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Problems With Deducing Ionospheric Plasma Convection Patterns, Jan Josef Sojka, Robert W. Schunk

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It is well-known that convection electric fields have an important effect on the ionosphere-thermosphere system at high latitudes and that a quantitative understanding of their effect requires a knowledge of the plasma convection pattern. Consequently, convection electric fields have been measured by a variety of techniques, including satellite, rocket, and balloon-borne probes, optical tracking of ionized barium clouds, incoherent scatter observations of drifting F region plasma, and coherent scatter observations of drifting E region irregularities. Since all of these measurement techniques provide information on only a limited spatial region at any time, the construction of the overall convection pattern requires …