Engineering topics

Friis-Christensen, Eigil

Publications and source records attributed to Friis-Christensen, Eigil.

4 records

NASA NTRS2015

The Swarm Initial Field Model for the 2014 Geomagnetic Field

Data from the first year of ESA's Swarm constellation mission are used to derive the Swarm Initial Field Model (SIFM), a new model of the Earth's magnetic field and its time variation. In addition to the conventional magnetic field observations provided by each of the three Swarm satellites, explicit advantage is taken of the constellation aspect by including east-west magnetic intensity gradient information from the lower satellite pair. Along-track differences in magnetic intensity provide further information concerning the north-south gradient. The SIFM static field shows excellent agreement (up to at least degree 60) with recent field models derived from CHAMP data, providing an initial validation of the quality of the Swarm magnetic measurements. Use of gradient data improves the determination of both the static field and its secular variation, with the mean misfit for east-west intensity differences between the lower satellite pair being only 0.12 nT.

Olsen, Nils↗

NASA NTRS1990

Ground observations of magnetospheric boundary layer phenomena

Several classes of traveling vortices in the dayside ionosphere convection have been detected and tracked using the Greenland magnetometer chain (Friis-Christensen et al., 1988, McHenry et al., 1989). One class observed during quiet times consists of a continuous series of vortices moving generally antisunward for several hours at a time. The vortices' strength is seen to be approximately steady and neighboring vortices rotate in opposite directions. Sondrestrom radar observations show that the vortices are located at the ionospheric convection reversal boundary. Low altitude DMSP observations indicate the vortices are on field lines which map to the inner edge of the low latitude boundary layer. Because the vortices are conjugate to the boundary layer, repeat in a regular fashion and travel antisunward, it is argued that this class of vortices is caused by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability of the inner edge of the magnetospheric boundary layer.

Mchenry, Mark A.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Relationship of solar wind parameters to continuous, dayside, high latitude traveling ionospheric convection vortices

The results of a statistical study of the occurrence of steady traveling ionospheric convection vortices are presented. The upstream solar wind parameters observed by the IMP 8 spacecraft are studied as well. It is suggested that this class of pulsations is most likely to be detected post local noon and when the solar wind speed is low. A correlation between the frequency of dayside pulsations and the solar wind speed is found.

Mchenry, Mark A.↗

NASA NTRS1988

High-latitude dayside electric fields and currents during strong northward interplanetary magnetic field - Observations and model simulation

On July 23, 1983 the IMF turned strongly northward, becoming about 22 nT for several hours. Using a combined data set of ionospheric convection measurements made by the Sondre Stromfjord incoherent scatter radar and convection inferred from Greenland magnetometer measurements, the onset of the reconfiguration of the high-latitude ionospheric currents is found to occur about 3 min after the northward IMF encounters the magnetopause. The large-scale reconfiguration of currents, however, appears to evolve over a period of about 22 min. These observations and the results of numerical simulations indicate that the dayside polar-cap electric field observed during strong northward IMF is produced by a direct electrical current coupling with the solar wind.

Clauer, C. Robert↗