A New Global Climatological Model of the Equatorial Ionospheric Vertical E × B Drift: Integrating Ground‐Based Magnetometer, Radar, and Satellite Data Sets

Abstract

We present a new empirical vertical E×B drift model developed using ground-based magnetometer, radar, and satellite data over equatorial latitude regions. We first implement an algorithm relating magnetometer derived equatorial electrojet (EEJ) and vertical ion plasma drift (equivalent to vertical E×B drift within magnetic latitudes of ±5° and altitudes of about 400–550 km) from the Communications and Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite at different longitude sectors. The relationship between EEJ and C/NOFS vertical E×B drift is developed separately at different longitudes over the globe at coincidental times when both data sets are available. These relationships are then used to estimate continuous vertical E×B drift at each epoch of EEJ observation over the respective longitude sectors during local daytime. The reconstructed vertical E×B drift data are combined with global C/NOFS vertical E×B drifts and JULIA data set to develop a global vertical E×B drift model. Validation using Ion Velocity Meter (IVM) drifts from ICON satellite for January to August 2022 shows that our model improves vertical E×B drift global modeling by over 20% compared to the current climatology representation.