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

Abstract

Abstract We present a new empirical vertical 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 drift within magnetic latitudes of 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 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 drift at each epoch of EEJ observation over the respective longitude sectors during local daytime. The reconstructed vertical drift data are combined with global C/NOFS vertical drifts and JULIA data set to develop a global vertical drift model. Validation using Ion Velocity Meter (IVM) drifts from ICON satellite for January to August 2022 shows that our model improves vertical drift global modeling by over 20% compared to the current climatology representation.