Developing Functional Relationships Between Solar Wind/Interplanetary Magnetic Field Parameters and Local Plasma Velocity on a Global-Scale Grid

While past plasma convection research has focused on relating IMF parameters to electrostatic potential on a global scale, we center our attention on local plasma velocity over a global-scale grid. To perform this study, the Global-Local Divergence Free Fitting algorithm (Bristow et al. 2022) was applied to SuperDARN observations to create a database of convection patterns over the years 2013 to 2023. The convection velocity estimates were binned over a grid across all MLTs between 55° and 90° magnetic latitude. Grid cells were spaced to maintain an approximately constant cell size throughout the area of interest by having the longitude spacing vary with latitude and latitude spacing being consistently 1-degree. Scatterplots were created to examine the relationship between velocity and different IMF parameter functions. Correlation coefficients were calculated as a measure of the strength of the relationship between the functions and the plasma velocity at each grid cell. This study of functions on a smaller scale will allow for the accuracy of globally-determined patterns to be tested.