On the convection of ionospheric density features

de Boer, John D.; Noël, Jean-Marc A.; St.-Maurice, Jean-Pierre

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-37-201-2019

Articles | Volume 37, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-37-201-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-37-201-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 37, issue 2

Regular paper

|

09 Apr 2019

Regular paper |

| 09 Apr 2019

On the convection of ionospheric density features

John D. de Boer, Jean-Marc A. Noël, and Jean-Pierre St.-Maurice

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Final revised paper (published on 09 Apr 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 13 Feb 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Is the model physically consistent?', Stephan C. Buchert, 31 Mar 2018
- AC1: 'Response to first referee's questions', John de Boer, 11 Apr 2018
RC2: 'Reviewer Comments on ANGEO-2018-13', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Sep 2018
- AC2: 'Response to second reviewer', John de Boer, 01 Oct 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (01 Nov 2018) by Dalia Buresova

AR by John de Boer on behalf of the Authors (08 Nov 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (24 Nov 2018) by Dalia Buresova

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (11 Dec 2018)

RR by Stephan C. Buchert (22 Dec 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors have added text in sections "4.1 Addressing some idealisations" and
"4.3 Search for observational support" and made further minor changes.
Disappointingly for me, none of the additions and modfication seem to address
the points that I had made in my first comment. In their reply the authors seem
to admit that there are limitations to their approach, particularly that
momentum is not conserved in their model, but then they provide at lengthy text
which I have a hard time to understand in parts. The manuscript would greatly benefit,
if limitations and assumptions were properly stated. These are:

1) Equations (3) and consequently (4) is only correct in the absence of any
ionization/recombination. In the Earth's E region, where the model is supposed
to be applicable, ionization and recombination are very significant terms on the
continuity equation. The assumption of no ionization/recombination is still
nowhere stated in the manuscript.

2) Momentum is not conserved by the model, because FACs are suppressed. The
statement "...there is no requirement for FACs to be occurring on the
boundaries of the very patch..." is not correct. The momentum balance could be
established by magnetic stress as the first equation of my comment shows for
the moving 1d interface. To get the magnetic field jump accross sharp
interfaces, local FACs are needed. FACs "occurring far outside the area of our
study" do not help for the local momentum balance.

I had not suggested that the model is reworked to fix these limitations, only
that they are properly exposed also to the reader.

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ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (04 Jan 2019) by Dalia Buresova

AR by John de Boer on behalf of the Authors (30 Jan 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (13 Feb 2019) by Dalia Buresova

RR by Stephan C. Buchert (11 Mar 2019)

ED: Publish as is (19 Mar 2019) by Dalia Buresova

AR by John de Boer on behalf of the Authors (25 Mar 2019)

Short summary

Modelling aurorae, we asked what boundary condition (BC) to use for the E field on the upper boundary. Typically a Dirichlet BC is used, since processes above the domain generate E. But then conductivity structures trigger FACs driven immediately by magnetospheric convection, even though it is a finite energy source, delayed by the Alfvén speed. If the BC is not ideal, then E x B drift in the ionosphere depends on the plasma's properties. So we investigated.