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Simple scaling analysis of terms in the Navier‐Stokes momentum equation for Earth's atmosphere suggests that winds at heights above 120 km should be smooth and laminar, with little spatial variation over horizontal scale lengths smaller than several hundred kilometers. However, there is increasing evidence that this traditional understanding may fail to account for several important processes, including both waves and small‐scale ion‐neutral momentum coupling. Here, we examine the thermospheric neutral wind field over Alaska in unprecedented detail using observations from an array of four ground‐based all‐sky imaging Fabry‐Perot interferometers, processed using a new geophysical inverse algorithm, to derive high‐resolution maps of all three wind components, with a temporal cadence of 30 seconds. The reconstructed high‐resolution neutral winds showed synoptic‐scale agreement with prior observations and previously validated techniques, with all results exhibiting behavior in agreement with basic physics. However, stacked time‐series plots of vector wind components reveal significantly more spatial and temporal structure than previously reported. In particular, the observed responses included complex wave‐like behavior and highly geographically variable vertical winds. Local flow features were observed at spatial scales as small as 100 km at times, with temporal scales as short as a few tens of minutes. Instances of close spatial and temporal correlations were observed between the wind fields reconstructed from green‐line spectra and ionospheric flows observed independently by SuperDARN.

Two‐dimensional thermospheric wind fields, at bothEandFregion altitudes within a common vertical volume, were made using a Scanning Doppler Imager (SDI) at Poker Flat, Alaska, during a substorm event. Coinciding with these observations wereFregion plasma velocity measurements from the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) and estimations of the total downward and upward field‐aligned current density from the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE). This combination of instruments gives an excellent opportunity to examine the spatial characteristics of high‐latitude ionosphere‐thermosphere coupling and how a process which is triggered in the magnetosphere (the substorm) affects that coupling at different altitudes. We find that during the substorm growth phase, theFregion thermospheric winds respond readily to an expanding ionospheric plasma convection pattern, while theEregion winds appear to take a much longer period of time. The differing response timescales of theEandFregion winds are likely due to differences in neutral density at those altitudes, resulting inEregion neutrals being much more “sluggish” with regard to ion drag. We also observe increases in theFregion neutral temperature, associated with neutral winds accelerating during both substorm growth and recovery phases.

Frictional heating, frequently termed Joule heating, results from the difference in ion and neutral flows in the Earth's upper atmosphere and is a major energy sink for the coupled magnetosphere‐ionosphere‐thermosphere system. During disturbed geomagnetic conditions, energy input from the Earth's magnetosphere can strongly enhance ion velocities and densities, which will generally increase the rate of Joule heating. Previous theoretical and experimental studies have shown that small‐scale variations in Joule heating can be quite significant in the overall energy budget. In this study, we employ high‐resolution fitting of ion velocities obtained by Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) coherent scatter, along with spatially resolved neutral wind data from the Poker Flat Scanning Doppler Imager, to examine the spatial and temporal structure ofFregion ion temperature enhancements, as well as changes in Joule heating rates due to the neutral wind. These results are compared to those obtained using Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar in order to assess the validity of this analysis, with the objective of developing a method that can be applied to any current or future neutral measurements worldwide, thanks to the global coverage of SuperDARN. We examine the agreement between the ion temperatures predicted using the Scanning Doppler Imager‐SuperDARN method and the temperatures measured directly by Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar and discuss possible reasons for any discrepancies. We observe significant spatial structure in both the ion temperature and Joule heating rates during periods of magnetic activity.

The extreme substorm event on 5 April 2010 (THEMIS AL = −2,700 nT, called supersubstorm) was investigated to examine its driving processes, the aurora current system responsible for the supersubstorm, and the magnetosphere‐ionosphere‐thermosphere (M‐I‐T) responses. An interplanetary shock created shock aurora, but the shock was not a direct driver of the supersubstorm onset. Instead, the shock with a large southward IMF strengthened the growth phase with substantially larger ionosphere currents, more rapid equatorward motion of the auroral oval, larger ionosphere conductance, and more elevated magnetotail pressure than those for the growth phase of classical substorms. The auroral brightening at the supersubstorm onset was small, but the expansion phase had multistep enhancements of unusually large auroral brightenings and electrojets. The largest activity was an extremely large poleward boundary intensification (PBI) and subsequent auroral streamer, which started ~20 min after the substorm auroral onset during a steady southward IMFB_zand elevated dynamic pressure. Those were associated with a substorm current wedge (SCW), plasma sheet flow, relativistic particle injection and precipitation down to the D‐region, total electron content (TEC), conductance, and neutral wind in the thermosphere, all of which were unusually large compared to classical substorms. The SCW did not extend over the entire nightside auroral activity but was localized azimuthally to a few 100 km in the ionosphere around the PBI and streamer. These results reveal the importance of localized magnetotail reconnection for releasing large energy accumulation that can affect geosynchronous satellites and produce the extreme M‐I‐T responses.