Turbulence effects in GEMINI: towards an aeronomical model of ionospheric flow channels at high latitudes

Mesoscale plasma flow channels (100km – 500km) arise in the high-latitude ionosphere under a variety of conditions. These flow channels have structural effects on the surrounding convecting plasma, as well as the dynamics of the coupled atmosphere-ionosphere-magneteosphere system which are not well understood. The coupling between electrodynamics and transport in flow channels is often modeled in a two-dimensional sense, with the collisional E-region treated as a passive medium for closure of magnetospheric currents. But a realistic model must consider the interplay between field-aligned currents, ion closure currents, ion and electron transport, dynamic ion composition changes, and optical excitations, calling for a hybrid modeling scheme that embodies both transport and kinetic effects of the channel. This paper presents results of an integration of the three-dimensional GEMINI transport model with the one-dimensional GLOW flux-tube model with the inclusion of turbulence effects due to the Farley-Buneman kinetic instability. The GEMINI model solves the electron and ion fluid equations in three dimensions, along with Maxwell’s equations to determining the resulting quasi-static electric field structure. The GLOW model solves the field-aligned two-stream Boltzmann electron transport equations, accounting for chemical processes and optical excitation within the ionosphere-thermosphere system, including superthermal electron effects. The coupled model remains an incomplete representation of the kinetic effects in the channel, only including abnormal electron heating and nonlinear currents, but begins to enable a more realistic representation of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling in mesoscale flow channels, including potential macro-scale effects of micro-scale processes.