Role of Electric Field Generated in the Equatorial Electrojet Region

Abstract

Adopting an atmospheric model for the sunspot maximum day, the height variation of various ionospheric conductivities have been computed. The electric currents are calculated from yearly averaged magnetic data for the sunspot maximum period in 1958. Using the height integrated Cowling conductivity, electric fields for five selected equatorial and nonequatorial stations have been obtained from the calculated electric currents. The electric currents and electric fields thus obtained have been compared with the electric field derived from the rocket measured electrojet current density. It is shown that such comparisons give good overall agreement of the results obtained from magnetic data and the rocket measurements.The electron temparature is calculated from Joule heating considerations.The resulting electron temparature has been found to be smaller than the rocket measured values, The vertical electron drift velocity produced by the electric field in the electrojet region has been calculated and is found to be higher than the earlier calculation of Hirono and Kitamura (1956) and compares well with the drift velocity values obtained from continuity equation.