In the topside ionosphere, the high mobility of the plasma along the magnetic field allows field-aligned ion drifts to occur readily as a result of field-aligned gravitational forces, collisional forces, or pressure gradients. Therefore, variations in the field-aligned ion drifts can be used to explore the influence of thermospheric, electrodynamic, and chemical processes on the ionosphere. Longitude and local time variations in the field-aligned ion drifts near the magnetic equator are presented using observations from the Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation on board the Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System satellite. These observations were obtained during the period of extremely low solar activity present in 2008 and 2009, allowing the seasonal, local time, and longitudinal variations to reveal the relative importance of the processes responsible for topside field-aligned plasma drifts during solar minimum. This investigation found that the low-altitude winds and tides, the net ionization or loss, and the meridional E x B drift were all influential in creating longitudinal and local time variations in the field-aligned drift, though the strength of the influence seen by each driver was found to vary with season, local time, and longitude.
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机译：在上部电离层,高流动性的等离子体在磁场允许field-aligned离子容易发生的field-aligned引力的结果,碰撞力,或压力梯度。因此,field-aligned离子的变化可以用来探索的影响thermospheric、电动和化学物质流程在电离层。时间变化field-aligned离子漂移提出了在磁赤道附近使用从耦合离子中性的观察动态的调查上通信/导航故障预测系统卫星。极低的太阳活动期间在2008年和2009年,允许季节性,当地时间和纵向变化揭示过程的相对重要性负责上部field-aligned等离子体漂浮在太阳。发现低空风和潮汐,净电离或损失,经向E x B漂移都是有影响力的创建纵向和当地时间的变化field-aligned漂移,虽然的强度影响被每个司机被发现有所不同当地时间与季节,和经度。
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