Inverse procedure for high-latitude ionospheric electrodynamics: Analysis of satellite-borne magnetometer data

The Iridium magnetometer data are made available through the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE) program.

The method presented here is built upon the assimilative mapping of ionospheric electrodynamics procedure but with a more complete treatment of the prior model uncertainty to facilitate an optimal inference of complete polar maps of electrodynamic variables from irregularly distributed observational data. The procedure can provide an objective measure of uncertainty associated with the analysis. The cross-validation analysis, in which the DMSP data are used as independent validation data sets, suggests that the procedure yields the spatial prediction of DMSP perturbation magnetic fields from AMPERE data alone with a median discrepancy of 30-50 nT.