Sensitivity of Ionospheric Simulations to Geometric Error

Ground based imagery of the aurora can be inverted into 2D energetics maps of precipitating electrons with results from an electron transport model, e.g. Global airgLOW (GLOW). Due to the altitudinal distribution of optical emissions from the aurora, there is a geometric error that occurs when images are mapped to geographic coordinates at a single altitude. This geometric error propagates to the inverted 2D maps of energy flux and average energy.

Precipitating electron maps have a variety of applications, but one application is the driving of physics based simulations, e.g. Geospace Environment Model of Ion-Neutral Interactions (GEMINI). The consequences of geometric error in the inverted energy maps on ionospheric parameters modeled in GEMINI remains an open question.

A rendering model that generates and inverts synthetic auroral imagery and compares it to user input has been used to give expectations of geometric error in a parameter space of different arc widths and locations. Results from the rendering model are used to drive GEMINI to show the effect of geometric error on simulated ionospheric parameters. A wide sample of GEMINI runs with different geometric errors and arc shapes will be shown in this poster.