Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 4.4
Statistical averages of the thermospheric neutral wind velocity magnitude above 80
ı
magnetic latitude (
upper panel
) and its orientation (wind vector azimuth, counted from high
noon clockwise;
lower panel
) in dependence of the IMF orientation. The
horizontal dotted line
in the
lower panel
stands for purely anti-sunward wind direction. The abscissa specifies here, as in
Fig.
4.3
, the IMF orientation, sorted into eight separate sectors of 45
ı
width, i.e., Sector 0 stands for
purely northward-directed IMF, Sector 2 for B
y
C
, and Sector 4 is equivalent to southward-directed
IMF,andsoforth.
Dashed curves
indicate the variances. Northern (
black line
) and southern (
red
line
) neutral wind responses to the solar wind and IMF forcing show a different behavior (see also
tables 1 and 2 in F orster et al.
2008
)
