This is the first statistical study of the motion of patchy pulsating aurora (PPA). Our results show that PPA patches mainly drift eastward after midnight and westward before midnight, which suggests that the drifts of auroral patches could be a proxy for the ionospheric convection and provide a convenient and accurate method to remotely sense the magnetospheric convection. We also found that patch velocities do not seem to depend on AE index.

Rapid fluctuations in amplitude and phase of radio waves passing through the ionosphere degrade GPS positional accuracy and can lead to navigational errors, particularly during geomagnetic storms. As a function of magnetic latitude and local time, regions of GPS phase scintillation at high latitudes are identified in the context of coupling between the solar wind and the magnetosphere-ionosphere system, which primarily depends on the interplanetary magnetic field magnitude and orientation.

A series of interplanetary coronal mass ejections in the period 7–17 March 2012 caused geomagnetic storms that strongly affected the high-latitude ionosphere in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. Interhemispheric comparison of GPS phase scintillation reveals commonalities as well as asymmetries, as a consequence of the coupling between the solar wind and magnetosphere. The interhemispheric asymmetries are primarily caused by the dawn-dusk component of the interplanetary magnetic field.