES, (2)NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center, (3)University of Alaska Fairbanks/Geophysical Institute, (4)Nagoya University/Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory

Thermospheric winds are one of the main sources of variability in the thermosphere-ionosphere (T-I) system. Neutral winds in the thermosphere have been studied extensively using ground-based, in situ and remote sensing satellite data, leading to a reasonably complete understanding of their climatology and to a development of detailed empirical and numerical general circulation models. The validation of the dynamics of the best available physics-based models, however, has been far from comprehensive. The challenge for the future is to quantitatively characterize the thermospheric dynamics and the global circulation. This step requires detailed analysis of observations on the dynamics itself and its impact on the T-I system, guided by numerical models. This work presents initial comparisons of thermospheric neutral winds obtained from a self-consistent physics-based coupled model of the thermosphere, ionosphere, plasmasphere and electrodynamics (CTIPe) with Fabry-Perot Interferometer observations. This study aims to quantitatively assess the capabilities and limitations of the model, and advance the understanding of the T-I system dynamics on different spatial and temporal scales.