Continuous Enhancements of Electron Temperature in the Subauroral Ionosphere Over Eight Days During the 2015 St. Patrick’s Day Storm

We have used measurements of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites to study variations of electron temperature in the subauroral ionosphere during the magnetic storm on 17–25 March 2015. This magnetic storm had a long recovery phase of 7 days, and the ionospheric behavior over the entire storm time was seldom investigated. In this study, we find that the electron temperature at subauroral latitudes was continuously enhanced for 8 days, from the storm onset to the end of the recovery phase. The maximum electron temperature during the storm times was 1000–4000 K higher than the maximum electron temperature during quiet times. This long-lasting enhancement of subauroral electron temperature was attributed to energy transfer among the solar wind, magnetosphere, ring current, plasmasphere, and ionosphere driven by high-speed solar wind streams and fluctuating interplanetary magnetic field during the entire 8-day period of the storm. The electron temperature enhancements were quite symmetric in the post-midnight sector but became strongly asymmetric near dawn between the southern and northern hemispheres. The asymmetric enhancements of electron temperature near dawn may be related to the magnetic declination and the daytime midlatitude trough in the southern hemisphere. Large daily variations of maximum electron temperature in the post-midnight sector were observed and may be related to the offset between geomagnetic and geographic latitudes. These DMSP observations provide new insight on ionospheric response to intense magnetic storms.